Iris ‘Ms. Iris’ Taylor-Brewster, was one of the local busy bodies. She had been married to the Postmaster, William ‘Squeak’ Brewster but he died of a heart attack a few years back. He got his nickname because he was an large fellow and every time he would squeeze himself into the little mail truck the extreme stress on the frame would let out a large squeak. The same being true when he would hurl himself out.
It was always rumored that Ms. Iris and Squeak would sit in the back of the post office and steam open letters in the cover of night because Ms. Iris always seemed to know things she would have no other way of knowing. Medical conditions. Illicit Affairs. Debts. Ms. Iris knew these things and sprinkled them into the gossip vine.
Ms. Iris was the church treasurer and president of the ‘Hosanna in the Highest’ Bible study group at the First Baptist Church of Julep. When her husband died her faith strengthened and she became very interested in “The Holy Land”. “I don’t want to die and not have walked in the land of our savior.” She went about organizing a trip for her Bible study group to visit Jerusalem. This wiped out the yearly missionary budget but since she was the treasurer and knew everyone's secrets it was hard to disagree.
On the trip she became enraptured by the spiritual goings on at the Western “Wailing” Wall. In particular, the business of stuffing messages in the wall piqued her interest. When nobody was looking she would grab a letter or two and stuff it in her pocket and sneak off to read them in a public restroom. “It’s like listening to someone’s prayers." But all the letters she tried to read were written in another language so she put them back. “Best to let lay what you don’t know…"
When the group arrived back home Ms. Iris found herself constantly thinking about the wall and the letters. Since ol’ Squeak had died she no longer had access to the back room of the post office. Her gossip coffers were emptying and with that her power to influence others to do her bidding.
She proposed an idea to the ‘Hosanna in the Highest’ bible study group. Perhaps they could create a Western Wall of sorts at Julep First Baptist and teach the congregation about what they had learned in their time abroad. “This could be a place we could create for people to go and contemplate their faith.” The group though it was a novel idea and the ones that still had living husbands guilted them into creating a little wall in the yard of the church, complete with little holes for letters, and a little box full of scrap paper and golf pencils.
The Julep Gazette ran an article about the William ‘Squeak’ Brewster Memorial Wall of Prayer and many of the townspeople began to utilize this place of interdenominational worship. Methodist, Presbyterian, and the three catholic families in town could all be seen going to the wall, writing out a prayer, and stuffing it in. Over time it became part of the culture of the town. One of the quirks. People used it as a sort of confessional, they would write their wishes, sorrows, and secrets in official documents to the divine...Ms. Iris watched from a bench in the garden and salivated over the secrets.
Iris Taylor-Brewster may have lost her husband, but she got her mail room back.