River Swimmer

My Uncle Cliff Eury could swim like a fish before the age of 2. But on the day he went missing along the Little River bank my Grandfather, Arthur J Edgar Eury, and my Grandmother, Ida Haywood Eury, were very concerned, not to mention Uncle Cliff's four siblings, Bessie, Bertie, Clyde and Madie. Grandpa, who had poured the concrete footings of what would later be named Eury Dam, was hardly the kind to get rattled easily. He had accepted the position of dam operator after John Hurley, the dam owner, had built Grandpa and Grandma a house beside the dam on the Little River, in Montgomery County, North Carolina.

Grandma got Grandpa off his job at the dam and the whole family searched everywhere imaginable. Where could 3 year old Cliff be? Finally, the kids began crying loudly and blaming themselves for letting him go off alone. They knew he was lost down the river and drowned. How could they go on without sweet little Cliff? But 6 year old Madie refused to give up the search. She cried, but prayed, too, as she swept the area along the river bank looking in every nook and cranny where trees had been cut down to clear the area below the dam.

Finally, little Madie's prayers were answered and she let out for all to hear, "Praise, God! He's here asleep behind a stump."

Uncle Cliff never wandered off alone again, and Aunt Madie must have realized that prayers could certainly be answered because she would go on to become the wife of baptist preacher

Vernon Helms, who some said was the prayingest man they had ever seen.