The Russell Family Singers

The Russell Family Singers

On a recent trip back to my mother's home, the home of my youth, I stumbled upon an old record album from the early 1980s.  It was a recording of the Russell Family Singers gospel music.  They were a gospel group who lived in my hometown for a very brief period of time.  I looked up "Russell Family Singers" online, and found one reference to a family of Baptists in Tennessee who take up the gospel in their singing.  I wondered if they are the same family who found their way to Alderpoint, California so long ago.  The online reference speaks of the families roots in gospel singing, dating back to the 1970s.  It may very well be the same family.

But was it the same family who crashed their RV into the ditch across the street from Aunt Margaret's house?

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In the Fall of 1980, a fascinatingly and supremely out of place family arrived in the sleepy town of Alderpoint, California.  They were out of place not so much for who they were, but for who we were not.  The patriarch of this large family established himself as the pastor of the Alderpoint community church.  We never referred to it as the community church.  We only ever referred to it as the little brown church because that was the general color of the stained wood exterior of that building.  Few people in-town actually attended services there, but during the early 1980s the parking lot was usually full of parishioners from the hills surrounding town.

On Sundays, the place was full of music.  Passing by, you could hear an electric bass guitar, cymbals, and even the sound of a tambourine burbling from the alter point, along with beautifully heartfelt singing.  On one of these Sunday mornings, the mother and daughter made their way around town with stacks of record albums for purchase.  We purchased one of these albums.

I'm thinking about how this family was so out of place in this town.

What really stood out to me is how the family dressed.

The men always wore business suits.

The women...  have you ever examined the early 1980s fashion-forward look of Princess Diana?  If you've ever read anything about British fashion of that time, you would know that her wardrobe was indicative of her class and of the people she spent her time with.  Well, the Russell family mother and daughter dressed just like that:  tweed suits, short sleeved billowy blouses with lots of ruffles, flowery skirts, and low-heeled pumps.  The mother and daughter even had that signature 1980s Diana haircut.

Contrast the Russell family look with what everyone else in Alderpoint wore: blue jeans, shorts, tartan print shirts and the mass-produced line of ready-to-wear clothing typical of the Sears, Roebuck and Company set of the early 1980s and you've pretty much got the high-fashion sense of the rest of the townspeople - including yours truly.

The Russell family stuck out.

Hard.

I remember them for their fashion sense and for an accident that happened shortly after their arrival in town.

It was a rainy day.  I just happened to be out, wandering the back lot of my Aunt Nancy's property.  It adjoined the property of my parents, out the back of the house.  I remember standing under the ancient oak tree on that property, hoping for the rain to pass.  The rain had come upon me, suddenly, and I was unprepared for the deluge.  I did my best to hug the edge of the majestic oak as the rain pummeled the ground around me.

In the distance, I could see an enormous RV heading down Highland Avenue.  It was traveling very slow, so what happened next boggled my mind.  The RV swerved to the right as if to avoid hitting something, but there was nothing in front of it to avoid.  In doing so, it veered off the road and into a ditch across the street from my Aunt Margaret's house.  Up the RV's back end went as the front end of the enormous vehicle pushed deep into the ditch on the other side of Highland Avenue, opposite my vantage point.

I can remember the Russell family mother and daughter scrambling out a side window of that RV.  Imagine women dressed like Princess Diana of the early 1980s, clambering out the side window of an RV in a rainstorm.  The men, their business suits soaked with rain, helping them out as the women tried to keep their Diana Spencer locks covered from the rain.

Shortly after the RV incident, the family moved out of town, never to be heard of again.

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This is what I remember of the Russell Family Singers.

When I go back to visit my mom, I will pull out that record album.

I will put it on the record player, and I will think of that rainy day, so many years ago.