Mr. Millard and Mrs. Thelma Few Robertson

   Mrs. Thelma Robertson, wife of Mr. Ancel Millard “Red” Robertson, remembers her mother, the late Mrs. Gertrude Edith Dill Few, as quiet. Thelma’s father, Mr. Eddie “Ed” Lee Few, directed music at Gum Springs Pentecostal-Holiness Church (PHC), where the family attended. The Few home was near the church.

“Dad talked more than Mom,” Thelma says, “and he took us fishing.” 

Thelma’s mom had two brothers and two sisters. Her father, who worked at Southern Bleachery, had five brothers and three sisters. Her parents lived with the late Preacher James Henry Barton (1874-1953) when they first married. Preacher Barton, a farmer, was a Pentecostal pastor of Barton’s Chapel Memorial Church in the O’Neal Community on Hwy. 101. 

  

Ed and Gertrude’s seven children were, in birth order, Louis Odell (Alice), Frances “Tuesday” Batson (Butler), Benny Joe (Louise), Leonard (Tweedie), Thelma (Millard), Buster (Martha), and Robert (Nancy). Thelma recalls her mother waiting until Robert was in school before working at Nichols Sewing, where she retired.

  

“They said I was a good baby — wouldn’t fall off the porch or anything,” says Thelma, as she sits in her and Millard’s rural home in Greer, SC. “I had a good mom. She’d have done without for us to have. You didn’t go out to eat back then. We went to Charleston, once, and mom packed food and we ate beside the road. Mom recited a reading about Easter every year at church. I remember being amazed at how she could remember all that.”

When Pastor James H. Thompson served Gum Springs PHC, a rift developed. He resigned, and some members asked him to form a new church, which became Faith Temple, an “interdenominational” church. Thelma’s father went to lead singing at the new church. Her mother stayed with Gum Springs PHC. Thelma’s father eventually went back to Gum Springs and attended with his wife. He died 10 years before his wife passed at age 86 from congestive heart failure on July 11, 2000. She had been a Gum Springs member for 76 years. Their graves lie in that church’s cemetery.

Millard graduated from Blue Ridge High (BR) and married Thelma in Dec. before she graduated from BR in June 1958. After graduation, Thelma sewed garments for Stone Manufacturing. “I worked off-and-on during my life,” she says, including12 years at Homelite, a power equipment maker. She retired from Bausch and Lomb, optical equipment manufacturers. Millard worked 26 years at Lyman Printing and Finishing and retired after five years at Steel Heddle.

  

The Robertsons’ children include Kay Waters, Dale, Tony (deceased), and Jonathan (deceased).  

  

Thelma was “saved” on a Wed. night at Gum Springs PHC, and, days later, Millard accepted Christ at the Jim and Tammy Bakker revival held at Faith Temple in probably 1963. Thelma and Millard began paying tithes when they had three children, and they say the Lord helped their resources go farther after that. They attend Faith Temple.

  

“I am thankful for my parents,” Thelma says. “They raised me to go to church and be in church.”