What's in a name?

If you've been to the farm, you'll notice a small granite placard on our brick entrance column. We built the columns the year we built our house. I called Carl Lambert, the local funeral home director and asked him to have a tombstone company create an insert in the column. It says "Ellafield, Est. 2000" and  " as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord".

So what's in a name? If you grew up in the Jericho-Hardison community, you would recognize the name "Ella".  It was my paternal grandmother. Essentially, I was born into her world as she lived with my mom and dad from the time I was born. In the day, Ms. Ella, as she was called by all,  ran the little country store on the corner of Jericho Church Road and Buck Seaford Road.  I could write and endless blog on life at the country store, but this one is about names.

Unembarrassed,  I will share with you a short story about a gift.

A simple woman, Ms. Ella, was frugal. After Liz and  I were married, we lived in a small rental property on Deadmon Road in Mocksville. In her humble way, she gave us an envelope one time with a gift of $5,000.  This was at a time we were figuring each month how we would make the checkbook stay in the black from month to month. Along with this gift, she told us her desire was for us to use this towards a house. So, soon after, we purchased a property on Jericho Road. We decided to borrow money from Mocksville Savings & Loan, using the  $5,000 as a down payment to satisfy the bank. Both of our kids were born and experienced their first of many things in that house. We took care of that property and within 4 years, we sold it and built a larger home on a larger piece of property. But in our dreams, we wanted to have acreage, a few horses and cows.  On a whim, we allowed a real estate agent  at our office to show our second house at a price we wouldn't say no to. Well, because of that, we had to say YES, and sold house #2.

So, we took that $5,000 that my grandmother gave us and multiplied it. We multiplied it to the point we were able to build what we called our "dream farm". During the construction, I told Elizabeth I wanted to enjoy and always remember the financial and spiritual blessing Ms. Ella gave to us. So, we named the farm "Ellafield". We moved in in January of 2000.  Because my grandmother knew where true blessings came from, you'll see the inscription "as for me and my house we will serve the Lord".  So, there really is something in a Name.

Grandma, never got to see our little dream come true, But, as March always reminds me of her, I know she would be tickled to see the little granite placard. She would have been 110 on March 20.