Dorothy Brush "Random Thoughts" Published Oct. 2, 2002

Head on over to Byrdstown

This Saturday, Oct. 5, would be a great day to head to Byrdstown, just 38 miles north of Cookeville. It was there in scenic Pickett County that one of America's most distinguished statesmen, Cordell Hull, was born and spent his boyhood days. It was through the efforts of a volunteer group called The Friends of Cordell Hull that he is memorialized at the Cordell Hull Birthplace Museum State Park. On Saturday this same group is holding an open house and picnic at the park from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. where there will be food, music and museum tours.

Visitors may walk through the cabin where his life began. Humble though his beginnings, it prepared him for serving first his state, then the nation and finally the world. Next door is the museum, which holds his medals, photographs, books and personal memorabilia attesting to the important role he played on the world stage.

Hull served as Secretary of State under FDR from 1933-'44. Early in that period he authored the "Good Neighbor Policy," which strengthened friendship among American nations. At his post during the World War II years, he lived daily with the horrors of war and he had a vision of peaceful world. He played a major role in establishing the United Nations. For his efforts he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945 as the "Father of the United Nations." That medal is on display at the museum.

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Remember that catchy tune "Love and Marriage"? It went, "Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage. .... You can't have one without the other."

I thought about those words when I read a letter to one of those columns that answers questions about Hollywood stars. The columnist had listed a number of Tinsel Town's couples who had stayed married for many years. The letter writer chided him for not including Ann-Margret and Roger Smith's 35-year-old marriage. The response included these words: "Ann-Margret, the only child of Swedish parents, was raised to believe in the European concept that marriage is for life."

Pardon me, but my parents were American and that was the way they raised their two daughters. My sister was widowed this year after 50 years of marriage and mine has endured for 60 years. Even though Sister's two children and my four were raised with the same belief, all of their first marriages did not last. All, except one who has not remarried, have good second marriages. That seems to be the present accepted American concept of marriage. But even more disturbing is that the idea of "love and marriage, you can't have one without the other" has been thrown away. Today you can.

Just as acceptable is to have a baby without marriage.

On the other hand are the number of married couples desperate for a baby but unsuccessful in conceiving. I read a small item recently that brought a smile. At New York's Columbia University a team was doing a study on the success of in-vitro fertilization. They were confounded to find that of 169 women undergoing in-vitro at a hospital in South Korea, prayer had contributed to success in conception.

For those who had been prayed for, the pregnancy rate was 50 percent as compared to only 26 percent for those women no one prayed for. Even more astonishing was that the prayers came from people in the U.S., Canada and Australia and neither the women nor their doctors knew anyone was praying for them. The chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Columbia said the study was so highly significant that the results weren't even borderline. He said, "We spent much time deciding if this was even publishable because we couldn't explain it."

People who believe in the power of prayer don't need explanations, just faith.

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Dorothy Copus Brush is a Fairfield Glade resident and Crossville Chronicle staffwriter whose column is published each Wednesday.