George Washington Carver: A Lesson in Faith

It was a long drive from Dallas back to our home state of Indiana. So my husband and I needed some things to do to break up the trip. Places to visit, sites to see. You know the drill on a road trip. So, we sat before the computer the night before our departure from Texas, and we surfed the web for some things to do on the way home.

The George Washington Carver National Monument popped up almost immediately.

“Oh, you mean the peanut guy?” I said aloud.

The peanut guy. That’s all I really knew about George Washington Carver. And to be honest, I wasn’t even entirely sure what peanuts had to do with him. Something about farming? Preservation maybe? Stretching a food supply? As my husband asked me, the alleged history expert, some pointed questions, I flubbed and fumbled and realized I was at a bit of a loss. All I could really say to sound smart was – “Hm, maybe we should stop. Sounds like we could both stand to learn more.”

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting a whole lot as we pulled into the place. I mean, I love peanuts as well as the next person. In fact, one of my literal dirty secrets is I have a disgusting tendency to tear through them without even taking the shells off first. Pretty sure even animals take the shells off first, but I don’t. At any rate, what was there really to learn about peanuts?

Well, as it turns out, my visit to the George Washington Carver National Monument was nothing short of transformational. Because his spirit lingers heavily around that place (in my humble opinion). And as I walked around the woods where he passed his childhood, he gave me back something I had lost as of late. George Washington Carver gave me back my faith.

But before we get into that, let’s take a few steps back and learn a little bit more about George Washington Carver the man. He was born enslaved on the Carver farm in Diamond Grove, Missouri (which is now his National Monument) in or about 1864. When he was a baby, he suffered the impacts of the horrific Civil War guerilla warfare in the area when he and his mother (and possibly a sister too) were kidnapped from the farm during a violent night raid. George was eventually recovered and brought back to the farm. His mother was never found. We can only imagine the brutality of what happened to her, and how hard it was for the young infant to never see his mother again.

As it happened, George almost died himself. When he was returned to the Carver farm, he was horribly sick with whooping cough. Although he survived, the disease left him weak and sickly, far too ill for the heavy labor required of a farm life. So, he spent a lot of his childhood roaming the woods around the Carver farm and learning about the local plant life. So much so that he soon became known locally as “the plant doctor.” And to hear George tell it, he discovered a lot more than plants in those woods. George Washington Carver, as a young boy, found God there too.

He said of it himself later in life — “As a very small boy exploring the almost virgin woods of the old Carver place… I was practically overwhelmed with the sense of some Great Presence… I knew even then it was the Great Spirit of the universe… Never since have I been without this consciousness of the Creator speaking to me through flowers, rocks, animals, plants and all other aspects of His Creations.”

This childlike wonder at the marvels of nature would shape the whole of George Washington Carver’s life, his message, and his work. It would also shape his quest for knowledge, no matter what kind of barriers stood in his way. And for a black person in Missouri at that time, there were more than a handful. The town where he was born, Diamond Grove, would not even allow black students in the public school system. So, despite being only ten, George left home on his own and, in the ensuing years, attended classes at various schools throughout the Midwest, with his race always presenting challenges.

Like in Fort Scott, Kansas, where he witnessed the brutal lynching of a black man by a white mob, an experience that was so deeply scarring that he left the academy he had been attending there and never returned. Or when he tried to attend college in Highland, Kansas. Although he had been accepted via mail, they school refused him entry when he showed up and they saw his skin color.

Determined to get a full and fair education, Carver found his way to my own home state of Iowa, where he had a bit better luck. First was Simpson College, where his notable gift for painting plants and flowers did not go unnoticed by his teachers. They encouraged him to attend agricultural school at what would soon become Iowa State University in Ames, where he became the first black student in attendance (listen, I’m a Hawkeye through and through, but good on Iowa State for admitting Carver).

The rest, as they so often say, is history. In agricultural studies, George Washington Carver found his passion. Being so inspired by plants and nature, and believing so thoroughly in being of service to mankind, agriculture was a perfect fit. Carver blossomed (plant pun!) in Iowa State’s agricultural program – so much so that after attaining his Master’s degree and teaching some of his own classes on the subject, he caught the attention of Booker T. Washington, president and principle of the famous Tuskegee Institute.

In 1896, Carver set up shop alongside Washington at Tuskegee, where he was destined to become a more-or-less permanent fixture. He taught classes there for almost fifty years, and in the process, he broke new ground (does that count as a farming pun?) and turned Tuskegee’s agricultural department into one of the finest research centers in the country. A place where he could take up what would become his most famous mission – healing the depleted soils, and the depleted peoples, from the devastating effects of “King Cotton.”

By the 1890s and early 1900s, Cotton had long-since damaged the local farmland by stripping the soil bare of its nutrients, falling prey to constant boll weevil attack, and keeping the local black populations under the oppressive thumb of poverty and tyranny, bound to the failing cotton farms with no other means of employment. Carver looked to reverse this system by pushing cash crops that could replace cotton, heal the soil, and help black farmers become self-sufficient.

This is where the peanut enters the story. Over the years, Carver would demonstrate, whether at Tuskegee, or with his portable wagon that he took to educate people on the move, how the simple peanut was more or less a miracle crop that could be used for so much more than food. It could also be transformed into ink, paper, soap, glue, dyes, oils, milks, cosmetics – the list goes on and on (and damn those salty shells taste delicious). He even developed a peanut-based massage oil that was used to treat polio patients for a time. Carver became so famous for his work with peanuts that he was eventually invited to speak at the National Conference of the Peanut Growers Association in 1920, and to testify before Congress in 1921 about the peanut and its wonders.

George Washington Carver, through his work with the peanut and other crops like soybeans and sweet potatoes, transformed the agricultural system, and he became the most famous black scientist of his time. He lived an incredible life of service, impacting countless lives in the process. But to me, one of the most inspiring things about George Washington Carver was his unwavering faith in the face of adversity. An aspect of his incredible life that I came face to face with when we visited the National Monument in Diamond Grove.

It was a beautiful, sunny day when my husband and I took our own walk through the woods at the Carver farm, where George Washington Carver experienced God on a daily basis. We were surrounded by spring wildflowers and beautiful bird songs. Trickling streams and gentle breezes. In a nutshell (tee hee), it was easy to see how one could find their faith in a beautiful spot like this. And all through the woodsy trails, where visitors were often encouraged to stop and reflect on the spiritual, there were stones bearing some absolutely stunning Carver quotes. Such as –

Selfishness and self are at the bottom of a lot of troubles in the world. So many people fail to realize that serving God and one’s fellow men are the only worthwhile things in life. It’s service that counts.

No individual has any right to come into the world and go out of it without leaving behind him distinct and legitimate reasons for having passed through it.

The finite mind of man can never grasp the mysteries of the infinite. It is the highest wisdom as it is our great happiness to accept our limitations, to use what we have, and leave the rest to God.

I have to admit, the whole experience moved me to tears. Because I thought of the life Carver lived. The prejudice he faced. The violence he witnessed and even experienced as a young baby. Doors slammed in his face because he was black. The nasty comments. The exclusion. And yet, all he cared about, all he wanted to do, was be of service. To teach. To help. To inspire. Even as I type this, I tear up. Because it’s so beautiful. A true testament to love and the human spirit to persevere.

I’ve been a faithful person since I was a child. I’ve leaned on God through hard times and good times, through thick and thin. But lately, it’s been hard to hang onto my faith. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the times we live in are… well, they’re ugly. There’s so much meanness going around. There’s so little tolerance for differing opinions, differing lifestyles, differing faiths. It’s pushed my own faith to the brink and made me question if God is really there. If He’s listening, or if He’s seeing all of this. It’s made me feel, at times, quite empty and lost. 

When I walked through George Washington Carver’s woods, when I thought about his life, his work, and his unwavering ability to push past the ugly and just keep the faith, it was like a shock treatment to my system. A spark of something that I hadn’t felt in quite a long time. If he could have faith through all of that, if he could turn his mind to service and only service despite the ill treatment he faced over and over again, then maybe I could do the same. Because as hard as I feel like I have it sometimes, he had it ten times harder. A hundred times harder. Yet he didn’t give up. He didn’t lose hope. Not even in the very end.

I left the George Washington Carver monument with a sense of healing and renewal. Not just for having learned about the incredible life of an incredible man, but also for tasting just a small piece of his unquestioned faith. Feeling a little ripple of it work its way into my own battered system. It reminded me, as I looked on those beautiful plants and flowers that would inspire a small boy to a lifetime of service, that God is there in the simple and small things. In the quiet places. In the gentlest of whispers. It was the greatest gift from a man who was all about giving. And for that, I will be forever grateful.

SOURCES

George Washington Carver National Monument

National Park Service/US Dept. of the Interior

Wikipedia

All photos by M.B. Henry – for more of my travel and nature photography (including lots of flowers, which I hope George W. Carver would LOVE) click here. 

M.B. HENRY ON FURLOUGH! — I’ll be taking the rest of June and some of July off the blog to focus on some other writing endeavors and a few short trips! I look forward to visiting all your fabulous blogs when I return! Have a wonderful summer! 

NEED SOME SUMMER READING? — My second novel, “As the Storm Clouds Gather,” is out now! Click here to learn more about it, including where you can purchase your copy! 

ONE FINAL ANNOUNCEMENT — If you live in the Eastern Iowa/Cedar Rapids area, come see me on SEPT 9 at the Marion Public Library, where I will be doing an event with Swamp Fox Bookstore! Hope to see you there! Visit my events page for more information.