"GOD ANSWERS OUR PRAYERS"
A letter by Joe Frazier Brown

As I read in the papers about the Red Cross Nurses visiting on and nursing the wounded soldiers of Gen.Villa's army, and being condemed to die by that old Mexican rebel who was trying to overthrow the Carranza government. They were led out to be shot, the men with the cuns are ready to shoot when ordered to do so. These doctors knelt down and prayed Got to help them. The Mexican soldiers were impressed with the scene and the Mexican General rushed in and told them to postpone the execution until Gen. Villa's family were safe in Mexico. The execution of the men was postponed and this was done on three seperate occasions.

Finally the doctors were released and told to get back across the line as best they could.

In reading about the good Lord answering our prayer of those christian doctors, the past came up before me like a dream. I am forcibly reminded of a day long passed, when I, an orphan boy, was attending the university of Mississippi.

My father, Josph Porter Brown, died of yellow fever at Galveston, in 1844. My uncle James Brown, was trestee of the University of Mississippi and he wrote to my mother, that if she would send me to Oxford, Miss., where the university was located, that he would educate me. My mother di so and I lived at Uncle James' house.

While there my grandfather Joesph Brown, came from Tenn., to visit his some James Brown. While there my grandfather came into my room, where I was studying my latin and greek books, and mathematics. My grandfather had been in Cumberland Presbyterian preacher for 48 yrs, having assisted in the organization of that church. The Old School Presbyterian Church would not authorize a man to preach unless he had attended a theological seminary. My grandfather had been preaching but wanted some church authority and therefore became a Cumberland Presbyterian.

When he came into my room he began to walk slowly across the floor of my room telling me to listen, that he wanted to tell me something I should not forget. Grandfather was then nearly 90 yrs. old. He said "Joseph my son, the good Lord ansers prayers here when we ask him to help us for Christ's sake." I want to tell you about his answering my prayer for help.

My father James Brown came from Ireland and my mother was a christian woman and told me to ask God for help and He would help me. My father and many women and children and men, where floating down the Tenn. R. when the Cherokee Indians surrounded the big covered flat boats and began with arrows and guns to kill the men on the boat. The men got their guns and fought until the last man was killed. My brothers John and James were killed. I was about 16 yrs. old and my life was spared, but the next morning to get revenge for many Indians being killed, they concluded to torture me. They tied my back to a big tree, and tied my hands and legs and then began to march around me singing some kind of chant.

When they came in front of me one Indian would throw a tomahawk at my head. It would just miss my head and stick in the tree.
Remembering what my mother told me, I began to pray, oh Lord, come and help me; come and help me right now. There is no one in a hundred miles to help me. Come dear Lord and help me for Christ's sake.
I had scarcely quit praying when the Indians quit going around me and all their heads facing big crowd of Indians on the hill side above and looked to see what they were looking at.

Beyond the crowd of Indians in an open space was an Indian woman that we call a squaw. She was waving her hands and talking in the Indian language. In a little while an Indian ran up the hill to a tent made out of the skins of wild animals. In a short time that Indian came out followed by a tall indian with feathers sticking above his head and he was dressed in buckskin and had beads on his arms. He was the Chief. That old squaw ran to him waving her hands and talking. In a little while the chief spoke to an Indian who grabbed a big butcher knife and hold it up an dran down the hill through that crowd of Indians toward me.

I saw him coming and said to myself, "he will not cut my throat now". He came and jumped around the tree and cut the strings that tied me, then got before me and grabbed my hand and said "come". He jerked and pulled me through that crowd and then to that old squaw who held out her hand.

He said "Son, go!" She led me up to the hill to her tent and I found out I was to take the place of her son. To hoe the corn and hunt deer and turkeys for her. I stayed with that old woman a long time. They gave me a pony to ride and a gun. They dressed me like an Indian. They watched to see I did not run away, but as I would come back at sun down with what game I could get, they quit watching me and one day I left for the white settlements I did not return."

My grandpa stopped and said "Joseph my boy, who told that old Indian woman to come right then and claim me for her son? Why God did so, my mother said He would and He did. Now Joseph my son, when you need help ask God to help you and he will."

I have not forgotten the lesson he taught and have tried and I think succeeded in teaching my children to not forget that lesson.

All the women and children taken prisoners by the Indians were exchanged for Indians the whites had captured.

Joseph Frazier Brown