What seventy-five-year-old retired preacher writes about the woman who babysat him for three years, beginning when he was only weeks old and newly arrived in Cherry Creek, South Dakota, from Wheeler County, Texas? That would be me, filled with profound gratitude on these days after she would have celebrated her ninety-ninth birthday had she not been promoted to glory a couple of years ago.
Four men served in the United States military during World War Two, married after the war, and obtained college degrees using the G. I. Bill. Having graduated along with so many other veterans, they found job opportunities scarce and so, left the great state of Texas to begin their careers in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior, on a remote Indian reservation in a very isolated region of South Dakota.
My dad and my mom were one of the four couples, with my mom having been the first of the four wives to deliver a child, me. We three were also the last of the four government employee families to arrive. When we arrived, my babysitter approached my mom and said, “Iris, whenever you need a babysitter, I will take care of that boy for you!” My mom took her up on the offer, and for almost three years, she was the go-to babysitter for yours truly.
Her name was Yvonne Little, married to Joe Bill Little. Her maiden name was Scott, so her friends in Amarillo, Texas, naturally called her Scottie at Amarillo High School. Whether she was friends with T. Boone Pickens at Amarillo High, being a year or two older, I do not know. But she certainly was a beautiful gal, both as a teen and as an aged woman.
Her husband and my dad both remained in government service throughout their professional lives, with my dad working with different tribes in South Dakota, North Dakota, Florida, and Oregon and her husband operating out of Washington, D. C. It was while we were living in Fort Lauderdale with my dad the superintendent of the Seminole reservations that the Littles visited from D. C., now with a daughter and a son. The year was 1963. I remember their visit with the embarrassment that comes from an adult reflecting on his conduct as a thirteen-year-old some sixty years earlier.
My first encounter with Scottie Little was from 1950 to 1953, when she was married but not yet a mother, and I have no recollection of it. My next encounter with her was at a single dinner at our home in 1963, when she was a wife and mother of two. It was my third and final encounter with her that was life-changing, during the summer of 2018 in Norman, Oklahoma, August 7 to be precise, after she had been widowed by her beloved Joe Bill. Her devoted daughter was on a mission trip with her Church group, so I could not meet Scottie’s soul’s delight in a meaningful way.
Precisely why and exactly how Scottie Little and I connected in a meaningful way after 65 years had elapsed, I do not know, but I am profoundly grateful that God prompted me and granted me success, because what I learned from her overwhelmed me.
About eight years ago, my wife and I drove to the Norman, Oklahoma, senior complex where she lived, her daughter and son-in-law just a couple of miles away. Lively, energetic, with a sparkling personality, I quickly learned my Aunt Scottie (as she was always referred to in our home growing up) was a deeply committed Christian, confirming the impressions she made on me when we chatted on the phone and exchanged emails leading up to our visit.
I was full of questions accompanying our reminiscences of a bleak part of South Dakota, where my dad had made friends with the last survivor of the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the last survivor of the terrible slaughter of innocents at Wounded Knee. My overriding question to her was “Why?” Why did she offer to babysit me? And why did she babysit me so faithfully before our families parted ways through promotions and transfers?
She looked at me with that captivating smile of hers and said, “Steve, I knew that I would give you what your mother would never give you. I prayed for you. I read the Bible to you. I sang Christian songs to you.” My name is John Stephen Waldrip, named after my grandfather, John Conner. However, until I started school, I was always Steve.
What she said was true, insightful, and perceptive. I loved my mother, but she never prayed with me, and I presume she never prayed for me. I loved my mom, but I have no memory of her reading God’s Word to me. I loved my mom, but she never in my hearing sang anything, much less a Christian song or hymn. Yvonne ‘Scottie’ Little is the only woman known to me who ever prayed for me, read God’s Word to me, and sang Christian hymns to me.
It was in 1956, on the Fort Totten reservation in North Dakota, that God began to answer Aunt Scottie’s prayers for me, when Miss Peabody and Miss supp presented the Gospel to a Vacation Bible School group explaining John 1.29, “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” Eighteen years later, the Spirit of God brought that verse home to me the night I turned to Christ.
So, you see, a godly wife and eventual mother, living in what most of us would describe as the middle of nowhere, may very well have been the most impactful woman in my life. And a few days ago, if she were still here with us, she would have celebrated her ninety-ninth birthday.
But she is not here. She is with the Savior. I know her daughter misses her mother terribly. I certainly miss her.
The takeaway? Anyone can, at anytime, anywhere, engage in a God-honoring and Christ-exalting relationship with someone. With my Aunt Scottie, it was a babysitting ministry with a high-strung, rambunctious little boy who grew up to know Christ, to then spend a half-century in the Gospel ministry, and who is now, after retiring from the pastorate, with my wife on the island of Zakynthos, in Greece, engaged in a faith ministry.
Of course, I am grateful to God, from Whom all blessings flow. Of course, I am thrilled to represent the Savior! What right-minded person would not be thrilled to exalt the King of all glory! Of course, I am thankful for the Holy Spirit's leadership and provision.
But I am also grateful for my Aunt Scottie. Humanly speaking, where would I be without her? What she did in seizing an opportunity to be a blessing, anyone can do. But will you? I sincerely hope so. Be someone's Aunt Scottie.
