Near the end of the summer we were all kind of tired. We did a trip to a state park in an open truck, coming home late in the evening and everybody was cold and tired. Margaret Snelling decided that we should have chocolate before retiring. People were keyed up, over stimulated. When the chocolate got hot, a girl poured hers on Robert, a black counselor who was a friend of mine. I made him hold her while I poured the whole pot of chocolate on her. Margaret ordained that we should stay up while they made some more chocolate. That little incident strained relations considerably, but such things happen.
Ellie and I had our own thing going, and we enjoyed the summer immensely-- a new life was unfolding for us. We took some memorable trips on our days off, and spent a lot of time together on our duty hours. Life was good. We drove back to New Orleans together with Liz, an old lady who had been the cook. In many ways it was the best time of life--a time when I ceased to be alone--and never have been alone since. I have great sympathy for all men who have to live without a loving wife.
I had expected to move over to Dallas for the fall semester, but Ellie had changed my plans. She was a rising senior at Newcomb, the womens' division of Tulane. I had no intention of leaving that area, so I enrolled once again in the Baptist seminary. I had expected to find them too conservative (backward) to endure for three years, but they didn't prove so. They were backward, but not oppressively so.
Most of my theological education passed over very lightly. I have never taken formal education of any kind very seriously. I think I became thoroughly corrupted academically speaking at Duke, when I set out deliberately for the top grades--and nothing else. I had the same attitude at the seminary: I wanted the piece of paper; that's it. In general I had relatively little respect for the teachers. They were not my tribe; their intellect was relatively inferior. I remember very few of them and very few classroom scenes. I will here recall only two.
I think the Old Testament teacher's name was Judge Kennedy (I start out with some prejudice against a man whose first name is Judge!). He was one of the austere, patriarchal, literalists. He told us that the Hebrews were directed to exterminate the Canaanites because they were totally depraved. On another occasion I think we were discussing Jonah's miraculous visit in the insides of the big fish. I heard the usual foolish statement that if we can't believe the Bible (they meant literally), there's no basis for our faith. I rose and testified:
"I don't know whether Jonah spent three days in the belly of a fish or not. Whether he did or not is not the basis of my faith. The basis of my faith is what has happened to me. I was blind, and now I see." (I was referring to the story of the blind man in the 9th chapter of John.)
I later overheard Kennedy or someone saying that I had something to contribute; it was a pity I didn't work harder. (I always seemed to overhear these comments about myself.)
Everyone had to take Archaeology, taught by an old gentleman named Dr. Beaman who was almost universally considered a campus joke. A real romantic, he set out to prove the historicity of every story in the Bible. He sincerely believed the world was created in the year 4004 B.C. He had a high pitched voice and I remember one thing he said that I heartily agreed with. "Brethren", he said, "the Lord sure can use a crooked stick; he has used me." Sitting unobtrusively on the back row I thought to myself, "Beaman, you never made a truer statement." Seriously I learned something in that class. We're all crooked sticks, or speckled birds, a term I prefer which means the same thing.
Dad was preaching at St. Bernard that year. They had spent seven years at Oak Grove, his most successful pastorate, and the only county seat town he had served. Here he was in his element. He loved businessmen, believed in laissez faire capitalism, was a Republican and made mother into one, although her natural proclivities were liberal. After his seven years at Oak Grove he came back to the New Orleans area, first to Slidell on the north shore of the lake and then to a fairly new church which had been established down in St. Bernard Co. below the city. Some of the same people he had served at Chalmette were in the St. Bernard Church, especially the Quillans, my friend Edgar's parents and their whole family.
In the fall of 1957 they needed somebody to direct the choir, and Dad drafted me. I was a budding minister, 1st year student at the seminary, the preacher's son, about to get married. It all fit nicely. They were a nice group of people, and it was a pleasant experience. In the Spring we did the Easter Cantata which Dad had designed from various hymns and readings of scripture. Being a choir director really fit my personality better than being a pastor.
MARRIAGE
We set Dec. 21 for our wedding. We probably would have married much sooner had it been just up to me, but we wanted to observe the sensibilities of both families, so we waited a decent interval to satisfy everyone that it was right. We had a big wedding at the Algiers Methodist Church with a lot of political types there and of course the Algiers people and a handful of my family and friends. With the church full and two ministers in front of us I still remember vividly my feeling that there were really only three people directly concerned and present there. God, Ellie, and me. I've never had any reason to think differently.
We had the length of the Christmas holidays for our honeymoon. I had bought a pup tent, two sleeping bags and air mattresses (that's all I can remember) for the trip. We stowed this in the 1954 Chevrolet which Mother and Dad had given us and strapped my pirogue on the top and headed east.
We stopped the first night at Big Biloxi, a national forest campground a few miles north of Biloxi on a good sized creek. The next morning we loaded up the pirogue with various things for an all day trip and started down the creek. We got about 100 feet, came to a submerged log across the stream, turned broadside and immediately capsized. The water wasn't deep. We waded ashore and I ran a couple of hundred yards downstream to head off the pirogue. I remember standing there in the stream feeling like the safety man in a bowl game with the star runner bearing down on him, knowing that it was up to me to tackle him. I tackled the pirogue and got it under control.
One thing that surprised me about that episode is that I didn't get cold at all although it was a very cold day. We immediately built a fire and got into dry clothes and no real harm was done. We eventually went merrily on our way toward the east.
As I recall our next night we spent at Marianna St. Park in Florida. We got there a while before dark and made camp. We were the only ones there until this big old trailer pulled in from some northern state. The couple in it were desolated to learn of the lack of electricity at the camp sites. They had no idea what to do; we lent them a candle, which they greately appreciated.
The next stop was the Suwanee River. We had planned to do some extensive canoeing down the river. It was a large river with black water and a swift current. We paddled across it, and I decided not to venture any further. I guess the incident at Big Biloxi had made me cautious. I could see us getting in a real peck of trouble out in the wilderness, miles from any help.
We did put the pirogue in the water again, at Juniper Springs, and drifted down to the road, and walked back--a good ten miles. I thought surely we would get a ride, but no such luck. We enjoyed Juniper Springs and have gone back periodically ever since. I remember the albino squirrels who came to beg. It's a subtropical ecology, very exotic and attractive, especially in the middle of winter.
We also stayed at Highland Hammock and in the Everglades. We drove to one of the keys, but didn't go down as far as Key West. We came back up the west coast, stopped at Edison's home and were terribly impressed by the monstrous banyan tree there. We went across the Tampa Bay bridge in a terrible storm, and got a motel that night. The next night we were at a national forest camp in the Panhandle. A man was there, living in his car. It was below freezing that night, the coldest night of the trip. We've often thought about that man, the choice he had made and the lifestyle he pursued, in all likelihood from necessity.
ST JAMES
Ellie moved into the Kenilworth house with me. Dad had given us an old Chevrolet for a wedding present, and we also had the 1954 Ford which I had acquired soon after returning to New Orleans from the Navy. So she took one car to Newcomb, and I took the other one to the seminary. She went to Dad's choir with me on Thursday nights. She has always made the best use of her musical talents, the only person I know who is a skilled song leader without having very definite pitch.
We had no income during this time. We were living on the little money I had set aside from navy days. I knew I had to find work soon. Clarence offered me the position of program director at Valley Camp for the summer; it would not have gone very far toward a year's finances. Then the Methodist Church came through. I had been licensed as a local preacher, and they offered me the church at St. James. Clarence felt I wasn't ready for it, but I was hot to go and, more important, needed the money.
In June of 1957 Ellie graduated at Newcomb and we moved over to Marrero. As I recall the church had 38 members. They were largely rural people who had come to the area to work for the oil companies. It was not home to them; they didn't like it, wished they were back home. In no way could we reproduce for them the religious experiences they had enjoyed in their rural areas.
Mr. Milstead was the main and probably most responsible member. He was an oilfield man from Texas, a good man, but limited, as we all were in that situation. Mrs. Rogers was the spiritual giant. She and her mother, Mrs. Terry, apparently came from the Methodist Protestant group and thought they were living above sin. I tried (unsuccessfully) for a year to convince them to the contrary.
Mr. Milstead was the main and probably most responsible member. He was an oilfield man from Texas, a good man, but limited, as we all were in that situation. Mrs. Rogers was the spiritual giant. She and her mother, Mrs. Terry, apparently came from the Methodist Protestant group and thought they were living above sin. I tried (unsuccessfully) for a year to convince them to the contrary. She wanted her little boy to learn piano and prevailed upon me to come over once a week and give him a lesson. It wasn't a very successful learning experience for either of us.
The Moormans (two or three families of them) were rural Mississippians, good, plain people. They never missed a service, and they always said they would be there, "if nothing happens". I understood that it was probably a corruption of "if God wills". Many years later we found that Moorman was a Quaker family originally. Very possible their "if nothing happens" may have been a corruption of the Quaker caveat, "as way opens". But enough of that.
Ray Tenken was my special friend at the church, a navy man. He and his wife were a little different from the rest of the group. Not rural southerners, the Tenkens were always outsiders like the Claytons, and hence we were closer to them. Mistake. A pastor above all must not have any special friends.
Mr. Moore was Sunday School superintendent. Once I was visiting his home and his wife informed me that she knew there would be nigras in heaven, but they wouldn't be anywhere near her. In those days we were "coming up out of the miry clay" as far as race relations is concerned. The school desegregation ruling had come down in 1954, and not a lot had happened since then. I had liberal views about race, but I knew if I opened my mouth about the subject I would immediately be in trouble.
What to do? I kept my counsel until Race Relations Day in Feb., and then I let them have both barrels. I said the spirit of Christ was stronger in that Catholic Church down the street where negroes worshiped with whites. To rural southerners that was like waving a red flag at a bull. I said I knew some people who would eventually get up to Heaven, and St. Peter would assign them a place to sing in the celestial choir, and they would look up and discover that that section of the choir was directed by a great big black negro. They would have their choice, to sing under his direction or to go find themselves a segregated corner of hell.
The good folks told the district superintendent that I didn't visit enough, and we were on our way in June. It was a great shock to me to learn this, and a hard matter to deal with. I felt (with some truth) that I was being persecuted for righteousness sake. Actually I had been a damn fool; the extenuating circumstances are that I had only known how to talk to anybody about anything for a very short time. But I was learning. A minister to have any success at all has to be a master politician. My daddy never really learned that lesson, and he was kicked around from pillar to post his entire professional life. I was determined to do better, and I did better for the rest of my career with the church. I did uproot my children once; thankfully they didn't have to change schools a dozen times like I did. They didn't have to walk ten miles to school, through the snow, barefooted.....
Paul came in October that year. Ellie had a hard time for a full day. Meanwhile I was going about my (so important!) pastoral business, making points, focused on everyone but her. Luckily God and her doctor looked after her. I remember sitting in the waiting room late at night. As I recall Edgar came by, bless his heart. I remember late in the night the doctor coming to ask me if he should do a Caesarean, and I told him of course to do what he thought best.
Paul came into the world about 3 A.M. The first time I laid eyes on him I said, "There's the Billy Cannon of 1980. (Billy Cannon at the time was a phenomenal ball carrier for the LSU football team.) Paul had a big chest, a more highly developed torso than I expected. He wasn't a Clayton physically! He was a Babylon. Mark later seemed to have more intermediate characteristics, and Rob seemed to me more of a Clayton than either of the others. Genes, genes, genes! One basis for that judgment was that the first two were more mechanically oriented, more graphically, while Rob is about as unmechanical as I am and musically inclined. I love them all, equally, I hope.
Late May came, and we had made plans to vacation in the Smokies (a life changing choice!). Our future was very much up in the air. Henry Rickey, my D.S. was skeptical about finding me another place; I had visions of pumping gas for a living. I was very upset about the rejection of my congregation. I couldn't sleep the last night and got Ellie up before 4 A.M. to begin the trip. I found driving a little more comfortable than laying in bed staring at the wall.
I know that trip was hard on Paul. It was hard for all of us, but as I said above, life changing. We fell hard for the Smokies. I remember more of that two weeks than most periods at that time. I remember the first time we camped in the Smokies; it gave me a story I've repeated to innumerable people, and probably to some people innumerable times. I had set up the pup tent at Chimney's (a campground in those days), and was sitting there resting, when this Yankee lady came running down the road. I could tell her region by her speech. "Can you tell me where I can find a ranger." "No ma'am, I'm afraid I can't." "Well a bear has gotten into our car, and we don't know what to do." "Lady, I'm sorry, I can't help you in the least." She continued running down the road. It gets a little bit funnier every time I think about it. Of such is the kingdom of God.
After Chimneys we stopped at Smokemont, the first of many times. We found the mountains enchanting. So many times I've been in that kind of situation, an unhappy place behind and an alluring one before. That's almost my name; I guess it's often what has kept me going. We made two circuits around the east end of the park (I think the second must have been on our second trip the following year.) The first time we drove a good 30 miles on a dirt road around to Cataloochee and on to Tennessee. We visited Cosby and Greenbriar--at that time a primitive campground on the Gatlinburg-Cosby road. At Greenbriar we were there alone, except for a bear. We could see his eyes a ways from the campfire, and the next morning we found he had mauled my shaving kit. This was a leather bag, a present from the Cesar Franck Choral Society when I had left for the navy.
We had to neglect Paul at times. I remember putting him in a swing somewhere while we did camp chores over his protest. The first child always gets the short end; the parents learn by the mistakes they make on him. If I had it all to do over, I would do a lot of things differently. Years later Dr. Carlton Adams was talking in this vein: he had been dealing with his granddaughter. She wanted to do something 'wrong'. He didn't tell her no. He just told her the consequences and let her make up her own mind. And he said to us, "Why didn't I have that much sense with my own?"
The second trip (probably the second year) we made a wider circuit--to Lake Junaluska and from there to Hot Springs. The clutch was slipping, and it was foolhardy to attempt to cross those mountains. We managed to get across with the clutch almost gone. We got to Newport and had a new clutch put in. Luckily I had the money or a credit card. As I remember that was the old Chevrolet which Daddy had given us. In 1960 he gave us a newer Chevrolet, his blue 57 with only 35,000 miles on it. That was a lovely car; we drove it well over another 100,000 miles. But the first week we had it (smelling so nice) we managed to get four kinds of human and animal excrement in it. Life was hard in those days.
We returned to Louisiana in time for the Annual Conference at Shreveport. Wonders! Willie Poole, one of the real good guys in the fraternity of ecclesiastical politicians, had picked me up, and we were going to Angie/Varnado. The good folks at St. James had done me a favor by asking for someone else to struggle with them for the coming year.
ANGIE/VARNADO
Angie/Varnado was not exactly a great church, but a step up the ladder. Like St. James they were paying for a new building, at Varnado, the biggest of the two churches. The parsonage was at Angie next to a church with a very small congregation. The schedule at the seminary ran from Tuesday through Friday to allow people like me to commute to outlying pastorates; some went as far as Arkansas. I stayed in the dorm 3 nights and with Ellie the other four.
She had a bike which she used for local shopping--about two blocks to the center of town with probably one grocery store/gas station. Often she would strap young Paul in the front basket and wheel over for the groceries. On the whole it must have been a thin time for her.
I had learned my lesson, and at Angie/Varnado I was careful not to offend the members. They seemed to appreciate me, and we might have stayed there as long as we cared to. We did in fact--two years. It wasn't that they couldn't stand me; they liked me, but I couldn't stand them--not as persons, but the situation I was in. I liked them, and most of our relationships were extremely amiable.
I remember old Mrs. Varnado (one of 4), who reacted so respectfully when I knocked on her door. "It's our pastor.", she said in a reverential or at least delighted voice. I went back to the seminary and told Billy McMinn that the people up there made me feel like a lord of creation. Her comment was fairly representative of the good people at Varnado; they knew how to be very polite and warm with their preacher.
Varnado appeared to be an old saw mill town, from which all the respectable people had moved away long ago. Two (very large) families remained: the Methodist Forneas and the Baptist Seals. They were just like the Hatfields and the McCoys. The railroad track ran down the middle of the two with the Methodist church on one side and the Baptist on the other.
The Forneas made up about 80% of our membership. There were four old Fornea men (not all living) who had married four Stallings girls (all living as I recall), and each of the four families had had a pile of children. I can't reconstruct all the relationships after these many years, but they were important at the time.
Al and Myrt were our best friends and kind of godfathers. We went back to see them once after we had left. Al was a very easy going, cheerful type and affirming to me. He must have been retired; I don't remember anything about his work. They had a horse named Prince, virtually a large colt, but very tame and easy to ride. Al let me ride Prince whenever I wanted to; I made several long rides through the woods in the area.
A lady named Yvonne Jones was one of the active members and seemed a bit less tribalistic than most of the Forneas. Her husband, named Snow, was less religious, but perfectly affable. I remember one snatch of conversation with Yvonne: I had suggested there is more important work to do in Heaven, and she commented that oh, she hoped there wasn't any work in Heaven; she was getting enough of that here.
Dr. Lewis, an Oklahoman, had settled in the area and with his wife, children, and parents become mainstays of our church. He lived on a farm between Varnado and Angie, kept cattle, and was not as popular with the people as Muggins Fornea. As I recall, they practiced together.
One of Muggins brothers was a druggist and a bad drug addict. Another brother, Scrap, taught high school and coached football. Scrap had a very strange mentality, perhaps the most intellectual of the Forneas, but I felt that his ideas often seemed twisted, cynical perhaps, distorted in a kind of strange, illusive way. I suppose it was inevitable considering the checkered career of his family.
Another brother, John Paul, worked with timber, I believe, as did quite a few of the Forneas. John Paul was Sunday School superintendent and took up the collection. This group of brothers had a mother who seemed bright and whom I liked very much although she wasn't active in church. It was very clear that she had had a hard life, but she had made the best of things. Her husband was dead.
Mutt and Bull may have belonged to the same family; I'm not sure. Mutt, one of the younger brothers worked with timber, wasn't very bright, and was an alcoholic. Muggins was an alcoholic, John Paul was an alcoholic, the druggist was a drug addict. All you could say about Bull was that he was plain sorry. Actually it was a pretty sorry family, I'm afraid, but they more or less dominated society in Varnado. I came to realize that I couldn't really help them without dedicating my whole life to the project, and that I wasn't willing to do. That decision determined me to leave the area.
I remember two of the old Fornea men. Joe, the father of Al, but I don't remember any of Al's siblings. Then there was Tom and Louella. She was the one who had been so pleased with a visit from her pastor. They were rural types, attached to their garden. They were both quite feeble; they would take a chair out into the garden and sit there and do gardening.
Tom had been a climber at the Crown Zellerbach Paper Mill. It apparently involved putting his body weight transversely on his legs for long periods. The years had caused marked deformation of his legs, but I don't think workmen's compensation ever occured to him. Al operated a drag line for the paper company.
Tom's son, Johnny, was a kind of anxious type. He had a wife and 5 or 6 children, at least one of them married, to a Boone man. Johnny and his wife had apparently had problems for some time, although she gave no sign to me. She just went home suddenly--after 20 years of marriage, leaving Johnny in a terrible state.
She was the sister of John Dawson, as I remember. He had married a Fornea girl, likely Johnny's sister. He was a solid citizen. Sputnik had recently gone up, and there was talk of man going to the moon. He said he didn't think that would happen because God put the moon up for a lesser light by night, quoting Genesis of course. I told him that if God didn't mean for man to go to the moon, it wouldn't happen.
Mr. Harris was school principle. He and his wife were good Baptists, but attended our church faithfully. Apparently the local Baptist church didn't meet his criteria. He was a man of extremely good character, one that I would have liked to become friends with. Once they invited us home for dinner after church. I looked forward to some good conversation with him, but he just wanted to watch the football game. I suppose he was old and tired, and had enough social intercourse at the school. We all have different needs.
I set as a goal to bring the town together. I attempted to cultivate the Baptists as well as the Methodists. Someone invited me to their revival so I went. I must have made quite an impression on them because a few weeks later, when we had our revival on Thursday night, practically the whole Baptist congregation gave us a visit. It had never happened before.
We were glad to learn that we were coming back to Angie/Varnado for a second year. We made arrangements to have Paul baptized that year at conference. Coincidentally the name we had given him (for Paul the apostle and Martin, the reformer) was just the name of the bishop, Paul Martin, and the bishop foolishly thought we had named our first son after him. Of course we made no attempt to disabuse him of that idea. He and daddy officiated at the baptism, it being quite customary for preachers' children to be baptized at conference.
Another funny thing happened at that conference. A midwestern preacher named Webb Garrison, I think, was preaching during the conference. Daddy and I had gotten into a theological conversation. I guess he quoted Jesus words, "he that is not for me is against me." I reminded him that Jesus had also said, "he that is not against me is for me." He denied this, "oh no, he didn't say any such thing." Then the preacher used those very words for his text in the next sermon.
On another occasion one of daddy's acquaintances was talking with us about my joining the conference (I became an elder and full member that year), and said (jokingly of course), "well I hope you make a better preacher than your daddy." Pretty bad joke, I thought. I replied, "I only hope I can do half as well."
Fred St Amant was an even poorer politician than daddy. He was always sticking in his oar for a losing cause. The bishop once referred to him as the watchdog of the conference, but of course he had very little success in climbing the career ladder. He had been on my licensing committee and had made a big deal about smoking. He said he was sick and tired of seeing these young preachers come through the committee and faithfully promise not to smoke, and the next week he would see them on the street with a cigarette in their hand. I faithfully promised him not to smoke, but the next year I found him at conference and accosted him as follows, "Well Fred you got me on my cigarettes, but you didn't say a word about my beer; I'm in the clear on that." In those days it was understood by everyone that Methodist ministers did not do things like smoke and drink, although in times past drinking on the frontier had been well nigh universal.
(According to his journal Francis Asbury once stayed at the home of my gggg grandfather, David Leech. They sat down and "He offered me a Bible and a bottle of brandy; I took one." (We'll never know which one.))
Back at Varnado money as usual was tight. We had payments to make on the church mortgage. On one such occasion nothing was coming in, so we decided to hold a fish fry and try to raise the money. Varnado is near the Pearl river, and most of these people were outdoorsmen and fishermen, but nobody was catching anything at that particular time. Until the day of the fish fry, the ladies were about to buy chicken to serve, when a church relation, a man I never saw who practically lived in the woods, came in with a 95 pound channel cat. That's all the fish we needed to raise our mortgage payment.
The second year I was prevailed on to be Scoutmaster, just as had happened to Dad years before. Unlike him I took to it readily. The church work was so minimal and relatively insignificant that I was delighted to find another meaningful activity. The troop was made up largely of 11 year olds, enthusiastic about all outdoor, grown up activities. I was able to give them a few such experiences--as meaningful to me as to them. I tried to introduce them to horse back riding--with Prince and another horse that Dr. Lewis had lent. All went well except for one boy. He didn't want to ride, but I insisted. When he mounted, Prince immediately realized he was afraid and started for home. The boy fell off, luckily without being seriously hurt.
A dreadful calamity. I made a visit to the boy's house to explain the incident to his mother and to apologize. She was not nasty about it at all, very understanding.
Even with the scouts I has hard up for something to do: I found a book about Christian Yoga and began the discipline--one of the few things I have stuck to for the past 40 odd years, mainly the physical part. The exercises have stood me in good stead through the years, helped me to settle down many times when I was agitated or upset about something. We also began watching the stars, and even went so far as to get a large telescope. And I studied Greek; enjoyed that very much and might have continued if I had stayed there.
But I was getting pretty frustrated. Nothing significant seemed to be happening in the church. It seemed like a real hard case. I realized that to make any real impact in that community it would be necessary to give my life to it, and I knew all too well that I didn't want to do that. In desperation I thought of going to see my old Greek mythology professor at Duke to see if I could study Greek with him. Or trying to get a job in Scouting. Anything to get out of my present circumstances.
We were drawn irresistibly to the Smokies; Louisiana no longer had any attraction. I reasoned that as a second generation Methodist minister it would be better for me to work in a different conference where my father was not known. (That has its pros and cons like most things.) So I went to the bishop's office in New Orleans. Bessie Kerr, one of Dad's old members at St. Mark's was secretary there, and she found for me the addresses of the District Superintendents who seemed on the map to serve in the North Carolina mountains. I wrote to five of them requesting an interview re a possible appointment. I received invitations from all, so we planned our trip in April and hit the road.
The first man, Dr. Few of Gastonia, didn't want us and didn't need us. I could discern that from the hour we spent together. Bob Tuttle was a man with a great reputation in the conference; I found it surprising he didn't make bishop. He had a great missionary zeal. He served the Asheville district and tried to interest me in Bald Creek. He earnestly discussed a number of his rural appointments and usually summarized them in one of four ways: the worst ones had neither water nor industry, some had one thing, but not the other, and the best ones of course had water and industry. As he talked his eyes were pointed toward me, but I felt that he didn't see me at all; I didn't feel any warmth in the man. I decided that he needed us, but didn't want us.
Fletcher Nelson of Morganton made a really big impression on us. A big, warm hearted man, he had worked as president of Lees McRae College at Banner Elk and later worked in Development at Duke. He was doing a stint in the cabinet. He didn't need us, but seemed to want us. I think he would have made a place for us out of the goodness of his heart. He was from Arkansas, and had been roommates with Aubrey Walton, my Louisiana bishop. He told us among other things that he frequently went to the Smokies where he would get an Indian off the reservation as a guide and go fishing. That was practically the only time I had any conversation with him, but I'm glad I met Fletcher Nelson.
Garland Stafford was superintendent at North Wilkesboro. He wanted us and needed us, so there we went. He originally had us slated for Watauga Circuit, west of Boone. Bishop Harmon, a Mississippian, vetoed that idea when he learned we were from Louisiana, "Don't send that man to Watauga; he'll freeze to death up there." So we got Millers Creek, about as happy an appointment as I have ever known.
After the April trip to North Carolina, our third consecutive spring in the Smokies, I went home and told my good church folk what I had done. They would have been glad for me to stay, but accepted the fact that I wanted greener pastures. Not so the bishop. He came with other brass for the dedication of our sanctuary. He didn't really think very highly of me; I could tell by his manner, being fairly intuitive. Anyway we had the dedication, and I said nothing to him about my plans. Then I wrote him about them requesting to be transferred to the WNC conference. I said that his old roommate, Fletcher Nelson, had convinced me the fishing was better up there. He replied angrily: he was piqued because I had told my congregation. "You may not move", he said, but I wasn't worried. I knew he was just ventilating his displeasure at my presumption.
I understand the Methodist connectional system better than most people, from having lived in it throughout my childhood. I used to tell people that at the age of 9 I sat in our living room and listened to the presiding elder (District Superintendent nowadays) lying to my father about where we would be living the following year. (That may not be strictly true, but it's poetically true.) I knew that the big shots expected to use the little men for their own purposes. You got your appointment at their pleasure, saluted and said yes, sir. They made their own appointments dealing directly with the larger congregations. I've noticed many of the biggest preachers went to a new conference at every appointment. And I also knew that by jumping to another conference I would have a chance to do some bargaining that was not open to me in Louisiana. Bishop Walton just hated to see a little fellow like me doing such a thing. But he really had no choice, but to accept Bishop Harmon's request for me when it came. Through the years I have found myself in that position re authority all too often.
In 1961 we attended two conferences: first the Louisiana conference in May, a kind of bittersweet farewell hearing my appointment as transferred to the Western North Carolina Conference; then in June we attended the WNC at Lake Junaluska, and found out about Millers Creek. In between we spent a pleasant three homeless weeks exploring the mountains more deeply and fully than we had, especially the northern section. I guess I had an inkling that we would be in the North Wilkesboro area, so we looked around up there.
After conference I left Ellie with one car and two babies in the campground at Julian Price while I drove back to get the U-Haul trailer which contained all our possessions. I drank four cups of coffee and drove right through--close to 24 hours driving as I recall, some 900 odd miles. I had the old black Chevrolet, and it gave out crossing the mountains between Elizabeth City and Boone. I found a local mechanic and asked him to help, then hitchhiked back to Julian Price. We went back for the car a day or two later. He had made a major repair job and asked me if I thought $40 would be too much. I was very happy to get by with $40; it would have cost at least twice that much in a larger population center. We drove tandem down to Millers Creek, and my brakes just about gave out going down the escarpment. I was pretty foolhardy to take that thing down the hill with the trailer behind and no brakes, but managed to make it.
MILLERS CREEK/UNION/ARBOR GROVE/CHARITY
I was really delighted with Millers Creek--a much larger congregation than we had been struggling with in Washington Parish. Four churches with a combined membership of around 600. The main church was a lovely little pocket cathedral, a T shaped building with Georgian columns, everything lovely, a divided chancel, robed choir. It was really the high church of that part of the county, both a blessing and a curse. The blessing was that we had the best people in the area, many teachers and generally high class cultured people. The curse was that no one else in the area would be caught dead in such a place. Evangelism seemed to be a hopeless proposition there.
Arbor Grove and Union each had almost as many members as Millers Creek, but they were very different. Arbor Grove was a mountain community; it was more like a Baptist church than most, the people very independent and tending toward fractious. They had once locked out their preacher, Rev. J.L.A.Bumgarner. He preached on the steps and told them they would love him before he was through there, and he was right. The worst thing was the former pastor had married a girl from Arbor Grove. I suppose the people there liked me the least of all the churches, but we had a relationship of mutual respect. They knew I had a measure of integrity and they tolerated me as their pastor, about as well as they would have tolerated anybody. They would much preferred to have had a local person for pastor. In fact there was a Baptist minister living on each side of the church, two fine gentlemen who became very good friends.
Dol Eller had a really sterling character, I thought. He pastored Lewis Fork Baptist Church about ten miles southwest of us, but he lived next door to Arbor Grove. At least one of his daughters was a member of Arbor Grove; I think she was the one married to Paul Warren, a truck driver who had a brother at Union, one of my other churches. Many of the families at each church were closely related to people at the other churches.
Dol had two twin daughters who were rather odd. They seemed to have emotional problems and difficulty adjusting to the ordinary world. They were in the Mental Hospital at Morganton several times. Finally the two went together. They had agreed that if they were separated they would die. The doctors did in fact separate them, and they did in fact both immediately die. Curious.
While we lived at Millers Creek, Dol Eller got word that he had prostate cancer. He declined the course of treatment which the doctors proposed. I visited him regularly during his decline, and of course he eventually died. Actually visiting the ill and buying the dead were two of my primary functions as pastor of this large group of Methodists. I often found myself for that matter assisting at the burial of Baptist folk, especially after I got involved with dozens of alcoholics in the community; they were more apt to be Baptists, and they wanted me to help with the funeral of their parents, etc. We were a little island of Methodists in a sea of Baptists. I had a pretty good reputation with the Baptists, perhaps partly because I had attended a Baptist school, more significantly I believe because I made it my business to be sociable and respectful to them all.
I don't know where Wiley Carroll pastored; he lived on the other side of Arbor Grove. I visited him as often as I did Dol Eller, largely because he had three sons suffering from muscular dystrophy. A terrible misfortune and calamity for good people; they made the best of it, did what they could for those boys. Each one had a small platform with skate wheels upon which they would wheel around the house.
I was invited to attend a weekly meeting of Baptist preachers. I accepted. It was largely a prayer meeting. There were about 5 or 6 or us. After greeting one another one started praying; soon another, and soon all 5 of them (us) were praying vocally, raising our voices to our common God. It sounded rather cacaphonous. I respected those people, but I never went back to that meeting.
On another occasion we visited a Primitive Baptist Church up near the Blue Ridge. The pastor there began to preacher, and he was not speaking but singing. With a smile on his face he carried out a very melodious singsong type of delivery of his message. Custom of the place.
One of the members at Millers Creek had come from a primitive Baptist background. She had apparently run from it fast enough to marry into the best family in Millers Creek, and she was still running fast. I suspect she had a lot to do with the divided chancel and robed choir. Near the end of my five years there she asked me if I would wear a (preacher's) robe if she bought it. I told her I sincerely hoped it wouldn't come to that. I often think about that woman and about how her religion was mixed up (I should say contaminated) by her social pretensions. She had achieved the height in her community (religiously speaking), but she wanted it higher. I felt just the opposite. I felt that they had isolated themselves from the community and severely handicapped the amount of good they could do. They were wonderful people, but they had no concept of reaching out to others in the community.
My final and most significant (to me) Baptist story concerns Rev. Jack Miller of Harmony, down the road between Millers Creek and Union. He was a terrific evangelist; people were crowding in to his church in droves. His style of preaching was to give them unmitigated hell. And they asked for more. I attended a revival they were holding, an uncommon thing for a Methodist minister to do in that area. He was pleased and gracious so I invited him to come preach at Millers Creek some Sunday night. He came; the good people knew what to expect, and those who came heard him prayerfully. That night as we were leaving, after all the laymen had been greeted and filed out, he was in a warm kind of mood, and he told me that he had wrecked 8 cars before he became a minister. A man full of aggression; he had redirected it in a dramatic way.
It is easy to feel contemptuous about that kind of religion. But I had to face the fact that he had about 10 times as many reformed drunkards in his pews as I had, although I had particularly specialized in that area. Maybe they needed the law, and he gave them the law. Maybe they needed to transfer their dependence from one strong influence to another. I don't know the answer, but I know he was doing some good; as we say in the holy vernacular, the Lord was using him.
My real pride and joy at Millers Creek was Charity. A real mountain church, it had 28 members. As one of them said "we're too small to fight." They were lovely; they expected nothing and were so grateful for the things I did for them. Two of the members, two maiden ladies named Miss Bessie and Miss Dollie lived in a 19th century farmhouse, complete with a well, and lived pretty near a 19th century lifestyle.
Miss Bessie was communion stewart. First you should know that the Methodist for many years have frowned on any use of alcohol. Our communion wine is grape juice. At the four churches on the Millers Creek charge we served communion only once or twice a year rather than the more customary once a month. Well time came for communion at Charity. I had forgotten until the last minute, so I told Miss Bessie not to worry about the grape juice, that I would bring some. She said, "you don't need to do that; I have it."
I preached on the first miracle, the turning of water into wine. Then I proceeded with the Lord's Supper. The preacher (acting as priest) is supposed to partake first, the idea being I suppose that he thereby becomes worthy enough to serve the others. Well I partook of that grape juice; it was the best grape juice I had ever tasted. Homegrown in fact. They cap the bottle but don't shut out entirely all fermenting agencies. Then they let it sit on their shelf a while. You might say they had a sort of 19th century communion service at Charity.
The last pastor had planned to shut down Charity and send its 28 members to Millers Creek. I saw no such need and in fact enjoyed very much going up there once a month to spend an hour with them. The church prospered. It was strictly a one room deal, but they decided to put three rooms on the back in the form of a T. We met to discuss the financing. Mr. Clayton McGlamery, bless his heart, a wonderful great saint and dear friend, began, "I'll give $100." The next person said "I'll give $100." I was sitting there so I agreed to give $100. Then came Miss Bessie. Miss Bessie hesitated and then commited herself, "Dolly and I'll give $50." Mr. McGlamery replied, "Now Bessie, you can do better than that." And she did. Ah they were wonderful people, and my memories of Charity were all fond ones. Our little ones called it Chekki. Paul was great for coming up with close approximations of words he had not yet fully mastered. He enjoyed going to Chekki just like I did.
When we went to Millers Creek we were told they would build a new parsonage. Meanwhile we were housed in an old house, about equivalent to the one in Angie. No problem for a while, but nothing happened about the new parsonage. No one seemed in any hurry to do anything. After about a year I got on my horse and started pushing it. It took me a while to figure out how to get it going. Finally I drew three floor plans (just call me an amateur architect), took it to the board meeting, and asked them which they liked best. That was it. Van Caudill wanted a bigger house, but I felt 30 by 50 was big enough--plus a full basement with two finished rooms, an extra bedroom and my study.
When it was completed, I felt like it was perfect. Anything more would have been foolish extravagance. It was certainly as comfortable a house as we have ever lived in. I came to question our level of comfort in fact. Why should people living in very modest circumstances give their scarce money to keep their preacher in such affluence. That's a question I have never been able to answer satisfactorily. In my own mind I simply can't justify a man of God living better than the people he is supposed to be serving.
I came to feel that ministers have been seduced to the standard of godless American materialism. Their success is measured by their level of affluence. Every man prefers to be the banker's pastor rather than concentrating on the needy. The banker of course wants his preacher to have a respectable life style, to take some of the heat off himself for his own extravagance--and acquisitiveness. These things contradict the gospel, but one hears about that all too rarely. These considerations had a real part in my decision after 8 years as a pastor to give up professional religion.
The question came to a head for me when I made a trip to Charlotte to see one of our brother ministers named Jerome Hunnicutt. I can't recall the purpose of that visit, but I remember vividly the effect it had on me. It was my first meeting with Bro Hunnicutt, and here is my impression: he was serving a middle sized city church, the kind of place that I could expect to attain if I behaved myself and acted discreetly for about 10 years. But his problem was he needed two Buicks; one for himself and one for his daughter. It seemed really strange to me that his mind was on that to a marked degree. Apparently he felt the need to keep up with the banker, which I take to be an incurable disease. There is always someone a little better off that you need to equal. Unhappiness! And certainly a long way from the Christian gospel. Bro Jerome helped set me free from the need to be a professional minister, and for that I thank him.
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