A household word in Marash Girl's childhood was Daddy Hall, pre-eminent preacher in Rumney, New Hampshire. He was 75 in 1939, so he must have been 80 when Marash Girl first heard speak of him and actually saw him on the pulpit in Rumney, New Hampshire. Was it Daddy Hall, then, who lambasted the little black kitten that came walking down the aisle during Daddy Hall's preaching, the black kitten looking for Uncle (Rev. Vartan Bilezikian), its master, and diverting the attention of the congregation from the preacher to the little black cat? (See "Worshiping in Rumney, New Hampshire", Marash Girl, Tuesday, March 25, 2014.) Marash Girl was so surprised to come upon the book pictured above, all about this preacher that she had heard preach when she was a very little girl. . . . . . Do you, dear reader, remember Daddy Hall?
Joseph Mitchell wrote a profile of this preacher (James Jefferson Davis Hall) titled “A Spism and a Spasm” in the New Yorker magazine in July 1943. It’s reprinted in a collection of Mitchell’s pieces called “Up in the Old Hotel”. It’s a fascinating profile. I had no idea someone had written a book about “Daddy Hall”.
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