GOOD DAYS IN ROCKFORD, ILLINOIS
I've never heard of a faster move than ours when we changed our address from Houstonia, Missouri, to Rockford, Illinois on March 26, 1960! We had all our possessions well in shape to move, but had not anticipated the speed with which the men from Evergreen Covenant Church moved us. The men with the truck started an hour or so before we could leave.
We drove slowly out of town, taking a last look at the familiar church building and homes of friends. We saw one elderly lady hoeing in her garden, waving goodbye with her hoe. Only a few months before we had visited her in the hospital in Kansas City, finding her lying totally paralyzed from a severe stroke. Now she was out hoeing in the garden! That was a good feeling, and we thanked the Lord again that she was strong and able to tend her garden again.
Frank Johnson, the Rockford man assigned to ride with us, had the exact route marked on a map so there was no possibility of our becoming lost. We drove angling northeast across Missouri, and into Iowa. Somewhere near Des Moines we had a flat tire on our old Chevy. We quickly put the spare on, but had to stop in the city to buy a replacement tire at the Wards tire store. We had lunch there, too, and then were on our way again. The truck was well ahead of us, and arrived in Rockford some time before we did.
The church did not own a parsonage then, and had rented a large farmhouse for us, about three miles from the church. When the truck arrived, the wives of the men who were helping with the move, and others, joined in putting our furniture in what they thought were the appropriate places. Thus when we arrived there was hot food for all, and a great time of getting acquainted. Tired from the long drive, I remember, we really appreciated the thorough way in which our move had been done. Even the beds were made, all ready for our rest! The men of the church, who had worked together in the same way in building the church building, took real pride in their way of cooperating and getting involved in the work with their hands. That was the typical good spirit seen among the whole congregation. When we later had work days at the church we never lacked sufficient workers; everyone--men, women, and children--would turn out. That move was completed on Saturday, March 26, 1960. The next morning I preached my first regular sermon at Evergreen Church to a good audience. We had much "settling in" to do, so most of the following week was taken up with that.
First, David and Mary had to be enrolled in school. We found that the parsonage was located not in the Rockford school district but in that of Winnebago, a small town about fifteen miles from Rockford. We had to take them there, get them registered, and arrange for the school bus to stop for them. Then there was the problem of having a phone installed, so that we could be in touch with the people of the church. I found the daily 3 mile drive to the church, to my study, something of a nuisance. I began to spend my mornings at the study, in prayer, and preparation for the sermons and Bible study lessons for the week. Then I would go home for lunch, and spend most afternoons on necessary errands and making home visits to my parishioners. I tried to make "loop" trips, to reach as many as possible in the fewest possible miles of driving. Although our salary at Evergreen was considerably larger than we had enjoyed in Houstonia, there was no leeway for waste.
About half of the congregation consisted of people who worked in town, mostly in the hospitals (nurses) and factories (skilled machinists, tool and die finishers), and the other half those who farmed. It was an interesting group of skilled people. Of course, there were also several elderly retired people. I had a wide territory in which to make visits. While visiting members in the farming area, I often stopped to get acquainted with the people who lived on other farms. Some of these later began to attend the church services. Church membership was then about seventy-five, with morning worship attendance at around one hundred. Sunday School attendance was almost double that, around two hundred. Many children from the neighborhood came to Sunday School, though their parents seldom came. Those statistics increased a little in the next few years, but not a great deal.
I soon learned that there were seven Covenant churches in Rockford, with another in nearby Stillman Valley, 20 miles west. Pastor of the latter church was one of our old friends from seminary days, John Bergman. Pastor Swenson of First Covenant Church, that had planted most of the others in the Rockford area, felt some responsibility for us who were pastors of the smaller churches. We met frequently with him for talks and prayer together. The whole atmosphere in Rockford was wonderful, with many very committed Christians working hard in their churches.
My schedule was a busy one, with sermons to prepare for Sunday morning and evening services, and a Bible study for the mid-week prayer meeting. I also taught an adult Sunday School class most of the time while there at Rockford. Then, beginning in the fall each year, I had the Confirmation Class of Junior High age young people meeting with me each Saturday morning. This course of study ran about nine months. At least my hospital visits were nearby. Three women of the church were registered nurses, working in the Swedish American hospital in Rockford. When ill, most of our people went to that hospital, where the care was excellent.
At Jane's wise insistence, we started both David and Mary in piano lessons in Winnebago that spring. Their teacher was fine, and made them work hard. We enjoyed attending the little informal recitals she scheduled for all her pupils. They caught the school bus down at the road about one hundred yards from the house, so getting them to and from school was simple. On days when they had piano lessons after school, we drove to Winnebago to bring them home.
Living in that farm house was pleasant, with about 300 acres of land attached, mostly in timber. There were big oaks, some black walnut, cottonwood, and much just plain "brush." Each evening the continuous calling of the whippoorwills entertained us. They never seemed to pause for breath--it was fantastic! Also, we found deer were plentiful. We found a tiny fawn one day, only a few hundred yards from the house.
One day that summer a spectacular electrical storm came through the area. In the midst of the storm there was an exceptionally bright flash of lightning, and a tremendous crash of thunder. After the storm had passed, we found that a big cottonwood tree only about seventy- five yards from the house had been hit by lightning. The lightning bolt blew a strip of bark from the trunk of the tree from the top to the ground. We were glad the tree was there, to intercept that lightning. Otherwise the bolt might have struck the house!
Beside the longish daily drive from the parsonage to the church and back, there were a couple other disadvantages to our living in the country. We had a very large lawn, watered only by nature, to keep mowed. We were glad to have the power mower that we had brought from Missouri to use. We had to mow a wide strip of lawn from the house clear down to the road, about one hundred yards north of the house. Also, we had to clean up a mess of branches and other debris left there when someone had removed a row of lilacs along the driveway. That took many hours of hard work.
Another advantage of being in the country was enjoying the many different mushrooms found on the farm, and along the roads. We learned to eat eight or ten different varieties while living in Rockford.
There in Rockford I developed a plan for praying for all the church members. That was my first activity after arriving at the church in the morning. I walked around the sanctuary as I prayed thus getting some exercise. I prayed through the church membership list, about fifteen families each day,. I prayed for the people by name, including their children, and asked for God's help and blessing for each one. That practice helped me much when I made visits to their homes. We won't easily forget the first Easter we spent in Rockford. When I got up on Easter morning the house seemed unusually cold. A heavy rain had fallen during the night, and now for some reason the furnace wasn't running. I went down to the basement and discovered about a foot of water on the floor, and the furnace (a stoker) cold. There wasn't time to do anything about the problem before we had to leave for church.
I enjoyed my work, preparing sermons, preaching, the whole ministry. At first I designed the bulletins, typed them, and ran them off on the mimeograph myself. Later a young woman in the church volunteered to do that work each week; she was a big help to me.
While we lived in that farmhouse, my father came to visit us, after visiting relatives in Wisconsin. Dad enjoyed his visit with us, and we surely enjoyed having him see the church, the farm where we were living, and the city of Rockford.. Soon after he left, our friends Dave and Marge Peterson came by to visit. Dave was then serving as a public relations man for the Montana Institute of the Bible. That was the small Bible school in Billings where I had taken some classes.
In June of 1960 I attended the Evangelical Covenant Church annual meeting in Chicago, and met with the Ministerial Committee. They refused to even look at my previous simple ordination, and informed me of the requirements for ordination in the Covenant. For the first year I could only have a ministerial license; there was no difficulty in obtaining that. They said that if I were to continue to minister in a Covenant church, I must attend their seminary in Chicago, and take certain prescribed courses. Then, after passing their examination requirements, I could be ordained. It was a long and difficult assignment! I did have some trouble with the Committee. I told them straight out why I did not believe in the baptism of infants, and could not perform the rite. I agreed that I would invite another Covenant pastor to come in to conduct the service, if it were requested. As a matter of fact, while I was there at Evergreen Church in Rockford no one ever requested it. We had several services for the consecration or dedication of infants. I also agreed to take the courses at North Park Seminary, when I could arrange it.
Everything went quite well that first year at Evergreen. In the summer months we had Sunday evening services with three other churches in the area. We also invited one of my seminary classmates to conduct evangelistic services in the fall of 1961. The meetings resulted in several decisions for Jesus. Our children, and many from Evergreen church, attended a fine Covenant camp on Lake Geneva, in Wisconsin, each summer. There were frequent retreats and special meetings for pastors, too, and I loved to meet and share with the other men. I always felt that the Covenant had a real sense of mission, and promoted teamwork well.
In midsummer of 1960, the board of the church decided that the church should purchase a small house and bit of land just north of the church, to use as a parsonage. The house was old and very small, but we could manage in it all right, we thought. We moved into the house on August 7th, in plenty of time for the children to register for schools in Rockford. Both Mary and Martha attended an elementary school just "kitty-corner" across the street from the church. David enrolled that fall in the new large Auburn high school several miles away.
This new living arrangement saved hours of valuable time, and much driving and gasoline, for I needed only to walk a few yards to be at the study. David got the job of mowing the church lawn, which he appreciated (most of the time!). There were several large maple trees along the driveway of the new place, and we came to love those great trees, except for the piles of leaves they produced. In the early spring each year, when the sap began to flow, I enjoyed the sweet little icicles that formed where the sap dripped from broken twigs. There was also a large fir tree immediately in front of the house. Martha promptly climbed it, clear to the top! Just north of the house there was an extensive woodlot, with many different mushrooms growing there. There was a garage under the house, a small shed in the back yard in which we could store tools, and plenty of room for a large garden. We had a fine garden there each year, beginning in 1961.
Soon after we moved into the "new" parsonage, we were given a well-bred long-haired cocker spaniel, Trooper. We had him only a short time before we found that we couldn't keep him. Many cockle burrs grew in the area. Trooper constantly wandered about, and got his long coat terribly tangled with the burrs. It was impossible to keep his coat clean. We gave him to a farm family later.
We also got a little yellow kitten, who rapidly developed into a big, heavy cat. We called him Toughy. He, rather than Trouper the dog, kept strange dogs out of the yard! Toughy would walk calmly toward any dog that came near, and every time that dog would skeedaddle, rather than face that big cat. We had lots of fun with him, playing in the piles of maple leaves in the fall, and going mouse hunting with him in the woods.
In the spring of 1961 a farmer friend, a member of the church, came with a tractor to plow a garden spot, down below the house. The soil was rich and black. It was fine for gardening. For the first time in my life, I could grow okra! Also, beyond the garden area there was a sort of "wilderness" in which we found wild asparagus in the spring each year, and lots of wild blackberries in the late summer. All the vegetables did very well.
As cool weather came on in that fall of 1960, I became better acquainted with the coal stoker furnace. All went well unless the fire went out. That happened only once, while we were busy at a service in the evening. When we came home, late in the evening, we found the house cold and full of awful fumes. The furnace fire had gone out, and the furnace was full of stoker coal. Controlled by the thermostat, that was calling for more heat, the stoker was still stuffing in more coal! I had a merry time, believe me, shovelling all that coal out of the furnace, back into the stoker hopper. The fire had to be rekindled, and the house ventilated to get rid of the bad air. We soon found that Illinois winters are for real, much more severe than those we had seen in Missouri, though not as cold temperature-wise as in Montana. There was much snow during the winter months. It seemed to me that I shovelled the walks at the church just about every Sunday morning those winters. No one else volunteered to do that job!
We made many new friends there in Rockford. One man, Harold Demus, pastor of a nearby small Presbyterian church, and his wife and children, became our good friends. We truly missed them when in 1963 they left to go to a much larger church in a Chicago suburb. Art Carlson, pastor of another Covenant church in Rockford, a man considerably older than I, became a great friend. There were many others, too many to list.
We found many earnest Christians at Evergreen. Nearly all the members worked days, and could not help much in calling in the neighborhood. I not only called on church families, but also visited in the homes of Sunday School families (people who sent their children to Sunday school, but didn't attend, themselves). I also enjoyed meeting nearly all the people living along the roads in the area. Reviewing one of my old desk calendars from those years, I find that I went out nearly every evening of the week. I rarely took a complete day off from work. Those were busy days! I know now that I badly neglected my own family, and that was a serious mistake. Also, I tried to hold the children to a rigid pattern of Christian behavior, which no doubt did much to turn them away from the real life of faith. I don't know how to undo that now! When we arrived to pastor Evergreen Church, there was a sizeable debt, and the church was receiving regular support from the Covenant. One of my first goals was for the church to become financially independent. We met that goal by the end of our second year there. That effort won the appreciation of the Conference Superintendent!
As the years went by, we found we had time for some visiting, and for regular vacations. John and Nina Bergman moved to Warren, Michigan, in about 1961, and we went there to visit them one Christmas. The travel across lower Michigan in a blizzard was memorable, but we made it all right. We had a grand visit with them and their two adopted children. We also made a trip one summer to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, and visited my brother Robert and his family in Denver. We went up into southern Wisconsin, too, to visit my Uncle Dick and his family, and Aunt Dot Von Valkenburg, and Aunt Eckie. All those relatives had been very good to us children when we were growing up on the homestead.
I often was asked to conduct weddings of young people in the community. I usually enjoyed those, but did not much like to officiate at the many funerals. For some reason unknown to me, people in a community feel they have a right to ask the pastor of a local church to conduct funerals or weddings. They do this whether or not they are a part of the church. Some funerals, especially, were very difficult for me. I felt sad to know that the person who had died had never had anything to do with Jesus or the church.
I have pleasant memories of one funeral, though. A family in the community, not part of our church, but active Christians, had a sad experience. The elderly grandmother was suffering with cancer. She refused to go to a hospital or nursing home, so suffered at home, cared for by her old husband. Toward the end she drifted off into a coma, and would not respond to anything. I stopped one day to talk with the husband, as he sat in an old rocking chair by her bed. On the inspiration of the moment, I decided to sing a couple of old familiar hymns. I did it without accompaniment. Very quietly, and without making a sound, the sick lady smiled! She had heard! She died a day or two later, never having come out of the coma. They asked me to have the funeral, to be held at a little Free Methodist Church miles away in Wisconsin. We drove up, part of a little funeral procession. Jane and another lady sang a duet, and I preached the funeral service in the little church building.
It was a gorgeous day, with lovely clouds in the sky. When the service was over, the pall bearers simply carried the casket out of the church and into the graveyard right beside the church. The service ended with family members filling in the grave. It was sad, in a way, and yet a blessing, as we all knew she had trusted and loved the Lord, and was now with Him forever. I wished that all funerals could be like that!
One wedding I will never forget. In fact, few people know the whole truth of the matter. I guess I can now reveal it all, without mentioning any names. I had worked carefully with the young couple, planning and rehearsing their very formal wedding. Then, just two days before the wedding, I received a call from the groom's mother. She told me her son was too young to obtain a marriage license in Illinois! The wedding would have to be postponed!. The situation looked hopeless.
Then I learned, through some telephoning, that people could be married in the state of Iowa, without any delays for medical reports. So the day before the formal wedding, I drove with that young couple to the nearest county seat in Iowa. We first found a Methodist church, and asked the pastor if he would marry these two young people. He agreed, so we dashed to the court house and bought the license. We then went back to the parsonage, and the two were married by the old preacher, with his wife and me as witnesses!
Then it was back to Rockford, with the agreement that they would not act like married people until after the formal wedding the next day! Everything went just fine, and no one except the family and Jane and I knew the true situation. I went through the usual motions of having the couple sign forms, etc., after the wedding, but never mailed the marriage certificate in for registration. The Iowa wedding was the official one.
In the spring of 1962, I think it was, a church member stopped by and asked me casually how long I was going to drive our old wreck of a car. It was a 1950 Chevy sedan, and still looked and ran pretty well, in my estimation. As so often happens, that remark of his planted "new car fever" in me. So we began to look around. That was bad! We soon found a used, low mileage Ford Falcon sedan, a 1960 (first year) model, light blue in color. It was fun to drive, easy to park, and considerably easier on gasoline than the Chevy had been.
We soon began to find out why the previous owner had sold it! That Falcon car was a lemon! On our vacation trip that summer to Colorado, and Rocky Mountain National Park, the thing would barely climb the hills, and used quarts and quarts of oil. When we returned to Rockford, we had to have a new "short block" put in--the old one was beyond repair. After that it was the transmission, and then the clutch, and the differential, and so on and on. It was without question the most expensive car we had ever enjoyed! Despite all those repairs, we drove it until 1966, when we were living in Spokane, and had replaced just about everything except the body!
Finally, under considerable pressure from the Covenant, I began attending the required "familiarization" classes at North Park Seminary, in Chicago. That was in the fall of 1962. My usual plan was to have Jane take me to catch a train in Rockford about 6AM (harder for her than for me!), study some on my way in to the city (about an hour and a half). Then I would get off the train at Central Station, walk a quarter of a mile or so to catch the elevated train north. That took me within about six blocks of the seminary. With my classes and study time completed, I reversed the process, arriving in Rockford about nine in the evening. A whole day was gone! I had to do this three times a week, except when I decided to skip classes!
The quality of the instruction at North Park Seminary disappointed me. The professors were mostly former pastors who had been designated to teach. That first year I did have one excellent teacher, Karl Olsson, then president of the college and seminary. He was (and is) a brilliant scholar and historian. He taught the course on the history of the Covenant church, from the beginning of the revival movement in Sweden, and continuing in the United States among the immigrants. I loved that class and the subject matter. There were some very brave people in those early days, around the middle of the nineteenth century!
Sigurd Westburg, a retired missionary, was another good teacher. He taught classes on the philosophy and history of Covenant missions. But my other classes, especially under the professors of both Old and New Testament, were very nearly a waste of time. It was an expensive business for me. And with all that study going on, I had no let-up in the services I conducted, sermons to prepare, etc.
That winter I sometimes drove in to Chicago in the little Falcon, thus saving a bit of time. However, I saved little money, because of the expensive tolls on the big tollroad that runs from Rockford to Chicago. Altogether I earned some fifty credits at North Park Seminary, to meet the Covenant requirements for ordination.
My greatest problem in serving as a Covenant pastor was my refusal to baptize infants. I thought then, and still think, that it is a bad practice, and leads to a false sense of spiritual security. People think they are in a right relation with God because they have been baptized. It always appeared to me to work against the concept of a "new birth."
I didn't enjoy my sessions with the Conference and Covenant ministerial boards through those years 1960 to 1964. Much pressure was put on me to conform to the standard Covenant practice. I know that I became unpopular with some of the ministers because I would not change my stand. Sometimes I felt that the pastors on the boards were embarrassed because they could not justify the practice from Scripture. They simply clung to tradition brought over into the Covenant from the state Lutheran church of Sweden.
The Evergreen Church board believed as I did, and came under the same sort of pressure to change their policy. Once I was told very directly by an official of the Covenant that I was not wanted in the Covenant, and would never be ordained. Despite that, I kept on with my studies in Chicago, and working hard at the church. By midwinter of 1963-64, I had met the scholastic requirements for ordination, but still didn't know what the outcome would be.
I remember many very good times from our days in Rockford. I enjoyed the various camps and conferences held for ministers. I went twice with men from our church to work on the grounds at the Covenant campground at Lake Geneva, in Wisconsin. We always had good times working together, and the camp was wonderful. The Covenant owned some 2000 feet of shore front on the lovely big lake, and had good buildings and equipment for summer camping. We had one or two ministers' retreats there, also, in the winter time.
Except for the troubles concerning ordination, my attendance at midwinter conferences of the entire Covenant, and the annual meetings, was pleasant enough. I became good friends of some pastors, particularly among the older men. Our children also enjoyed attending Covenant Bible camps. Twice we went as a family for great vacations in northern Wisconsin.
Also somewhere along in those years, I joined the Rockford Civic Chorus, and sang in Handel's Messiah and other programs with the city's symphony orchestra. That was very enjoyable. I also sometimes sang a solo in a church worship service.
I must admit that by 1963 I was becoming discouraged with the slow progress of the church in Rockford. Despite much effort and prayer, we simply were not growing. I looked around for some means of promoting both spiritual and membership growth. I soon found what I thought might be the answer--a program called "Growth by Groups," prepared by Lyman Coleman. I wrote to him, personally purchased the expensive materials, and then tried to interest the board of elders in the plan. The plan called for starting a number of home Bible study and prayer groups, all following the same excellent course of study. I would work primarily with the leaders of the various groups. I hoped that most of the people in the church might be involved. Attendance at our Wednesday evening prayer meetings had dwindled to a handful of regulars. The home study meetings would replace the Wednesday evening meetings at the church.
That was the plan, and I still think it was a good one. The difficulty was that I just could not "sell" the board of elders on the plan. What I had long since recognized on their part--an extreme conservatism--stood in the way. They wanted to know if First Covenant Church was doing this; I had to say "no." Well, was it being done anywhere else in the Covenant? I didn't know. They voted it down. When I asked for further consideration, I was told that I was just trying to get my own way. That was probably true, but I honestly felt we needed to change our methods.
I was discouraged by the declining attendance at Evergreen, and the rejection of the Growth by Groups program. Soon after, I told the Central Conference Superintendent that I felt I should possibly move to another church. Almost immediately I was called by the North Pacific Conference Superintendent in Seattle, asking if I would be interested in moving to a church in Spokane, Washington. I suspect that someone in the Central Conference saw an opportunity to rid the conference of the fellow who refused to baptize infants! The idea of moving to the northwest was very appealing, so I agreed to go to Spokane to candidate.
I went by train, a long, long ride, in mid-February of 1964. The people in Spokane met me at the station, and did everything they could to impress me with their need. I think my sermons (two of them, at the morning and evening services on one Sunday) impressed them. They took me on a tour of the city, well covered just then by heavy, dirty snow. It was a dismal prospect. The Sunday school was large enough, but the church membership had failed to grow. The church had been organized about seven years, and should have been growing. I didn't feel any special leading of the Lord in the matter, and went back to Rockford pretty well convinced that I should not go to Spokane. The church in Spokane didn't offer any increase in salary, and the area in which it was located was sparsely populated, with many vacant houses in the neighborhood. I didn't see much chance for growth there.
The call from the Minnehaha Covenant Church in Spokane came, much as I had expected. After much prayer, I sent a letter saying I didn't feel I should accept the position. Then several officials of the Covenant really went to work on me. Joe Danielson, the Secretary of Home Missions, invited me to lunch one day, in Chicago, and told me how helpful I could be at Minnehaha. They couldn't seem to get out of debt; I had been successful in getting my present church to pay off their debt. That was true! The North Pacific Conference Superintendent called me long distance, and urged me to accept the call. With some misgiving, I finally agreed to make the move. I felt I was no longer effective at Evergreen Church.
In May of 1964 I met again with the Central Conference ministerial board. Though reluctant, this time they agreed to my ordination, to take place at the Annual Meeting of the Covenant in Minneapolis in mid-June, 1964. We were planning to leave Rockford to move to Spokane in July.
The ordination service was impressive, Jane said. John and Nina Bergman were there at the meeting. Jane and I enjoyed travelling back to Rockford with them (they were on their way back to Warren, Michigan). We all stayed overnight in a little motel cottage on the bank of the Mississippi River, in southeastern Minnesota. That evening we rowed in a large rowboat down the river to a restaurant for dinner. What an adventure, to row on the Mississippi!
Soon after returning to Rockford, we began packing. We left the church with mixed feelings. At the last moment the Board decided that I had not earned any vacation time that year. That meant a loss of about two weeks' salary--and that hurt! Beside that matter, I had other depressing feelings. I felt sad that things hadn't gone better at Evergreen Church, and also had some anxiety about the new assignment in Spokane. I felt that I was not effective as a pastor, and wondered even then about leaving that line of work.
The church in Spokane would pay our moving expenses, but we had to reduce the shipment if possible. So we had a big yard sale. Among other things, we sold our faithful lawn mower, a very good one. I also sold my guns--the beautiful little Winchester .218 Bee rifle, and my Ruger .22 pistol. We needed all the cash we could get. I have often regretted that sale, as I have never been able to replace those fine weapons.
Finally we were ready to move. We left Rockford, our home for a little over four years, pulling our little one-wheel trailer with our camping stuff in it. David had already gone to Montana to work at my sister Jean's farm. Jane, the girls, and I drove down through Kansas, to visit Jane's mother and other relatives, then on to Spokane. Our Rockford days were over--surely the best years I had while in pastoral work.
Looking over my old desk calendars, kept for some unknown reason, I find myself becoming depressed all over again because things didn't go better there. I can only be satisfied that I preached the Gospel and the Bible as faithfully as I knew how, though nothing much had happened. Perhaps things would go better in Spokane!

MY FIRST FULL-TIME PASTORATE
With the call from the Community Church in Houstonia, Missouri, we could pack up and leave Pasadena. By this time we had a large collection of household stuff, and had to have a professional moving company help. We filled our car with ourselves, camping equipment, and clothing. We put as much as we could in our little one-wheeled trailer, and were ready to leave. Of course, it was hard to leave the familiar city, the wonderful school and teachers, and our many student friends.
Because the crossing of the California desert was reported to be so unpleasantly hot in summer, we planned to leave Pasadena about midnight. Thus we could drive in the "cool" of the night. That turned out alright, but I became terribly sleepy. David and I enjoyed seeing the many kangaroo rats hopping across the road, and an occasional coyote caught in the headlights. It was a very warm night. We arrived at Needles, California, on the Arizona border, at about 6AM in the morning, to find the temperature already at 110 degrees in the shade--and no shade.
We cooled off a bit while we ate breakfast in a restaurant, then drove on to Williams, Arizona. There we looked for a motel room, and holed up for the day. The air-conditioned room was a delight. We all enjoyed the rest, though the children were bored. Early next morning we set off to the north to visit Grand Canyon. I took a few good pictures, on black and white film. Later I learned how to make slides from such negatives, and we have enjoyed those.
After that diversion, we drove as quickly as we could across Arizona, New Mexico, the corner of the Texas panhandle, Oklahoma, and on to visit Jane's sister, Evelyn, at Attica, Kansas. We later stopped at Jane's mother's place in eastern Kansas for a short visit. The weather was very hot, and the car unpleasantly warm without an air conditioner. On the hottest days we bought a block of ice, that we kept in the car in a wash pan. We cooled wash cloths on the ice, and used them to keep our faces (and my head) cool! That was a great help.
It was only a short day's drive from Savonburg, Kansas, to our new church town, Houstonia, Missouri, about seventy-five miles due east of Kansas City. Mr. Neef, the church elder who had entertained me in their home on my previous visit, led us to our new home, the parsonage. The house was adequate, though it was terribly old--built before the Civil War! There was a partial basement, dark and damp, but Jane could use it for washing. One central gas furnace located in the floor of the living room, and a fireplace, provided heat when needed. We had a fine front porch, and stored our bicycles there. The large yard offered plenty of space for a garden, though it was too late to start one that year. We had arrived late in July, 1958.
Directly south of the house, in the same block, stood the church, a big, square old brick building, formerly owned by the Christian Church. That congregation had become too small to support the work, so had changed the church to "community church." The congregation had kept some practices of the Christian Church. Other procedures had been borrowed from other churches. Former Southern Baptists and Methodists rounded out the congregation. The sanctuary was bowl-shaped, with plenty of old wooden theatre-type seats. The church yard was pretty weedy, and the grass desperately needed mowing.
I soon learned that the congregation was truly a mixed group. The church board told me on my first visit that the church had some three hundred members. Now I found that there were no really adequate church records, and many members were no longer active, or not living in the area. As soon as I could afford to do so, I ordered a proper church record book, and began to enter membership information, baptisms, weddings, deaths, funerals--all the things that are so important in church records.
The first day we were in Houstonia there came a knock at the door. There stood a couple in their forties, who pleasantly announced that they were the nuts! That is, their name was Nutt! They became good friends, and were very helpful all the time we were there. Her parents and grandparents had been among the founders of the Christian Church, in Indiana, I think it was. Later Mrs. Nutt showed me, with great pride, portraits of many old long-bearded serious-looking men, real "pillars" in the early Christian Church movement.
An important beginning task was to make calls in the homes of the active members in the area, to get acquainted, and find out their thinking on the needs of the church. That was very educational. The Higgins family, actually several families, lived out on Higgins Road (naturally!) west of Houstonia, on farms carved out of the original plantation. The old family home, a beautiful red brick building with white pillars in front, had been built by slaves long before the Civil War. It was no longer lived in. All the Higginses had been former members of the Christian Church.
How well I remember my first visit to one Higgins' home. They had just brought from town a new set of Danish modern living room chairs, and I was invited to try one of them. I seated myself carefully in the low chair, and immediately found myself tossed over backward, doing a complete summersault! The back legs of the chair had collapsed! They, and I, were embarrassed. I assured them that I didn't usually break up the furniture in homes.
The largest family in the area, representing some 60% of the entire congregation through marriage ties, was the Killion family. The patriarch of the whole brood was old "Elder Killion;" that was how everyone knew him. Their farm was about three miles out of town. That farm, the ancestral home, was encircled by farms occupied by sons, and sons-in-law, a very large and influential group in the church. I think they may have originally been Baptists, though I never really knew.
On one of my early visits to Elder Killion’s I found him in the barn, milking. As I visited with him, I leaned against a square upright supporting timber. From old tool marks, I saw that it was hand-hewed. Testing it with my pocket knife, I found the wood to be black walnut--straight as a string, perfectly sound, and some fifteen feet in length. I asked Mr. Killion for the history of the large barn. He said that his grandfather had built the barn from black walnut trees cleared from the land. There was a small fortune in well-cured walnut in that one building!
While I always got along well with Mrs. Killion, I soon found myself out of favor with Elder Killion. There was an old Black lady living in Houstonia, who had been born a slave. She was the only black person in the little town. Jane and I were told about her, and we went down to visit with her one day. We found her a delightful person, a real believer in Jesus. Her Bible was simply a stack of loose pages, it was so well worn. I offered to get her a new one, but she refused it.
After our visit to the black lady, the next time I visited the Killions, he addressed me as "nigger lover," and we never got along well after that. He had heard that we had gone to visit the old lady. It was only a month or so later that Mr. Killion became very ill, and was taken to a hospital in Kansas City, seventy-five miles away. I felt that as his pastor I must visit him no matter where the hospital might be. So we drove all the way to Kansas City, found the hospital and went to his room. When he learned that it was I who had come to visit, he turned his face to the wall, and refused to talk with me. I left the room, while Jane remained by his bedside. After a bit he was willing to talk with her. That was not the last frustrating contact I had with that man. The one hundred and fifty mile round trip to see him was wasted effort and expense.
Checking on the state laws of Missouri, I found that I must be ordained if I were to perform weddings. That wasn't a simple matter, since neither that "independent" church nor I had "ordaining" connections with anyone. From one of my courses in seminary, I had a general idea of how I might go about getting ordained.
I called the pastors of several neighboring churches, asking them to serve on an examining council. The pastor of the Methodist Church, just across the street to the north of the parsonage, agreed to help. I then got the pastor of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church out in the country about ten miles east of town. Two pastors from churches in Sedalia were also willing to come. The Southern Baptist Church pastor, with whom we became good friends later, refused. I think he thought anyone pastoring that community church simply couldn't be a real Christian!
On the appointed day the ministers met at the church, with several members of the church board. I gave a testimony of how I came to believe in Jesus, and told of my training at Fuller Seminary. I then urged the members of the examination panel to ask me questions. No one volunteered any! One or two of the church board members intimated that I seemed all right, and that was the extent of that examination! I had typed up a document stating that I had been examined and ordained on that date, and the several ministers all solemnly signed it. Later, I had that paper recorded in the county recorder's office. I then considered myself officially ordained. No one in Missouri ever questioned it!
Soon after that ordination procedure, I did have a wedding. One day a very shy young woman came and asked if I would conduct a wedding ceremony for her and her fiance. Her father opposed her marrying, chiefly, I gathered, because he would lose a good farm hand! I agreed to help, and we set a date.
The girl, her mother, her fiance, and Jane and I composed the entire wedding party. I carefully checked the license, found it OK, and had the two stand before me, in the empty church. As I read the wedding service, the girl became more and more upset. When we came to the vows, she was unable to speak, and broke down in tears. After a little, when she had regained her composure, we tried again. Same problem! That wedding took longer, I think, than any other I ever conducted. Finally the plain little ring was on her finger, and the ceremony was over. The young couple moved away somewhere, and I think I never saw them again.
Going back to the many inactive members on the church rolls-- I found that there were only about one hundred active members living in the community. I proposed to the Board that we contact the inactive people, to find out whether they wanted to continue as members. They agreed, and I sent out dozens of letters, run off on the ancient mimeograph, asking whether the persons were interested in continuing their church membership. Very few responded, so after waiting a decent interval, I dropped the unresponsive from the rolls, and sent letters notifying them of the action.
Then I learned how much the people in that area treasured their church membership. Several people protested having friends, or even far-distant relatives, dropped from church membership. I persuaded most of them, I think, that church membership is properly for those who really belong to the congregation, and support and attend the activities of a church. The whole business didn't win me any friends.
Houstonia had only one small grocery store, and one tavern. We did most of our shopping on weekly visits to Sedalia, a fair-sized town about twenty miles away. There was a very old, semi-retired doctor in Houstonia, whose abilities everyone questioned. When we needed a doctor, we usually went to see one at a clinic in Sweet Springs, about twelve miles away. There was a large Air Force base in the area, and at least one couple from there were members of the church. There was a small hospital in Sedalia, but most of the folks, when seriously ill or injured, went to a hospital in Kansas City. I made several trips to the city to call on sick people, including the visit I described above.
I soon came to dread the church board meetings. The board was large, about fifteen men, many of whom were heavy smokers. The air would be blue with smoke at every meeting, as they didn't hesitate to smoke in the church building. There were a few earnest Christians on the board, but even they were woefully ignorant of the Bible, or of how a church should operate.
A matter of great pride among the men was their pet project--"God's Acre." One farmer member had offered the use of seventy acres of good farm land for the church to farm. The men had planted soy beans, working cooperatively. The crop was well along when we came to Houstonia. I enjoyed working with the men on those beans. The first work day we all worked at weeding. Later we had a good day combining the beans. The crop brought in a very good return, over $2500, if I remember correctly.
I soon learned that the soybean money was not to be used for any current expenses of the church. It was put in savings, to draw interest, until the board chose some worthy project. Mr. Killion, a member of the board, frequently reminded me in the board meetings that my salary would never be paid out of that fund! Speaking of salary, we soon found that I had agreed to a truly minimum income! Our total salary was only $300 per month. We had to pay our own utilities, buy food and clothing, and drive all over the territory on that money. Jane is a good manager, and we managed to eat well, anyway. Occasionally a farm family gave us eggs or chickens. There were many cottontail rabbits in the nearby thickets. We ate more than a few rabbits that winter! I also shot a few squirrels with my great little .218 Bee rifle, and enjoyed occasional early morning squirrel hunts in the countryside.
I remember one occasion when I had taken the rifle along while out calling in the country. After completing my planned calls, I took a little jaunt up through a likely-looking wooded area, hoping to get a squirrel for supper. When I came back out to the road, carrying the rifle (but no squirrel!), I was just in time to see the Baptist pastor and another man driving by. Jimmy Eads, the pastor, stopped, and they gave me a bad time (joking, of course) about my method of trying to enlarge my congregation at gunpoint!
The other man was a visiting evangelist, and they invited me to their meetings. I did attend that evening, and again they got some good laughs telling of meeting me with the rifle. By that time I had met many of the good Baptists, and we were friends. I attended Jim's church when I could, and Jane and I loved both him and his wife, Naomi, and their children Houstonia was such a little town nearly everyone knew everyone else. I called on many in town, simply going door to door, to get acquainted, and to win anyone possible to faith in Jesus. One little old lady and I became good friends. She was a staunch Baptist, but that didn't hinder my visiting with her, or sharing a Bible passage and prayer time with her. She was nearly blind, and later became totally so. Yet she lived alone, and managed very well. Before we left Houstonia, that lady had cataract surgery, and regained her vision in one eye. She always called me "Brother Cumming," and I just couldn't pass her house without at least calling in a greeting to her. She knew my voice, too, and would ask (when she was blind): "Is that you, Brother Cumming? Come on in!"
There was no suitable space in the church for a church office, so I set up my "study" in our bedroom. I placed a bird feeder just outside the window that first winter, so I could watch the birds. I did leave the ancient mimeograph at the church. I used it for printing the weekly bulletins and some letters. I had learned how to operate a mimeograph while in the CCC’s--another instance where my past experience was of great help.
All too soon winter came on. Then we had to use the gas furnace, located under the living room floor, to heat the house. Several farmers offered tree trimmings for firewood. I cut lots of wood, mostly black locust and oak, to burn in the fireplace. The hardwoods gave off plenty of heat, and always left a fine bed of coals for roasting weiners, or making toast.
David and Mary were soon well established in school in Houstonia. The school was not far from the church. Jane and I became active in the PTA, attending meetings regularly that winter. In those days the ministers of the town, taking turn, had fifteen or twenty minutes to speak at each PTA meeting. It was a great opportunity to speak to a good crowd.
We went to Jane's mother's home for Thanksgiving, and had a great time with Bill and her other brothers and a flock of their sons, hunting quail and rabbits. That was a good visit. I also preached at the little Methodist church one evening. There we met the pastor of the Evangelical Covenant Church located out in the country near Savonburg. On the next visit to Savonburg, I was invited to speak at the Covenant church.
For our own church Christmas program I took pictures of the children of the church in a manger scene--a real one, complete with animals--and scenes in the church yard of the shepherds, etc. Then we showed those slides for the Christmas program. The plan worked out well. The parents, at least, were delighted, though the slides weren't really very good. I kept very busy in ministry, preaching a sermon each Sunday morning, and teaching a men's Sunday School class. For the first few months I also directed the choir and later sang in the choir.
In the fall of 1958 we invited a representative of Moody Bible Institute, Dr. Will R. Johnson, from Galveston, Texas, to come for a week of meetings. He was a grand old fellow, a retired Methodist minister, and did a good job of teaching. He conducted Bible studies at the church each morning, and preached in the evenings, for a whole week. Though he was very good, there was little response to his ministry. As no one else seemed interested, or offered to entertain Dr. Johnson, we put him up at our ancient house. He slept in the narrow "upstairs bedroom" where David had his cot. That worked out fine, except that one morning we heard a terrible thumping, and found that Dr. Johnson had fallen down the stairs! Fortunately, he was not injured! He taught us to sing that great song by Charles Wesley "Oh, Can It Be?" That has been one of my favorites ever since.
Oh, another thing! I wanted some way of presenting Bible stories visually. Jane sometimes used her hand-drawn flannelgraph scenes when telling Bible stories. I wanted something more professional. With my sister Jean's financial help, we bought a good screen and projector for use with both slides and film strips. We still have both "tools," and use them frequently. They were helpful. For the Sunrise Easter service in 1959 I showed a film strip of the crucifixion, and sang a solo "Were You There." I think probably the people were sick of my singing solos!
David obtained the job of mowing the city park soon after we arrived in Houstonia. That meant we must buy a power mower. It was a large area to mow, and sometimes I had to spell him a bit to get the job done. Mary soon became a member of the local 4-H club, and made many friends there. David also mowed the church yard. For entertainment, he often went fishing with neighbor boys, and had much fun doing that, and swimming in the farmponds.
In late winter, about March of 1959, we all came down with Asiatic flu, that was epidemic in the whole area. We all became sick at once. To get medical care, we had to drive to Sweet Springs, to the nearest clinic. I was almost too sick to drive, but the girls were very sick, and needed shots. We went up there two or three times, and had to sit in the waiting room each time with crowds of other sick folks.
After one of those visits to the doctor, I really thought I might die! My pulse that night was down to about 50, and I was terribly nauseated and suffering from diarrhea, as well. Every time I made a dash for the bathroom I became very light-headed, and fainted once or twice. Eventually, of course, we all recovered.
Apart from our visiting with Jimmie and Naomi Eads, the Southern Baptist pastor and his wife, we had no contact with other ministers. I felt that we needed that. Also, there was no church camp anywhere in our area where we might send our children. So after getting the address from the Covenant pastor at Savonburg, I wrote to the Covenant Camp near Grand Island, Nebraska, and asked if there were any possibility that we could attend their family camp. They replied at once with a cordial invitation. That turned out to be a most pleasant week. We took a day driving up, and had lots of fun in the classes, meetings, at meals, fishing, etc. When the camp was over, the pastor of the Covenant Church in Lindsborg, Kansas, invited us to stay at his place overnight, on our way to visit Jane's mother. We did that, and had a great visit with him and his wife.
In the spring of 1959, one church member, a farmer, came and plowed the garden spot for us. I put in a large garden. It did very well, as we had plenty of rain. Jane canned many jars of produce that summer, and we had enough to share with others. A lady in the church, and a farm family who were friends, though not active in the church, loaned me their garden tillers from time to time. The machines helped keep the weeds controlled.
We have always enjoyed harvesting things from nature, mostly to eat. There were many black walnut trees in the countryside around Houstonia. With permission of the landowners, we gathered sacks of walnuts in the fall of 1958 and again in 1959. Sunday afternoons, to help me unwind after preaching, I sometimes went down in the basement and cracked black walnuts for an hour or so. That is slow work, as you may know, but the meats were tasty in cookies and cakes. We also harvested wild grapes, and made jelly from them each year.
In the fall of 1959 the church board approved my suggestion that we invite Harold and Mary Lou Tannehill, from Billings, to come for a series of evangelistic meetings. They came down, as scheduled, and we had "so- so" attendance. Harold preached the first two or three nights on prophecy, jumping hither and yon in the Scriptures in a way that I was sure was confusing to the congregation. It worried me, so after praying seriously for the right way to handle the situation, I decided I must say something. I asked Harold the next morning if it would not be better for him simply to give us good old-fashioned salvation messages. That offended both Harold and Mary Lou, and I was almost sorry I had said anything. But from there on Harold preached for decision, and on the last night of the meeting, one high school girl come forward. I had the pleasure of praying with her to receive Jesus. I think the Tannehills went home a bit unsure whether I was really a sound Christian, as things were a bit cool between us for years after that.
There were some very fine Christian people in the church, and we really appreciated the support they gave us. Most, however, were indifferent. A family reunion or just about any other excuse was sufficient to keep them away from worship and mid-week services. I feel that I was probably wrong in that I always wondered about the absentees, instead of rejoicing in those who did come. I had many a silent struggle with the problem.
In February of 1960 I received an invitation from the Covenant Church to attend their midwinter conference in Kansas City. I think that was a response to our attending the family camp in Nebraska. That was great, and I could hardly contain myself at the prospect of having fellowship with the many pastors who would be there. I went to the conference, and had several interesting conversations with older men in the Covenant.
One, an old traditionalist, must have been afraid that I was trying to weasel my way into the Covenant. He told me strongly, after learning that I did not believe in the baptism of infants, that there was no place for me in the Covenant! Another distinguished man, Gilbert Swenson, senior pastor of the large First Covenant Church in Rockford, Illinois, talked to me at considerable length. I told him that I felt I should move on from the church in Houstonia, but didn't know where to look.
As it turned out, he thought I could work well in the Covenant. Only a couple of weeks after the conference I had an invitation to come to Rockford, Illinois, to candidate at Evergreen Covenant Church, a small, new church on the outskirts of the city. That was encouraging! Jane was invited to come, too, and we took the train from Sedalia to St. Louis and from there to Chicago. We were met in the Chicago station by a friendly couple who drove us to Rockford, about eighty miles away. I preached at both morning and evening services, had a meeting with the board that evening, and immediately had a call to come there as pastor! I accepted, and we returned to Houstonia very happy!
Although it was awkward for David and Mary to have to change schools in the middle of the school year, we arranged to move to Rockford in early April. We had stayed longer (about 20 months) in the community church than any one of the previous twelve preachers. One man had boasted to me that they had "gone through" twelve preachers in a period of 13 years! The new opportunity in Rockford was encouraging, so there was no question whether we should go there. The small, but active, congregation of Evergreen Covenant Church was an energetic group. They had built the church building as a team, and now were ready to try something new. In a series of phone calls, we arranged a date when a group of the men would come to Houstonia to help us move. They would bring a moving truck, gather up all our possessions, and move us to Rockford in one day! Though only a few hundred miles, it sounded like a big undertaking to us.
We set about packing, and had everything ready on the appointed day before the move. That evening we had been feeling a bit sorry for ourselves, since it appeared that the church in Houstonia was totally indifferent to our leaving. Oh, a few folks had come by to say "good-bye," but not many. I remember we ate in the little cafe down town, and then drove back home right at dusk. When we walked in the front door, the lights came on and we found nearly everyone from the church crowded in the house! They had planned a grand farewell surprise party, and carried it off very well. There were gifts and little speeches, and then they all left. They had given us a set of china, that I thought was beautiful
Very early the next morning, while eating our breakfast, we noticed a strange truck parked near the church. Then came a knock at our door! The men from Evergreen Church in Rockford had arrived during the night. They had slept in the truck, and now were ready to load our things. With a busy crew, that didn't take long. One man stayed to ride with us, to make sure we didn't get lost. After a final cleaning of the house, we were on our way to a new start in what I hoped would be a very different situation. How different it was must wait for a later chapter.

LAST YEAR AT SEMINARY
As I begin this account of my final year at Seminary, I find I have omitted mentioning a very important member of our household--a lovely small multicolored female cat, acquired as a kitten during my first year. We all loved that little creature.
Often while studying late at night I had a little relief from the monotony of study watching the antics of our little cat, who loved to play with me. She would bring objects to me to toss or hide so she could run and catch them. She delighted in trying to get a little wad of paper out of the toe of my slipper. She loved to jump up into the empty bathtub while I was shaving in the morning. She would crouch down, then sneak up to the edge, and try to reach out to tug at my pajama leg. One morning, unknown to her, I had already run my bath. She took her usual flying leap into the tub without looking! She was one wet and bedraggled little cat, terribly insulted. I lifted her out and dried her off with a towel. Our lovely little cat died in the spring of my final year, apparently from poisoning, causing real grief to all our family.
My third, or senior year, in seminary was much like the first--extremely busy with studies until late at night, and working long hours at the library to make financial ends meet. On rare occasions we went for a picnic; once we went to Malibu beach. I realized later how hard it was for Jane and the children, for I really neglected them. I deeply regret that! New neighbors, a Seminary student and his family, moved into the little house behind us on the lot, and we became good friends with them. My courses were more difficult than ever, but I managed to keep my grade average well up on the scale.
During the winter, I began contacting different mission organizations, seeking a place where we could serve when I had graduated. I went to several prayer meetings with people associated with the Latin America Mission, West Indies Mission, and one or two others. None of them showed any interest in a man of my age with three young children! It just seemed there were no possibilities, though I wished later that I had tried harder. In my heart I wanted to become a missionary, rather than serve as a pastor in the states. Some of the faculty at the Seminary urged me to become a pastor.
At almost the last minute I began contacting churches looking for a pastor. A Mennonite church in Pennsylvania wrote, after reviewing my application, that I was not mature enough for them. Openings were scarce!
Graduation came all too soon. I successfully passed the required three days of oral examination by a battery of seminary professors, and received my Bachelor of Divinity degree. (In the early 1960's, the seminary offered to issue a new diploma for $25, granting me a Master's degree. I couldn’t spare the $25, I didn't feel it was worth the $25 fee anyway, and so didn't ask for the change.) My Dad came to Pasadena to be present for the graduation, and we enjoyed a good visit with him. It was the first time he had been in California, and he seemed to find everything interesting. We went up to Mt. Wilson, and all around the area.
One day while he was there we went to see the huge Museum of Power and Industry, in Los Angeles. I was taking care of Martha, while Jane and the other two children went off somewhere else. Suddenly I missed Martha! She was no where in sight! Then she called to me--from overhead! She had shinnied up a brass pole about five inches in diameter, perhaps twenty feet high, clear to the ceiling! She came down much faster than she had gone up, but I caught her without trouble. She was a great climber!
The graduation ceremony was very formal, and somehow sad. It meant for us in the large class the end of a period of very hard work, and was a relief, in that sense. But it also meant that we graduates were now about to go out into the world to serve the Lord. Several, like me, didn't know where that was going to be. Solemnly we marched up and across the platform, to receive our diplomas (phonies!--the real ones came to us later by mail), and shake hands for the last time with Dr. Charles Fuller, Dr. Carnell, Seminary President, and one or two other prominent Christian men. All went well for the first thirty or forty of us. Then one graduate, who had a very serious vision problem, somehow missed the stairs leaving the platform. Instead, he turned down into the orchestra pit. There he wandered around for several moments, with giggling, snickering, some open laughter from the audience and the faculty on the platform only further confusing him. Finally someone left the platform, and led the poor chap up and out, and back to where he belonged. I felt sorry for him, as he was visibly severely shaken and embarrassed by the whole episode.
A day or two later, Dad returned to Montana, and we saw our friends and co-workers Wilfred and Carolyn Naujoks and their two children off for the east coast. They travelled in their little Volkswagen "bug," having sold their van. They ate their last meal in Pasadena at our house, and left late in the evening. The little car was loaded to the hilt, with the children wedged in the back seat with luggage. We prayed together that they would have a safe trip. We learned some weeks later that they ran out of gas out in the middle of the Mohave desert that night. Wilfred had forgotten to fill the reserve gas tank! He had to leave Carolyn and the children alone for several hours, while he walked and hitch-hiked to find gasoline! That was the last time we saw them! They returned to Germany, where Wilfred was later involved in the smuggling of Bibles into Poland and Russia. We lost touch with them, finally--a wonderful couple.
Soon after graduation, a church in Walnut Creek, California, sent a delegation to interview me, but that also came to nothing. Finally, a fine Christian woman from a little community church in Missouri wrote to the seminary, asking if there was an evangelical man available. The seminary placement office referred the letter to me. I called and talked to the lady by phone. I decided I should take a chance on a trip there, to candidate, as the church offered to pay the expenses for the bus ticket.
That was one long bus ride! I really enjoyed it, taking advantage of the brief stops in New Mexico and elsewhere to look around a bit. I didn't eat much enroute, and slept poorly. Finally I arrived at the little town of Houstonia, about seventy-five miles east of Kansas City. An elderly couple from the church met me, and took me to their home for the night.
Next day I rode to the church with them, and found that the church leaders expected me to plan and lead the whole service! They had no plans whatever! A lady was available to play the piano. So I hastily conferred with her, selected some hymns to more or less fit my sermon, and went ahead. There was a fair crowd in the old church, and the seating arrangement and acoustics were good. I guess I did all right, as the church board met after the service and immediately voted to ask me to come as their pastor.
Although I had serious misgivings, and the salary they offered was minimal, (only $300 per month, pay our own moving expenses, no car allowance, and live in the parsonage (a house built before the Civil War), I decided that I should accept their offer. I had no other place to go, and our savings were almost gone! Later I learned that twelve different pastors had served that church in the past thirteen years--or was it thirteen in the last twelve years? The turn-over rate was rather high!
Taken back to the bus depot that same evening, I began the long ride back to Pasadena. At last I had a call to a church! My seminary days were over; I was ready to work, though I was disappointed at not being able to become a missionary. My experiences in that little church as a green pastor just out of school I will tell briefly in the next chapter!

SEMINARY MIDDLER (1956-’57)
Late in August, after a good summer staying with my sister Jean and her family, we loaded up our little trailer and headed back to Pasadena. We stopped the first night at a little church in a small town near Bozeman, Montana. There we took part in a worship service in the evening. Next day we drove on to Boise, Idaho, touring the "Craters of the Moon" national monument enroute. From there we drove across Oregon, and camped near Prineville, Oregon. We had to pitch our tent on a gravel bed that made sleeping very uncomfortable despite our air mattresses! Then it was on across the Cascades, where I got some good pictures, and down along the Oregon coast. We stopped once to pick blackberries from a big thicket right along the highway.
We camped one night at a big redwood grove, where we all were amazed at the size of the giant redwood trees. One burned out stump near the campground was large enough to have accommodated our tent, and possibly the car, as well. Next morning a herd of elk, perhaps 30 head, were seen in a nearby meadow.
We finally arrived in Pasadena very late one night, only to find our apartment full of sleeping people! The seminary receptionist had followed our instructions, and given the key to a new student family just coming in--John and Elaine Rex with six (!) children, and a dog. So we got out our own camping gear, and joined some of the children and the dog on the floor. This family became good friends, and we enjoyed many a pleasant time with them in the next two years. John Rex became a Presbyterian pastor after graduting from Fuller.
Soon the second year of school began. As a second year student, my new title was "Middler." I had courses in advanced Greek, and began the study of Hebrew, a very tough language. With a full schedule of classes, and my continuing work at the library, we were very busy. Jane did some child care work, to provide extra income.
I learned, soon after classes began, that another student was looking for someone to help him pastor a little church, Museum Heights Community Church. The location was in the foothills between Pasadena and Los Angeles, about fifteen miles from where we lived. I found the student, a senior, working at a parking lot, and we hit it off very well. Wilfred Naujoks was a German national, a son of Salvation Army workers in Hamburg, and had come to the United States to study for the ministry or missionary service. He was one great fellow to work with. He had been forced to serve in Hitler’s Youth Corp during the World War II.
The church we served was a tiny little non-denominational group that met in a hall above a liquor store. Used Saturday nights for dances, the hall had to be cleaned and swept each Sunday when we arrived. We threw out dozens of empty bottles and other debris from the partying of the night before, preparing the room for Sunday School and worship. Sheets strung on wires served to provide a measure of privacy for the bathroom stool and wash basin. Wilfred had a fine wife, Carolyn, whom he had met while attending a Bible School in the New England area. They had one small daughter, Karen.
Wilfred drove a new Volkswagen van, the first one I had seen. We usually rode back and forth with them to the church, as the van could carry both our families easily. Sometimes on week nights Wilfred and I went calling on homes in the neighborhood of the church, especially Sunday School families, trying to help people to know the Lord. Driving around the hills of the neighborhood, we saw coyotes, coons, and possums.
We took turns preaching on Sundays. When Wilfred was to preach, I taught the adult Sunday School class, composed of about six or eight women and, sometimes a couple of men. When I had the sermon Wilfred taught the class. It was great experience in every way. We still keep in touch with one family from that little church. The tiny compensation given us barely paid for the gasoline used in driving to and from our homes. We worked together in that little church until the spring of 1958, and then found two other students to carry on the work. Sadly, the church dissolved not long after we left Pasadena, largely because the leading families desired to have their children in a larger church.
My work load was very heavy, especially the study of Hebrew, which is one difficult language. Of course, I didn't really master it, at all. We did manage to translate the whole book of Esther in class, and found that a good way to sample the language and grammar. I was working 25 to 30 hours per week, and money was scarce. Yet it was in this 2nd year of seminary that we became good friends with some wonderful people. We seminary students freely shared what we had, plain food and good fellowship, even clothing, with anyone in need. We often had big pot-luck dinners together.
Also, Jane and the children and I did some "touring" of the area. We visited Mt. Wilson and Mt. Palomar observatories, and the nearby beaches when we had a little time on a Sunday afternoon or a holiday. Jane was active in the seminary wives' organization, and that helped her to get acquainted with other young women. We were older than most of the students. I was actually a year or so older than the president of the seminary, Dr. Carnell! The year went very quickly.
In the spring of 1956 I had purchased a Japanese 35mm camera, and took a few pictures that second year in school. Now that camera came in might handy! In oneChristian education class, Jim Dyer, a fellow student and a fine artist, and I teamed up on a project. Jim did a series of simple paintings of the missionary journeys of Paul. Jim did the art work, and assisted me in taking the slides of his pictures and maps. I composed the narrative, and recorded it on tape. It was a pretty good production (at least we received good grades on it), and I used it a few times in churches in later years. We each had a copy of the booklet and slides.
Perhaps my most interesting class was one on preaching. We studied many famous sermons, and also had to present short sermons in class, subject to very detailed criticism--of the message, the language used, gestures, facial expression, etc. It was very helpful experience!
David became a paper-boy that year, equipped with a good bicycle. We often had to help him with the heavy Sunday papers, and on rainy days. We also purchased a used bike for Jane and one for Mary. Sometimes we all rode our bikes together on a Sunday afternoon. I carried Martha, still pretty small, in the front basket on my bike.
School was over by the middle of May, in 1957, and I at once looked for a fulltime job for the summer. I was fortunate in having had such good experience with the Bureau of Reclamation. I walked into the U.S.Civil Service Commission branch office in Pasadena one morning, looking for work. I’m sure by God’s arranging, a representative from the Army was there in the office looking for a management analyst to do the same sort of organizational studies I had done with the Bureau. Because I had "permanent status" with the U.S. Civil Service,(that is, I could be rehired without examination) by afternoon I had an excellent short term job with the U. S. Army!
I worked for the Army for about three and half months, quitting in early September. The Army office was only three miles from our apartment, so I rode my bike to and from work most days. I took my lunch and rain gear, when rain threatened. The work was difficult, as is often the case. People don't like an "efficiency expert" poking around, asking lots of questions why they do something this way, instead of that. I was first assigned to do a thorough study of the Inspection Department. I ran into considerable opposition, but came up with a good plan for reorganization of the Inspection department, that saved the government an estimated $10,000 per month in working time and car mileage. I presented that plan before the Commanding Officer and, of course, the Major in charge of the unit, and his assistants. The CO gave his approval to my plan. The Major in charge of Inspection claimed he got stomach ulcers over that. I wasn’t there long enough to see how well the plan was carried out. I also did a study of the Civilian Personnel Office, and was able to give some help to the newly appointed Personnel Officer in developing a good team. My experience during the war helped me greatly in those studies. I had learned a lot about inspection in the aircraft manufacturing plants and also knew the Civil Service rules pretty well.
I was free on weekends, except for serving the little church. We went on lots of picnics that summer. Over Memorial Day we went to a public beach near Santa Barbara, and camped for a couple nights with two other couples. That was fun. Jim Dyer, our artist friend, made some beautiful watercolor paintings of the pier, the flowers, and clouds. I envied his skill, and wished I could paint!
Late in the summer, just before school began, we went on a week-long camping trip with the Lowes, our Chinese friends, who had never been camping before. We drove across the Mohave desert, and up the east side of the Sierras, and into Yosemite National Park. The first night, in that high country, we about froze! Water left in our washpan froze solid! All of us were cold in the night, but the morning sun was warm, and we soon were cheerful. On the second day in the park we drove down to the lower, west side area. There we found a grand place to set up our tents, right by the horse corral! At least the children all thought it was ideal though Jane was not in complete agreement on that! Martha had a pony ride after convincing us that she wasn’t too little, and one morning David and I took a trail ride with a large group. Our mean horses did their best to rub our legs against trees and rocks all the way!
We all needed to get back to Pasadena soon--the Lowes to their thriving business, and I to my third year at Seminary. We left Yosemite Park on the Friday night before Labor Day weekend, planning to camp one last night at Grand Sur beach, on the ocean. We had forgotten that many folks would be out camping that weekend. We found all the campgrounds jammed full, so we decided to just drive on home to Pasadena.
We arrived about one o’clock in the morning, to again find our house full of people! As in 1956, we had left our keys at the seminary office, so that any incoming students needing housing for a few days could have a free place to stay while looking for housing. This time it was the Ray Andersons, with their three children and a dog. Ray was from South Dakota, a farmer who had felt called to leave the land and prepare for Christian service. So we dug out our sleeping bags and mattresses, and bedded down on the floor with some of the Anderson children and the dog. Again we thus became acquinted with people who became good friends. Ray went on to get his Doctorate, and later returned to Fuller Seminary to become a professor and then head of a department.
We spent the next few days getting settled in again. I went back to my job at the library, and David to his paper route. Summer of 1957 was over--a great one!

FIRST YEAR AS A SEMINARY STUDENT
The good people at the Region 6 Bureau of Reclamation office, and some from the Yellowstone District office, where I had worked years before, gave me a fine send-off, though few understood just why I was making such a change. Their major gift to me was a big leather briefcase, which turned out to be a most practical gift. I used it for many years. While in seminary, I carried 15-20 pounds of books to and from school each day--a regular library--in that briefcase!
Finally the time came for us to leave Billings. The U-Haul trailer was heavily loaded, as was our car. Despite having to pull the heavy U-Haul trailer, the little Chevy ran well. We had no problems at all until we arrived in the area of South Pass, in Wyoming. There our heavily loaded trailer proved to be almost too much for the Chevy--not going up hill, but down! The trailer weighed about as much as the car, and it depended solely on the car brakes.
Beginning a long downward grade, I failed to shift down to low gear. As a result, our speed quickly increased until we were travelling far too fast. In those days cars didn't have synchromesh transmissions, so it was impossible to shift down at our speed, though I desperately wanted to. I tried "double clutching," and racing the motor, but I couldn't shift down. We soon were weaving all over the road! Somehow we managed to stay on the pavement. I was shaking like a leaf when we finally coasted to a stop at the next level area! Surely the Lord was watching over us!
Going up the long grades wasn't too bad, though we crawled along for miles in low gear, with the temperature indicator showing that the radiator was boiling. However, we didn't lose a drop of water, despite the warning signals. The old car was doing very well. We stayed our first night in Lander, Wyoming, and were in Salt Lake City the second night. We had heard much about Salt Lake and the Mormons, and were curious to see their temple and tabernacle. So we drove right up the beautiful wide main street leading to the temple grounds, pulling our big orange-colored trailer behind us. It was late in the evening, so we didn't linger, not even long enough to take any pictures. We found a low-priced motel in which we stayed the night,and were on our way early the next morning.
As I recall, the next day was a long, hot day of travel. We finally came to the outskirts of Las Vegas late at night, almost midnight. We needed to buy gasoline, and were all very tired, but thought we should not stay in such a wicked place! (Yes, we were that concerned about acting as Christians!) After reluctantly buying gas, we drove on out into the desert, heading toward Los Angeles. About one o'clock in the morning I was too weary to go any farther. The on-coming traffic was scary--a solid line of cars heading for Vegas. There were no towns, no place we could see on the map where we might find any lodging. So we just drove off the road a little way in a flat area, and tried to sleep stretched out on blankets on the ground. We didn't get much sleep, as the traffic continued heavy all night--zoom, zoom, zoom--cars and big trucks passing us.
After getting a few hours' rest, we drove on into California, down through Barstow, I think it was, and on to Pasadena. None of us had ever been in southern California before, and we were curious to see what it looked like. After getting out of the desert area, we saw many groves of olive and orange trees, and stopped at a fruit stand to buy some oranges. Finally, well out on the east side of Pasadena, we stopped at a motel. I parked the loaded trailer out behind the motel, and we got some good rest and food.
The next day we began apartment hunting in earnest. We bought news papers, and searched through the listings of the places available. We were looking for something reasonably close to the seminary, but also inexpensive, as we knew we had to be careful, as our savings wouldn't last long. I hoped to walk or possibly ride a bike to school each day, to save on gasoline and time. We also explored the city. We found the seminary and left word at the reception desk that our household goods would be coming in by truck in a few days. I desperately hoped to find suitable housing before that date, to avoid storage charges for the furniture.
Our search went on for several days. Each day we noticed one particular ad in the paper--an apartment at 545 North Madison, only half a mile or so from the school. Thinking that such a place would surely have rented quickly, we didn't even go to look at it. We were earnestly praying for the Lord's help in finding a place. Then one day we happened to be on North Madison, nearly across the street from the place that we had seen advertised. We had looked at several apartments, but had not found anything we thought adequate, or that we could afford. Noticing the address, I thought we at least ought to go over and ask if the place at 545 Madison were still available. Well--we found that the apartment was the ground floor of a large house, with two bedrooms. An airy garage stood out back. There was even a place for our washer and dryer out on the back porch. Best, the place rented for only $85 per month! That was well within our price range. Also, we learned that although the ad had been running for a week or more, we were the very first to inquire about it! The Lord had been reserving it for us--an answer to our prayers! Of course, we took it, and were very thankful. We lived there through the three years I was in school, and found it a fine home, convenient to the school, stores, and churches. Since our shipment of household goods had not yet arrived, I immediately left our new address at the front desk at the seminary. I asked that the truck driver be instructed to bring the stuff directly to North Madison. But when the van arrived in Pasadena, the driver phoned the seminary, and his call was transferred to a professor whose name I will not mention. That gentleman, without making any effort to find out about us, told the driver he had never heard of me. He told the driver to put our stuff in storage. That cost us over $100!
Having rented a place to live, we returned to our motel. We quickly checked out, hitched up the U-Haul trailer, and spent that afternoon unloading the beds, tables, and other things that we had brought with us. These were the essentials for living until all our goods could be delivered. I remember having a very bad time that afternoon as we became acquainted with the famous Los Angeles smog. The smog was terribly thick, and I coughed and wheezed, and had trouble breathing. Finally the work was done, and the trailer returned to a nearby U-Haul dealer. After we learned that our things were in storage, they were delivered in a day or two. Classes at the seminary were about to begin. I quickly shopped for and bought a well-used English three-speed Indian bicycle, and learned how to ride it. I purchased and attached a wire basket on the handlebars, to carry my briefcase and other gear. Later, after riding that bike a few times on wet pavement, I added fenders, to avoid having the cold water spraying me fore and aft! I also purchased and installed a light and generator, for night riding. The local laws required such a light when riding a bicycle at night.
One of the first things we had to do was set up a bank account, cashing in our remaining travelers' checks and depositing our small savings. We had carried those savings in a certified check. At first the suspicious bank officer refused to accept even the certified check from the Billings bank, or the travelers' checks! We had to wait a few days while they carefully verified the checks! Disgusted with that attitude, I later changed banks!
On registering at the seminary, I learned that I must attend a week-end orientation retreat for new students, before classes began. It was held at a resort several miles from Pasadena. That meant that I must leave Jane alone with the children for two or three days. The orientation was great, with good speakers, opportunities to get acquainted with several professors, and much good food. For recreation, we went swimming one afternoon in the Pacific ocean, in a chilly breeze, with rough surf rolling in. It was a "learning" experience for me! Soon after I returned from the retreat, Martha, and then Mary, suddenly became ill. We had to take them both to a hospital, where we found they were seriously dehydrated. They soon recovered after intravenous feeding and other treatment. We had no medical insurance, so were hit hard by the hospital and doctor bills.
At last classes began. Mary and David enrolled in a nearby elementary school. Mary was fortunate to have a fine Christian lady as her teacher. Martha was too young to go to school. Caring for her at home kept Jane busy. I immediately plunged into a tough course of study. Because I had not had Greek in college, I had to take beginning Greek, five days a week, without credit! That was one of my toughest courses that first year. The school felt that an entering student should have had Greek well in hand before starting. I had lots of company, as most of the men and women in my class had not studied it previously, either. That was a good course, though it took a lot of time. I frankly do not remember what other courses I had, though my transcript contains the record. Everything was new and challenging, and very interesting.
Attending graduate school was different from anything I had experienced before, even my graduate study at the University of Montana. The seminary had very strict requirements regarding the preparation of papers. The professors required literally dozens of research papers, two or three in each course each quarter. Surprise quizes, and scheduled written exams were common. Also, one had to maintain a grade average of "B" or better, to receive credit!
Oh--I forgot to mention getting a job. We had to have some income to avoid using all our savings in the first year. I asked around, and learned that the Pasadena public library was hiring clerks. I went to city hall (a beautiful, impressive building) and was given a standard typing test. I asked the young lady giving the test how fast one needed to type, to qualify, and she said she thought about 50 words a minute would do. I had no trouble typing at that rate. The result--I had a part-time job beginning immediately, at a branch library up in Altadena. The library was more than two miles away from our home. My tight schedule did not allow my struggling up hill those two miles by bicycle, so I had to drive the car to work. We needed income requiring about 25 hours of work per week.
I worked in that branch library several weeks, usually putting in 10 or 12 hours on Saturdays. Then I transferred to a similar position at the main library, about a mile from our apartment. That was much more convenient. Here I worked in various jobs, receiving and checking in returned books, issuing books, shelving, and working the telephone switchboard some evenings. That particular assignment sometimes gave me an opportunity to study, as there were few calls in the evenings.
I worked in that clerical job at the library all three years I was in seminary, working 25 to 40 hours per week. I had a difficult time with all those hours of work, beside keeping up with my studies and family activities. I also missed the casual meetings many students enjoyed, talking at length with professors, and so on. I still don't know how we managed, though I know I often studied until long after midnight, and missed hours of needed sleep! My study space was at a small desk in our bedroom, with a desk lamp for lighting. Jane tried to sleep while I studied. My eyes were very good in those days, though by the time I left seminary I needed glasses. I blamed the poor lighting.
One of the greatest blessings of attending seminary, beside the interesting studies, was the daily chapel service. We had many excellent speakers, including Dr. Charles Fuller of the Old Fashioned Revival Hour, and founder of the seminary; Dr. Harold John Ockenga; Billy Graham, and other well-known Christian leaders.
Of course we looked for a good church to attend, as soon as we had gotten settled in our apartment. The first Sunday we went to Lake Avenue Congregational Church, since we had heard that it was a fine one. We liked it, though it was huge, and somewhat impersonal. The adult Sunday School class Jane and I attended had three hundred or more people attending that Sunday!
We went home after church, and had just finished dinner when we had company--a young couple from Lake Avenue church, following up the morning's visitors. Though we thought that was a great church, we decided to attend the Evangelical Covenant Church, within walking distance of our home. We enjoyed the preaching and Sunday School there. Several other seminary students and their wives were active at that church, too. We soon became acquainted with many fine people in the Covenant church, and felt right at home. We attended there regularly through my first year at seminary, and left only because I began helping co-pastor a little church in Los Angeles in my second year.
Among our new friends in the Covenant church were Eugene and Virginia Lowe, a Chinese couple who had three small children. They helped run a family business, and have been great, faithful friends ever since. They invited us to their home several times, including New Year's Day in 1956. We watched the Rose Parade with them, from a stand only a block from their home. Their house was crowded that day, after the parade, with dozens of Chinese relatives. We were the only "whities" in the big family crowd. We have had the same experience several times since then, as they often took us to exclusive Chinese eating places. As with many lots in Pasadena, there were two houses on the lot where our house was located. The small dwelling placed at the back of the lot housed a Jewish family, a lady with two or three children.
They were really good people. Martha played often with the youngest boy, and they had good times together. One morning they had been playing in the back yard, and came running in together announcing that the garage roof was on fire! A quick look verified the truth of their statement--it really was on fire! We called the fire department, and I quickly moved our Chevy out of the way. Within minutes the fire department was there, to put out the fire. There was very little damage. How did it get started? The children had been lighting matches and tossing them up on the roof, just for fun! Firebugs! Martha was only three at the time. That Jewish family lived there for the first two years we had the apartment. We found very interesting their thorough efforts to remove all leavening from their house in preparation for Passover. The mother and daughter scrubbed every corner!
Next door to us, on either side, were two families with many children. The Neideringhouse family to the south of our house had several children, with the mother, a single parent, taking care of them. Our children played with the children. On the other side of us, the family (whose name I can't recall), had two or three terribly dirty little youngsters who played barefoot most of the time. One day one of their little girls cut her foot seriously on a broken bottle in their yard, and came over for me to give first aid. Her mother wasn't home. The foot was bleeding heavily, but was so dirty I felt I must wash it before trying to put on tape to hold the cut together.
Right in the midst of my first aid efforts, the mother, a colossal fat lady, came home. She jerked the child away to take her to a doctor, and never said a word of thanks for our trying to help. That was a strange family, and we were never close friends with them. The lady had a most infectious laugh, that could be heard a block away.
Despite my grueling study and work schedule, and attending affairs at the church, I found time to sing in the seminary chorus. We had a fine conductor, and took part in televised broadcasts that winter, with Dr. Charles Fuller and the choir of the Old Fashioned Revival Hour. Jane, the children, and I sometimes drove down to Long Beach on Sunday afternoon, to attend the radio broadcasting service of the Revival Hour. That was a great privilege!
A month or two before the end of the school year, we received a letter from Dick Gustafson, the American Sunday School Union worker in Great Falls, Montana. He asked whether we would be available to help him with vacation Bible Schools and summer camp in June and July. My sister, Jean, invited us to stay at her house that summer. We accepted quickly! We arranged to keep our apartment rented. Then we went to a cut-rate sporting goods store, and bought a heavy umbrella tent, a camp stove, and light-weight sleeping bags and air mattresses. The cost of the whole outfit was much less than we might have spent at motels on the way to and from Montana. We planned to camp along the way, both going to Montana, and returning in August.
Final exams were soon over, and we locked up the apartment. We left the apartment key at the seminary office, telling them to let some needy incoming seminary student family use the apartment if such a need came up. Then we were on our way. We had purchased a little one-wheeled trailer to pull behind the Chevy, loaded with our camping gear and clothing for the summer.
That was a fun trip! We camped the first night at Lake Mead, above Hoover (or Boulder) Dam. We got along well with our new tent and equipment, though we found the sleeping bags far too warm. The following day we toured Zion National Park, and stayed in a campground in Bryce Canyon National Park. Highlight (or low point) of that night's camping was when Jane and the girls got lost in the big campground. David and I had a time finding them.
Next day we went on into Yellowstone Park--and back into winter. Heavy snow lay along the roads, and in the timber. We rented a cabin at Old Faithful Geyser Campground, and nearly froze despite having a fire in the little wood-burning stove. We saw many wild animals, and I got a few pictures. We spent one night in Billings, with friends, and then went on to Jean's farm sixteen miles west of Big Sandy.
Without going into details, we had a grand summer. Jane and I conducted six Vacation Bible schools, and we spent a week working at the youth camp in the mountains near Lewistown. We ate too much, but enjoyed the work with the farm children. With only a few exceptions, they were all well-behaved, and appreciated what we were doing. I got to "preach" at the closing exercises after each school, and sometimes at Kenilworth Sunday School, near Jean's. Life at Jean's was somewhat hectic, since beside our five she had my sister, Mary, and her daughter Pam; my father; Judy Eckles, a Bible student from Canada; and Jean's own family. We literally ate in shifts. Jean was very busy, running the big farm, making frequent trips to town for groceries and supplies, and managing the household. I found some spare time evenings and some weekends. One day we found a rattle snake near the front porch of the house; I shot it. Jane and I spent one week working at a Conservative Baptist summer camp for ministers and their wives, up in the Big Horn mountains of Wyoming. There we helped some old friends from the Montana Institute of the Bible, who were doing the cooking and maintenance of the camp.
After the summer Bible camp, Jean, her daughter, Faith, Jane, Martha, and I went camping for a few days in Glacier National Park. We had a great time together. When we returned we found that not everything was well at the farm. While doing haying, the children had managed to either fall off a load of hay, or had turned the hayrack over--I don't remember which. More serious, Jean's son, Dave, and our David had been out shooting gophers, and Dave shot himself through the foot! They had taken him to town to the doctor, but the wound gave no trouble, as no bones had been touched.
Near the end of August we packed up and headed back to Pasadena and school. More about that in the next blog!