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Notice The Salvation Army red kettles are out in front of the stores before Thanksgiving this year?

Mae Harris, known by everybody as Major Mae Harris, the force that led volunteers to build The Salvation Army building and church on Morgan Road, believes Christmas begins when the bells start ringing (to attract donors to drop money in the kettles).

In the past, the bells heralded the season on Dec. 1, but now the times are harder, the needs are greater and the call to give comes earlier. Those kettles reflect the spiritual light and love of the season; they remind us that the real meaning of Christmas won’t be forgotten.

Mae Harris’ life embodies the Christmas spirit of giving. Born in 1925, Harris started bringing people home after church for a meal during the Depression when she was just 12 or 13. Her mother could “create a meal from nothing” and feed 25 to 30 people on tomato gravy over rice.

Harris followed her mother in joining The Salvation Army church when the family lived in Durham. She was ordained as a minister in Atlanta in 1960. Her first assignment was in Richmond, Va., at a home for unwed mothers and hospital. While there, she earned a degree in cosmetology so she could do the girls’ hair “and not be sued.”

The Salvation Army first organized in the United Kingdom in 1865 by a former Methodist minister, William Booth, and his wife, Catherine. The new church, modeled after the military, aimed to provide soup, soap and salvation for the needy.

By the time Harris was promoted to Eden in 1980, she had led a headquarters building program in Shelby and served Lexington and Winston-Salem.

There was no Salvation Army headquarters when Harris came to Eden. The first home was upstairs in an old Methodist Church in the Flint Hill district in Spray. “Here is not everywhere, now is not always” is her motto for life.

Her “resources were hanging by a shoe string,” longtime board member Carol Kasten remembered. But Harris had a secret weapon — herself.

“That lady could walk on water. She can get blood out of a turnip,” said Jim Huffman, another board member. “Nothing discouraged her or the board.”

Huffman recalls one Christmas hearing complaints around town because Miller Brewing sponsored The Salvation Army float. Major Harris said she rang the bells for the red kettles at the Reidsville ABC store, and she didn’t care where she got money as long as it was used “for God’s work.”

One Christmas, Harris declared she wanted a Singing Christmas Tree in front of McDonald’s for a week. Bleachers were hauled from the old ball field near Draper. Preachers read the Christmas Story from the Bible every night. With help from Duane Best, then choral director at Morehead High School, the volunteers from local choirs sang each night of the week.

One of Harris’ fondest Christmas memories is putting up the nativity scene and decorations in the Spray circle. The Rev. Warwick Aiken, also a board member, liked to help her with the project.

One night they went to the circle to check on the nativity lights and found a homeless man nearby.

“Your Christ makes me sick. You put out a plastic baby in a cradle, and I don’t have a place to stay,” the man told Harris and Aiken.

They called the maintenance man from the Salvation Army to take the homeless man to the Margree Motel and put him up for the holiday week. Food was provided every day.

After the building on Flint Hill burned, Harris said, “There wasn’t even a paper clip to hold the Salvation Army together.”

But in a week’s time, the people of Eden and her board had moved to the old courthouse and jail building on Boone Road. The Salvation Army was back in business.

In the new building on Morgan Road, so much goes on each day to give to people in the community. A social worker gives out vouchers for clothing and other items from the Thrift Store that is moving to the vacant Merita store on King’s Highway. The Thrift Store employs people who need a new direction through the Adult Rehabilitation Center.

Mae Harris is 86 now. She lives in a house she bought in 1989 with the help of her board members. They were a working board, Huffman said, and became fast friends.

Many members remained on the board for years. Some earlier members have been “promoted to glory,” as Harris said, but she remembers each one and something special they did for her: Kasten, Huffman, Aiken, Raymond Endicott, Dot Mitchell, Carl Hall, Beverly Goldston, Homer Wright, Louise Price, Warren Wilson, Howard and Zane Mizell, Sunshine Bishopric and Ted Haapala.

Harris has some health issues. But she has no intention of letting them deter her from living a life of giving — the real meaning of Christmas.

She is all set to ring The Salvation Army bell at Walmart’s pharmacy. She’ll be calling on Huffman for a ride.

An Eden native, Rachel Wright is retired as a teacher at Morehead High School and an instructor at Rockingham Community College.