Comments on: Funny Stories

By: Jonathan Feldman

Jonathan Feldman — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:52:38 +0000

About three years ago in the early summertime, I remember coming over and introducing Borsch to Mrs Mulfinger. Linda and her family came, as well as my room mate. Well after dinner Linda and her family had to leave, but Mrs Mulfinger invited My room mate and I into the living room and asked us what our plans were for Saturday. We told here that we were planning on going hiking, and she suddenly recalled a story about a girl whether one of her students or just a string student or something decided to go hiking and disappeared. Then Mrs Mulfinger went on to say that she was found three days later walking on the side of the road, but was still not in too good of a condition. So she insisted that we pray for safety for the hike right then and there. She asked us to pray first and then she would close. Well after my room mate and I had finished praying we waited a little while and then looked up to see Mrs Mulfinger asleep in her chair.

By: julie dalby

julie dalby — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:10:07 +0000

We lived next door to Joan and I was taking a nap and heard a very funny voice talking outside my window. When I got up to see what or who it was I was shocked to see Joan in her doorway talking to her beloved parrot her children had gotten for her. She was to me always kind, cheerful and really such an example of a good christain women, and will be greatly missed.

By: Becca Tabler Grove

Becca Tabler Grove — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:41:04 +0000

Here’s a typical evening with Mrs. Mulfinger: When Joanna was still living at home I rode with them in the big blue van to the Peace Center to hear Itzhak Perlman. Although I had bought a ticket, Mrs. M had not seen any need for such trivialities. I left them at the box office and went to my seat, with my opera glasses. Right as they got to the window, Perlman released his two tickets, and Mrs. M and Joanna got free seats on the front row! As we were leaving for home, Mrs. M was waiting at a stop sign and suddenly threw the van in reverse and started backing up but Joanna screamed “Stop, stop!” enough times that we narrowly avoided a fender-bender. As we got onto campus, Mrs. M asked me “What are you going to do this evening?” I thought I had finished the evening since it was at least 10:30, but Mrs. M insisted that the evening was still young, and I ended up sitting in her living room, fire going, sipping something hot (I don’t remember what it was, but she had probably persuaded me to drink some kind of tea.) until I was falling asleep. I left them, wide awake, not planning on bedtime any time soon.

By: Lynne Davis

Lynne Davis — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:27:48 +0000

We were neighbors to the Mulfingers when our second daughter, Laurilyn, was born on July 14, 1982. Mrs. Mulfinger came over to see me and held Laurilyn on her lap and asked how long she was and how much she weighed. When I told her she weighed 7 lb 13 3/4 ozs, Mrs. Mulfinger said “oh, why didn’t they just make it 7 lb 14 oz’s to match her birthdate!

Our older daughter, Jennifer, was 3 and a year younger than Joanna. One day she had been out playing (very close by), but when I looked for her at suppertime, she wasn’t in sight. I knocked on the Mulfinger’s door and looked in at the many faces around the table including Jennifer sitting there smiling happily. Mrs. Mulfinger was so sorry to have caused any anxiety and she said “oh, you didn’t know she was here?” It was neat that, even though she had so many children, she still loved everyone else’s and was always kind and sympathetic.

Tim and I still remember when we had a $2 yard sale wagon for Jennifer that got run into by one of the Mulfinger’s cars. We didn’t even realize it. Mr. Mulfinger bought a new little wagon, assembled it, and brought it over to us. We felt so bad that he bought one and went to all that trouble, but we never forgot the kindness of heart that prompted that action.

We moved to two other houses nearby in the years following, and when the recycling idea was started, my boys went by and took her recyclable things to the bins for her. She was their first employer! My youngest fell in love with her kittens, and we eventually adopted one.

It is her birthday today. I have continued to think of her over and over in this past month since she went to heaven. The impact of her joyful life and example as a friend and neighbor will continue to influence our lives and encourage us to be faithful to the Lord, as she was.

By: Jennelle Clough Poore

Jennelle Clough Poore — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 23:50:48 +0000

Once at lunch on campus I was eating with Mary and Mrs. Mulfinger. Of course, Mary and I thought we would like to eat out dessert first. Thinking there was no way on earth we would be allowed to, we came up with the best, most spiritual reason we could think of: The rapture might happen and we want to be able to have already eaten our dessert! Mrs. Mulfinger appreciated that we were thinking spiritually and let us!!

People are still amazed at how I, as a non-family-member can say the names of all the children so fast. It comes from all the over-nights I spent there. Mrs. Mulfinger prayed with each child, so I heard the list often in night time prayers.

Living so close to the Mulfingers, we often delivered one (or more) of the children who got left at church (see 3rd entry). Once we piled 13 people into our little Ford Maverick. Of course, Mrs. Mulfinger was always very grateful!

By: Sue Tabler

Sue Tabler — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:07:29 +0000

One time when Joan was asked if she had attended a certain function—recital, wedding shower, or whatever it was—she said, “Well….yes….I mean no. I wanted to… but Mark had the car with the gas in it.”

Sue Tabler

By: Sue Tabler

Sue Tabler — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:05:33 +0000

One year for her birthday party, our daughter Maria chose to invite only Julia Mulfinger and her parents. I believe Maria and Julia were in about 6th grade. We had a piano which we had bought when Maria began taking piano a few years earlier. We could not afford a new piano; so we went to Case Brothers in Spartanburg and bought an old upright piano which had been rebuilt. It was beautiful with scrolled columns on either side of the music stand part. We were proud of it. Maria used it for her piano practice, and since both Maria and Becca were now taking violin from Joan, both used the piano to tune when they were practicing violin at home.

After we had eaten birthday cake and ice cream and were having a good time just visiting together, Joan went to the piano and made a run up and down the keyboard. She stopped suddenly and with ear cocked made another run up and down the keyboard. With a look of complete horror on her face, she said, “George!! Listen to this!!!” Another run up and down the keys. “This entire piano is a half step low!!!! We can’t have this!!!!! There are two violinists in this house, and we just cannot have this piano here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

As soon as we could, we bought another piano—another used one–a Stieff built in 1912, which had about 7 layers of various colors of paint on it and was being propped up with a 2×4 because the back right caster was missing along with a hefty part of the wood from the corner of the piano itself. However, we bought this particular piano because we had taken Joan with us to see it. She put her stamp of approval on it, saying it had “good acion.”

We brought it home and put it in the carport and all the family helped strip the paint off layer by layer, or most of it, and we think we found mahogany wood under all that paint. When the weather turned colder, we brought it into the living room (we had asphalt tile floors at that time—no carpet) and took it apart as much as possible—keyboard under one bed, hammers under another bed, etc. Corban did the lion’s share of the work–painstakingly. It took a long time. I can’t remember where Maria practiced piano during that time. We recommend that you don’t try this at home.

Sue Tabler

By: Rebecca Howard

Rebecca Howard — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:53:32 +0000

Every time I see the name Mulfinger, I smile. When I was knee-high to a grasshopper, we went to Boulevard Baptist Church along with the Mulfingers and a few others from the Bob Jones community.
The Mulfingers, as I recall, were like my father and liked to fellowship after the Sunday evening service. I remember on a couple occasions the Mulfingers leaving to go home and turning right back around to come back to the church or a church member following them home several minutes later due to one of the Mulfinger offspring having fallen asleep in a pew and missing their ride home. Usually, they had the counting-the-children routine down, but just those couple of occasions still make me smile.
Mrs. Mulfinger always had – I should say “has” because I imagine the smile is even bigger now! – a smile on her face and a kind word for whoever crossed her path. She and Mr. Mulfinger were a blessing. What an incredible testimony to the love of Christ this family has been and will continue to be! God bless you all!

By: Linda George

Linda George — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:32:07 +0000

One of my favorite family stories exists because mom’s watch was never in synch with anyone else’s clock. So, we had started out on our mission already close to late. But in desperation mom realized that she really need to have her watch synched correctly, so we drove around the block and back into the driveway. Mom handed her watch to Rachel and told her to set the watch by the clock in the kitchen. So, Rachel took the watch, looked at it, looked at mom, and proceeded to run into the house as mom was yelling encouragements to hurry up. We’re starting to get a little antsy as Rachel is seeming to take a long time to come back out. Finally, she came running back out WITHOUT the watch. Mom is completely frustrated by this time and asked Rachel where her watch was and whatever in the world took so long. I’ll never forget Rachel’s incredulous look as she explained that she had to move the chair to climb all the way up to the ledge above the cabinets to put the watch beside the clock, and that she had gone as fast as she possibly could have. It took awhile, but Mom’s fury did eventually turn into laughter.

By: Linda George

Linda George — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:53:10 +0000

There’s supposedly a legendary story from the paint shop about the dirty clothes pile and little kids jumping in it. Maybe someone will ring in with it. But that story reminded me of the laundry situation in a household of 11 children. It’s unimaginable to most people, but I actually saw it. I had the normal cycle timed at about 30 days. Most of us just decided to do our own laundry rather than wait a month for clothes to cycle through.