Reverend Moonshine

Apparently, my great grandfather, my grandmother’s father on my mother’s side, was a Methodist minister back in the 1920s and 1930s. I never knew him, as he died when my mother was still young. My grandmother never spoke about him to me, and now that she’s gone too, I can’t ask her about him.

I know that being a Methodist minister isn’t that unusual or newsworthy, but it’s the fact that he was also an illegal moonshiner that starts to spice up the story a little bit. Apparently, he would make the alcohol on his farm in East Texas and then distribute it to the surrounding area. These practices became even more widespread during Prohibition; when the possession, sale, and distribution of alcohol was prohibited in the United States. My grandmother, just a little girl at the time, and her siblings would ride along on the back of the truck, holding onto the moonshine kegs to make sure they didn’t fall off.

I really couldn’t believe that this kind of stuff happened in my family’s past; but I guess when you have 13 kids, you resort to any means to keep all of the mouths fed!