Page 62 - Senior Link Magazine Winter 2021- Online Magazine

Bill and Sally

McCauley

Gumption

and Grace

by Mary Kay McCauley Stone

here’s a twinkle in his eye as with a sleeping man
he tells their story. It’s a love and struggled for
Tstory, a journey of gumption something meaningful
and grace, and the powerful legacy to say about a God
of a family. William Davis McCauley he wasn’t completely
met Sally, the brown-eyed beauty sure of. And then
who captured his heart, at a high it happened, the
school basketball game. Her real words that changed
name is Narcella Marie, but she everything surprisingly
was nick-named Sally, after the fell out of his own
fan dancer her mother caught her mouth. “God just
sneaking in to see at the State Fair. wants us to crawl up
Bill joined the Navy, and they in His lap and let Him
married after boot camp. “We were love us,” Bill said
just kids getting married,” Bill said. nervously. And there,
“We had to learn to make the best of in that stinky cell,
it as we went along.” And make the light shone through
best of it they did. the prism of amazing
grace. The experience
Sally is smart, funny, and filled with of faith became real
a strong-willed determination that and personal for the
shows in her beautiful smile today. first time. “God had me
She later put Bill through dental before then,” Bill said.
school, working in a man’s world “I just didn’t know it.”
of advertising, making $40 a week. spent much time learning and
She became mother to three boys and sharing faith journeys with these It has been said, “Never mistake
grandmother to seventeen grands local families, who included the knowledge for wisdom. One helps
and great-grands. Blue ribbons line Humphries, the Aldersons, and the you make a living; the other helps
her memory as she recalls the hours Halls. Early on, a group of men you make a life.” That Sunday
spent quilting and entering canned were involved in a jail outreach morning a new life was made. These
goods at the fair. Seventy-one years and invited Bill along. He was just couples went on to change the
later, Sally and Bill still hold hands. finding his faith, and it was a new lives of many others, sharing their
experience for him. As they arrived, simple faith stories for decades to
In the early seventies, this couple each of the men found an inmate come – in college groups, retreats,
became friends with three other to visit with. Overcome with the communities. Bill and Sally served
couples who brought a new odors of brokenness, Bill sat down the Lubbock community 43 years
dimension into their lives. They

62 Lubbock Senior Link