Faith & Family - Cullman, Alabama Spring 2020 - Page 20

Dressed like the
Cat in the Hat,
Frank Travis reads
the book of the
same name to
school children.
“He
has
children
and
grandchildren, and yet he comes to
my appointments, listens to what the
therapist tells me and makes sure I’m
doing it,” Frank said. “Our friends,
they still bring food to me and my
wife, even now. It’s unreal.”
He said knowing God has
blessed him with such wonderful
friends makes it hard to be negative
about anything. He believes his love
of God and his take on life make him
able to feel love and pass it on.
“There are so many others out
there who are suffering who don’t
understand what comes from loving
God,” he said. “It’s all mental. ... If
you want to change, it has to come
from you. Your whole situation
changes if you look at it differently.”
Family
Frank said his father, Benjamin
Harrison Franklin Travis, and his
mother, Earnestine, were very
spiritual people and raised him that
way.
The Travises were raising a
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Faith & Family | April 2020
family in the 1950s and 1960s, when
there was great racial tension in their
community in Big Sandy, Tennessee.
He said it was a place where it was
OK to be out during the day but not
at night.
“We recognized there were times
that were challenging and stressful,”
Frank said. “But my father was such
a good man, we never experienced
any racial tension. People who knew
my father were so encouraged by
him and loved him so much, we just
never felt any racial tension, and a lot
of people did. He treated everyone
the way he wanted to be treated; he
didn’t see color, and he tried to relate
to their hearts. He looked past it and
taught us to do that, then people
would see your heart. It makes the
world so much better.”
He told Frank and his siblings
that even if they turned out to be
robbers or murderers, he would love
them regardless. He encouraged his
children to be as good as they could
be so other people could see what he
saw in them.