Page 6A — THE GILMER MIRROR, Gilmer, Texas July 6, 2011

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Deborah Loyd of Gilmer an-nounces the engagement and approaching marriage of her son, William Aaron Loyd, to Leslie Marie Whealdon, daugh-ter of Ed and Jana Whealdon of Carrollton.

The prospective groom is also the son of the late Alan Loyd.

The wedding is planned for Oct. 1 at Christ United Methodist Church in Farmers Branch.

Grandparents of the pro-spective groom are Kenneth and Cosette Stewart and the late William and Mattie Loyd.

The bride-elect is a graduate

of Texas Tech University with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and UT Southwestern Medical Center with a Master of Physi-cal Therapy.

She is employed by Easter Seals of North Texas as a pedi-atric physical therapist.

The prospective groom is a graduate of Baylor University with a Bachelor of Business Administration.

He is employed by BBVA Compass Bank and works in their corporate banking group.

The couple will make their home in Dallas.

William A. Loyd to wedLeslie Marie Whealdon

WILLIAM LOYD AND LESLIE WHEALDON

SIMPSONVILLE, July 1 — Simpsonville VFD has been rather quiet, in spite of the dry weather.

I hope everyone had a won-derful Fourth of July, with family and friends.

Recent guests in the home of Bill and Tommie Crone were Tommie’s great-niece, Nikki Honeycutt and her friend, Mike, of Durant, Okla.; Tom-mie’s sister, Sue Pierce; niece, Lisa Walker and great-niece, Chris Walker of Pittsburg.

The group spent the day with the Crones, then went to Big Sandy to visit Tommie’s sister and brother-in-law, James and Mary Pharr.

Wednesday night guests of Bill and Tommie Crone were Tommie’s sister, Nelda Round-tree of Bonhom and Ron Fen-nell of Telephone. A good time was had by all.

Nelda was on her way to Alabama to visit her son and daughter-in-law, Nate and Dawn Johnson and, of course, her one-and-only grandson, Brody, who just turned three years old.

It’s wonderful to have family and friends come by.

On Saturday, Toni, Andrew, Harley and Zack spent time with Tommie and Bill and at-tended the wedding in Pittsburg of Amber and Brandon Neeley. Amber is Bill and Tommie’s granddaughter and the boys visiting were Amber’s brothers and the Crones’ grandsons.

Sue Davis and some friends, Martha Carter, Sharon Ennis and Lila Wells, went to a local blueberry farm. She said they

charged $3 a pound for the blueberries and it was worth every cent.

They have buckets lined with plastic bags and if you pick a full bucket it will weigh about six pounds.

Blueberries are so good, and so good for you, and they are real easy to keep.

You can freeze them right off the bush, however don’t wash them first. Wait until you plan to use them.

Sue said she made muffins, coffee cakes, pies and even some blueberry chipotle sauce, which is very good with cream cheese and crackers.

The ladies left Simpsonville in the early morning hours to go picking their blueberries at a farm, located between Cason and Daingerfield, off Hwy. 11.

The Simpsonville Baptist WMU met June 21 with seven present. Their mission project for this month is collecting and delivering food to the Hiway 80 Mission in Longview.

They are taking food and clothes to the mission, whose reserves are in short supply. There are lots of contributions of food during Thanksgiving and Christmas. However, dur-ing the summer there is also a need.

Perryville Baptist Church had a Patriotic Musical on July 3 called “This Is My Country.” Afterwards, they served re-freshments and played table games. All area churches were invited to attend.

Well, we wanted rain and we got it! I believe we received 2-1/2 inches. We also had high

winds, two trees down, an elec-trical outage and water off. Be careful what you pray for, you just might get it.

The only things left in our garden that haven’t burned up are peas and tomatoes. The peas haven’t made yet.

There are lots of baby grass-hoppers, but I hope they don’t take over my pea patch, like last year. I would like to say we got something out of the garden, as hard as Bill works to make it possible.

John Clemens, who lives just past the Simpsonville Baptist Church on FM 556 north, lost a little dog in the storm the other night.

She’s a black and white rat terrier, has a crippled foot, is nine years old and answers to Poochie. If you have seen this dog, please call 903-725-6795.

The grandchildren love her and want her back. Keep your eyes open and let’s help them find Poochie. She is so afraid of thunder and storms, she might still be hiding somewhere.

Down FM 556, just past Simpsonville Baptist Church, around the bend is Honeysuck-le Hollow. Sue and Richard Da-vis observed the time-honored East Texas tradition of hosting their pastor Bro. Richard Wells and his wife Lila to a home-cooked Sunday dinner.

Guests also included next- door neighbors, Bob Gurley (Sue’s brother) and his wife Elaine.

Unlike her mother Gladys Gurley, who years ago typically served fried chicken to their family’s pastor, Sue’s dinner

table was laden with stuffed bell peppers from the commu-nal Gurley-Davis garden, as well as green peas, new pota-toes, tomatoes, onions and an assortment of hot peppers. Sue confessed that the serving dish of corn came from a can.

For dessert, she served homemade peach cobbler, topped with vanilla ice cream, accompanied with Hazelnut-flavored coffee. The well-satiated dinner guests enjoyed lingering around the table, long after dessert, as a testament to the cook’s culinary skills.

Meanwhile, Bob is anticipat-ing the long-awaited watermel-ons in the garden to be ready to pick in a few more days.

The watermelon patch has been suffering from lack of rain. Bob said he may not plant any melons next year. His wife, Elaine, is predicting his optimism will be renewed, along with the promise that springtime eternally brings.

The electricity has been off lately, longer for some than others.

I remembered this joke I heard one time —

A Baptist preacher went home with a rather large family after church for dinner.

As they were eating the fried chicken, they were down to one piece of chicken on the plate.

Everyone sat there looking at it, denying they wanted the last piece.

About that time the lights went out and when they came back on there were 12 forks stuck in the back of the preach-er’s hand.

Simpsonville NewsBy TOMMIE CRONE • 903-725-6192