John seemed to have a fascination with chairs. The one in the photo was specially designed to be used either for sitting or as an impromptu pulpit. "He took it with him everywhere he travelled," Judith told me. Another, originally his mother's, was a robust wooden armchair that could convert into a desk. "He insisted on taking it with him everywhere he went," Judith said, which made me ask how he could possibly get around on horseback with all this heavy furniture. "Ah, well he usually had something of an entourage," she explained. Pickford's van, more like.
The real revelation of the tour, though, was Susannah Wesley, John's mother. I knew she was a remarkable woman, but had no idea quite how remarkable. She had, frankly, a useless and largely absent husband. She raised her ten surviving children (from nineteen pregnancies!) mostly alone, educating them and the village children in her kitchen. She kept the family finances together in the face of her husband's hopeless profligacy (he ended up in a debtor's prison at one point). And she was incredibly prayerful, spending hours of her already crowded days alone with her Lord. Inspirational.
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