Re-written by Cindy R. Chamberlin, as adapted from Paul Kengor’s work. Permission granted via Dr. Kengor.
“You can be too big for God to use, but you cannot be too small,” an annotation from Nelle’s Bible.
On a brisk February evening in Dixon in 1922, shortly after his eleventh birthday, Dutch strolled home returning from a basketball game at the nearby YMCA. His mother, Nelle, was out on a sewing job trying to earn a few dollars. Dutch expected to come back to an empty house. Instead, he was shaken by the sight of his father sprawled out in the snow on the front porch, passed out, flat on his back, freezing, too inebriated to make it to the door. “He was drunk,” his son later remembered, “dead to the world.” The boy leaned over and smelled the whiskey escaping through his dad’s long snores. His hair was soaked with melted snow, matted unevenly against the side of his reddened face.1
Dark Demon
Jack’s arms were stretched out, recalled his son, “as if he were crucified — as indeed he was.” He had been taken by the “dark demon in the bottle.” Dutch stood over his father for a minute or two, not sure how to react. He wanted to simply let himself in the door, go to bed, and pretend his dad wasn’t there. Instead, Dutch grabbed a fistful of the old man’s overcoat and heaved him toward the door. He dragged him into the house and to the bedroom, out of the way of the weather’s harm and the neighbors’ fixed attention. It was a sad moment for father and son.1
“They were awful poor,” a neighbor reflected years later. Another friend recalled her family sent so many charity food plates over that her father built a hinge next to the family’s kitchen window so food could easily be left inside. Dutch’s father, Jack, a nominal Catholic, alcoholic and unsuccessful salesman, moved his family from town to town, job to job, and rental to rental. Dutch’s family never owned a home and had to sublease the houses they stayed in just to make rent.1 They could afford few decorated Christmas trees, but undaunted, Nelle decorated a table or created a cardboard fireplace out of a packing box with ribbon and crepe paper.2
Bleak Life
Despite the face of alcoholism by Dutch’s father, extreme poverty, and frugal living, Nelle stayed forever optimistic and cheery, accepting her hardships as God’s unerring plan, and throwing herself fully into helping the “poor and helpless.” Dutch’s most vivid, earliest memory of his mother was of her taking a covered dish to someone needier than they.
“If there ever was such a thing as a saint on earth, it was Nelle,” said friends later. Nelle visited the sick in hospitals, bravely walked into tuberculosis (TB) wards, comforted mentally ill in institutions, and gave weekly Bible studies to jail inmates. Nelle’s flair as an “elocutionist” — notably in her “dramatic readings” of Scripture — made her a favorite among prisoners.
As a prodigious newspaper reader, Nelle followed international events closely out of personal interest and with a sense of Christian obligation. Doing some work for Russian believers, in the summer of 1924, she helped raise money to erect a chapel for the Russian church in New York City ─ a symbolic act showing solidarity for Russian believers.
Frugal Life
There is no doubt if she had the education, today she would have been ordained.1 Sources claim Nelle lead her church virtually single-handed, writing bulletins, preparing Sunday programs, prodding the congregation … Nelle’s True Blue Sunday school class was the largest (even more popular than the pastor’s) and her church was described by one historian as, “the voice of democracy and individualism in the religious sphere.”
Blessed with an engaging voice and the confidence of a natural performer — Nelle was renowned in Dixon for her recitations both outside the church and within, self-written stories and poems frequently published locally, and for acting in plays. Dutch, always in tow, absorbed his lifelong love for drama and language skills from the time at his mother’s church.1
Did Nelle ever wonder if her prayers escaped the ceiling? In her frugal life, was her dedication for good in vain? Her heavenward petitions lost?
Nelle’s prayers and good deeds came to fruition decades later, echoing in the voice of the 40th president of the United States of America, Dutch ─ a.k.a Ronald Wilson Reagan. President Reagan, habitually and unapologetically declared his mother’s God. He projected Nelle’s youthful optimism, exuded her cheerfulness, captured her love for theater, and championed her good deeds.
Tear Down this Wall
Reagan’s words at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, Germany, on June 12, 1987, “Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall,” effectively toppled the Berlin Wall and ended the cold war. But these were not accidental words; these were straight from the pew at his mothers’ church. Common recurring threads within his speeches, freedom and opportunity were non-other than Nelle’s winsome optimism peeking out. In his two presidential terms, Reagan was unapologetic for his Christian beliefs and often referenced “God’s unerring divine plan,” in the face of obstacles─ a pattern learned in childhood.
Nellanomics
When random requests arrived at the White House that he could fulfill, historians say he did so. Once, an elderly gentleman wrote to him and asked him for a rocking chair, it was the formative Dutch, who took the oval pen and ordered it delivered to the needy address.3 Nelle’s charities showed themselves in the president’s small kindnesses: He chose to stay at the White House for Christmases rather than return to his beloved ranch so his secret servicemen could be near their families. His most lifelong treasured Christmas gift was a letter describing how his brother brought Christmas to a needy family.
Trickle-down Reaganomics brought about the longest peacetime economic stability in U.S. history, surpassed only by a short time in the 1990s.5 But in reality these were “Nellanomics,” the trickle down of one godly woman who inculcated a young boy and formed a president in the process.
Nelle did not live to see her son become leader of the free world. However, she always credited her son’s ascent in Hollywood and his financial success to her tithing. As president, Reagan advocated and paid a regular tithe, quoting his mother’s scrupulous training to give 10 percent. During his youth he “tithed” to his brother’s college tuition because the boy had no other way to go. Reagan quoted Nelle’s belief, “The Lord [would] make her 90 percent twice as big if she [made sure He got] his tenth.” (Leviticus) He said she believed being faithful would grant her a tremendous spiritual and earthly blessing in return.6
Sources:
1 ^a, b, c, d, e, Paul Kengor. “Jack and Nelle.” Chapter One in God and Ronald Reagan: A Spiritual Life (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2004): 1-16.
2 Brown, Mary Beth, and Floyd Brown. “Ronal Reagan’s Favorite Christmas Gift.” FrontPage Magazine |. 24 Dec. 2008. Web. 11 June 2011. <http://FrontPageMagazine.com>.
3 Hagin, Doug. “God Bless Ronald Reagan.” Renew America. 8 June 2004. Web.
4 Brennan, Phil, and NewsMax Staff. “Part 2: God and Ronald Reagan – Mother Set Example.” NewsMax.com: America’s News Page - News Archives. 8 June 2004. Web. 11 June 2011. <http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/6/8/153253.shtml>.
5 “Reaganomics.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 11 June 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics>.
6 Ronald Regan’s Democrat to Republican, p. 68
I really liked this.