At my urging, my Father started writing his autobiography in 1950. He was in his seventy-eighth year. Brother Ashby and his wife Ruth, set down their LIFE MEMORIES in the years 1981-1984.
In November of 1992 I published a book--covering the first twelve years of my life--titled, MY CHILDHOOD REMEMBERED.
Now, in my eightieth year, I offer a second biographical effort covering my teen years through experiences as a Boy Scout Executive in Maine in 1944. We'll title it, YEARS REMEMBERED: TEEN YEARS, EDUCATON, MARRIAGE, EARLY CAREER.
This presentation is mainly in the interest of sharing my life story with family members and close friends. Though many of you have heard much of what I have written, perhaps the retelling will refresh your memories through the years. It may even be that grandchildren in some distant future may be entertained and enlightened by reading these pages.
I confess to having thoroughly enjoyed stirring my mind to call up significant memories from yesteryears. Too often I have failed to remember names of individuals important in my life. I am grateful that so many memories and experiences came into focus as I wrote.
Teachers of writing strongly suggest that for good results, rewriting of copy is essential. I have not followed that advise but have concentrated on making the first draft acceptable in content and clarity. Toward this end, the computer is a marvelous instrument.
Because my dear wife, Madeline has proof read every page of this material as it came from the computer, I offer this book nearly free of typo glitches. My appreciation of Madeline reaches far above and beyond her efforts here.
If your acquaintance with the offerings in this book are in any way rewarding for you, then I find complete happiness in bringing them to you.
Elmo Fitz Randolph
Trail’s End
Boulder, Colorado
March 22, 1994
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I will share memories of these eventful years in the coming pages with episodes and vignettes that hopefully will give insights into the life of a boy growing to manhood in the West Virginia college town of Salem through the period of the great depression.
I was initiated into the business world at thirteen years of age when I took a newspaper route for the CLARKSBURG EXPONENT, a morning paper. My route of some fifty customers covered the west end of Salem. It began at about seven-thirty A.M. on downtown main street where the tightly rolled and wrapped papers were dropped off.
Every morning began with a race by all the newsboys to sell the extra copies of the EXPONENT we were allotted. I think the business men on main street enjoyed buying their paper from the first newsboy to arrive. The race began by sorting out your bundle of papers and slamming it flat on the sidewalk to break it open. With the papers in your paper bag you now ran along the street shouting, "EXPONENT! CLARKSBURG EXPONENT!"
Responsibility was "the name of the game" if you were to succeed with a paper route. It called for early rising; promptness in picking up your papers; delivering the papers to every customer in every kind of weather and getting to school on time. Making the rounds to every customer regularly to collect was a necessary, and not always pleasant assignment. Because I would not deliver papers on Sabbath, I had to employ some boy to take the route that day every week. As you can imagine, finding someone who could be depended upon was difficult. Unhappy customer relations sometimes resulted from unsatisfactory service by my employee.
Memory fails me now on how long I kept the newspaper route. Nor do I recall how profitable the venture was. I must have carried the CLARKSBURG EXPONENT for two years or so and with my profits I was able to purchase a number of things a teenage boy needed or wanted desperately.
One special "newsboy experience" deserves reporting. Imagine the thrill of opening the EXPONENT one morning and shouting, "LINDBERGH LANDS IN PARIS!" The date was May 21, 1927.
Another business project I tried early in my teens was selling THE SATURDAY EVENING POST. That effort was not very successful.
I certainly rate the newspaper route experience as a highly worthwhile enterprise. The contacts with a number of diverse persons was an education in human relations that has stood me in good stead through the years.
My father and two brothers, Brady and Ashby, were outdoorsmen and hunters. So it was natural for me to catch their interest in firearms. I must have been thirteen when Mama and Ashby approved my purchase of a twenty-two caliber rifle. The gun was a Stevens octagon barrel, lever action single shot rifle with open sights. It easily ranked as my most prized possession.
How fortunate I was to have brother Ashby instruct me in the care and use of this gun. I spent many sessions rubbing the gun barrel and stock with 3-1 oil. But the ultimate thrill would come when I could hunt squirrels with this treasured weapon. (Squirrel hunting in West Virginia enjoyed a popularity among sportsmen akin to what we observe during big-game seasons in the West.)
I knew there were squirrels in the oak grove above the stone quarry at the head of Pennsylvania avenue. This location was perhaps a quarter hour walk from home and on the fateful morning of my first hunt with the new gun I was sitting with my back against an oak tree surveying the grove around me at first light.
There have been numbers of occasions in my life when the sight of a buck deer or a bull elk has prompted an adrenaline flow through my system. The discovery of a gray squirrel on the limb of a nearby oak, flipping his tail and chattering, eclipses them all in sheer excitement and emotion.
This was the moment I had waited for and dreamed about--the "moment of truth". At this vantage point in time I like to believe I was steady and in control as I put the rifle sights on the squirrel and squeezed the trigger. Alas! There was no sound of a shot--only the "click" of the hammer strike. Amazingly, the squirrel stayed put on the limb above me and continued his quarreling. Frantically, I tried to shoot again and even put a new shell in the chamber without success. Admitting failure, I threw a stick at the squirrel and watched him scurry away unscathed.
A broken firing pin proved to be the cause of the gun misfiring. With my rifle repaired, I do not remember ever shooting at another squirrel. However, my Stevens twenty-two provided me recreation in target practice through many years until I traded it in a trading session with Newell Babcock in Alfred, New York in 1937 or 38.
HAPPINESS IS A BOY WITH HIS DOG
It was a red letter day in my life when I found a lost dog on Pennsylvania Avenue and he followed me home. We never could trace Pepper's original owner and he bonded with me almost immediately. (I named him "Pepper" because his white forelegs were "peppered" with black spots and because he was by nature full of PEP.)
Blocky of build, his body was white and his head black. His left ear loped over and his right ear stood up straight. His tail curled up and rested on his back. His legs were medium short and I would judge him to be about the size of a Chow or perhaps a Springer Spaniel.
I have never known a more intelligent or merrier dog. Teaching him the basics of canine obedience, he quickly mastered and eagerly practiced in all situations. At the proper signal or command Pepper would "come", "stay" "heel" or "hi-out". He readily learned tricks that were fun for him and entertaining for our family and friends. He rolled over, played dead, jumped through my arms (or over a stick), and sat up on his hind legs wherever you pointed him to and for as long as you required. While he was sitting up, he would take a cookie or a piece of meat in his mouth and hold it until I gave him the word to "take it".
I can't imagine a dog with a better disposition than Pepper but when he was hunting game he became a creature of passion and fury. I've never known an animal as fearless, no matter the size of his adversary.
An amusing episode with Pepper and a 'possum comes to mind. I was skiing on the hillside near the stone quarry at the head of Pennsylvania Avenue when Pepper started barking furiously in the gully at the foot of the hill. continued skiing and Pepper kept on barking until I looked down the hill to see him dragging a bucket by the bale up the hill toward me. Examining the bucket, I discovered the opening was crushed in so that my dog could not get his mouth into it but, to my surprise, a small 'possum was lying in leaves in the bottom of the bucket.
In 1928 Dad and brother Brady bought a thirty acre farm five miles from Sutton on Bug Ridge. I took Pepper to the farm with me that summer and he stayed there with Dad for the rest of his life. Pepper really earned his keep on the farm, hunting down and catching the weasels that killed numbers of Dad's Rhode Island Red chickens.
One day when Dad and I had been grubbing brush and started to the house for supper I looked down at Pepper and saw that his head was badly swollen. My first thought was that he had been stung by bees, but when Dad looked at him he said, "he's been bitten by a copperhead snake". Then I remembered seeing my dog yip and jump back from a rock pile. When we pulled the rocks off of the pile the snake popped out and Dad killed it with his mattock. Pepper had been bitten in the mouth and after we gave him all the milk he would drink, he laid down on the porch and seemed to be unconscious, not moving a muscle, for two days. I was deeply troubled, fearing my wonderful dog would die. After two days Pepper began recovering and was soon back to normal.
It was right Pepper should live out his life on the farm with my Dad. it was a joy for me to spend several summers with my father and my dog. Dad lived alone walking many miles in all kinds of weather to teach in the West Virginia hill schools. Pepper was his constant companion, going to school with him where he was loved by the children.
Dad wrote of Pepper, in his autobiography. "With all due respect to other dogs I ever owned and all dogs owned by anyone else, to my mind Pepper stood head and shoulders above all of them. I declare, of all dogs I ever knew, he was prince of them all." I can only wish that all who read this have been, or will be, blessed by friendship with a happy, loyal, trusting dog.
WILLIAM "BILL" PRICE, A SPECIAL MAN IN MY LIFE
How Bill Price and I became friends, I have forgotten. What I can never forget is the powerful, positive and lasting influence he brought into my adolescent years. The experiences we shared for a few years were of the stuff that dreams are made of.
Bill was on the faculty of Salem High School as the teacher of the "Opportunity Class"--a group of boys who were either slow learners, delinquents or potential "drop-outs". Much of his work with these boys centered in woodworking and crafts. Bill demonstrated a wide range of interests and skills. He built fine furniture, collected old guns, had a repertoire of West Virginia mountaineer stories and songs and was keenly interested in archeology--locating and studying Indian sites and collecting artifacts. The 4-H youth program was close to Bill's heart. He devoted much energy and time to the 4-H activities and programs at Jackson's Mill.
Being accepted in the Price family was heartwarming to me. Ruth, Bill's charming and beautiful wife, mothered their three daughters--Frieda, Wilma and Jean. Ruth's mother, Grandma Martin, made the family complete, with Bill as the devoted and adored father. (I may, in some degree, have filled the role of a son and brother.) Freda was in my age range and I could well have sought a romantic relationship had she not kept it on a "sister-brother" level.
Archery was the major interest around which the friendship between Bill and I focused and developed. Saxton Pope's book, HUNTING WITH BOW AND ARROW, fanned the flames of our enthusiasm for the sport. We made our own archery equipment, ordering lemonwood bow staves and Port Oxford arrow shafts from the L E. Stemmler Company in New York. We gave names to our bows and even to individual arrows, guided by their characteristics in shooting and flight. Bill crafted one short bow from an osage orange limb. It must have had an 80# pull. (Bill was a very strong man.) He named the bow, "Old Horrible". Most of our shooting was at random targets at varying distances as we hiked on the hills around Salem. Hunting for game was nonproductive in that area.
Bill and I had a memorable trip in my model T Ford to the Price family farm in Preston County. We slept on the floor in front of a fireplace and sometime in the night Bill woke me for my first look at the aurora borealis (northern lights). During that trip we had great fun shooting many arrows at bull bats (night hawks) flying low over a meadow. We would shoot all of our arrows, retrieve them and shoot again. The birds were not in danger but there were exciting close misses.
Astronomy was another of our interests. We would spread a blanket on the ground in an open field, lie on our backs, and with a flashlight as a pointer search out the constellations. I have continued to be an enthusiastic "skywatcher" through my years, graduating to the use of telescopes built by my wife, Madeline's father John Watts. (More of this later in my story.)
I deeply regret losing touch with Bill Price in his later years. He died of cancer. A book, MOUND BUILDERS--INDIANS AND PIONEERS, authored by William B. Price is in my library inscribed by Bill for me. I cherish it.
MY MODEL T FORD--AN AUTOMOBILE TO REMEMBER
In 1929, when I was sixteen years old, I bought a 1923 Model T Ford roadster for $30.00. (Where I found $30.00 in that depression year is a mystery.) The car was in a garage on Oak street in Salem where I started it by cranking, backed it out of the garage and drove it down Main street to Pennsylvania avenue. The parking space was near the bottom of the forty-two steps that led up to our house.
I don't recall getting any instruction in driving. The left turn from Main street into Pennsylvania avenue that first time was precariously fast. I had not become familiar with the gas feed lever located just under the steering wheel and operated with your right hand. (Incidentally, I don't believe a driver's license was required in West Virginia in 1929.)
The price of gasoline was twenty-five cents a gallon. To go swimming several miles from town, or take any extended excursion in the Ford, we would pool the nickels and dimes of two or three friends to put two or three gallons of gas in the car. Mr. Bartle, who ran the filling station across from Swiger's grocery store, gave me the oil he saved from the dentist's Buick that had an oil-change every 500 miles.
Keeping that Model T running was an exercise in patience and persistence. Sometimes it came down to sheer physical endurance--cranking, and cranking and cranking. The tires were another thing. We called them "skinny tires" and we always carried patching equipment and an air pump to repair the inevitable flat tires.
One experience with my Ford involved putting shims in the connecting rods that were knocking badly. In accomplishing this task I dropped one or more cotter keys in the crank case where I was unable to retrieve them. The result was that the cotter keys ground up in the gears and at unpredictable times bits of steel would collect on the magneto point under the floor boards, stopping the engine as though you were out of gas. The remedy was to remove the floor boards, clean off the steel from the magneto point and start again. This problem persisted over quite a period of time.
When I had the Ford on the farm it was useful for hauling chicken feed and other supplies from Sutton. But the gasoline would not feed into the carburetor on the steep Bug Ridge hill unless the tank was at least half full. We had two options when the gasoline was low in the tank: 1- turn the car around and back up the hill or 2- use the tire pump to pump air into the tank through the tiny hole in the gas tank cap and quickly plug the hole with a sharpened stick. This procedure had to be followed several times to make the top of the hill.
Having a 1923 Model T Ford was high adventure for a teen-age boy in the years of the Great Depression. It is interesting to reflect now that at that time the thought never occurred to us to have insurance of any kind on the car. This vignette ends with the sale of the little Ford for $2.00. (What would it be worth if I had it restored today?)
The summer of 1928, when I was fourteen years old, was the first of four vacations I lived on our farm with Dad. I have always believed a major reason brother Brady and Dad decided to buy the farm was to provide a work experience in a mountain setting and the opportunity to spend meaningful weeks living with Dad for me. If that was their motivation, they were justified in it and the results were all they could have hoped for. In those years of the great depression there was no work for a boy in Salem and I would have been at loose ends all summer, playing endless hours of tennis and being generally useless.
Summer life on the farm was quite like camping out. The terrain was steep and rough. A few acres were wooded--with some beautiful poplar trees--and most of the land that could be cultivated was overgrown with brush. (In West Virginia they call the unwanted growth "filth".)
There were no buildings on the property until Dad, with some carpenter help, built a chicken house. We lived in that house for two summers. When it rained we moved the bed to the middle of the room to avoid the water that came through the cracks in the walls. We cooked on a wood burning stove and had kerosene lamps for light at night. (Dead chestnut trees provided excellent firewood.)
Until a well was drilled on top of the hill, we carried water from a spring on the hillside below the house. Going to the spring for water one day I spotted a copperhead snake sunning on a rock and killed it with a stone. It was great exercise cranking up water from the deep well that was drilled.
The first few days and nights of each summer on the farm I experienced real homesickness for Mamma, my friends and life in Salem. The after dark calls of the Whippoorwills brought on loneliness at bedtime. (Another nighttime sound was the slap, slap of flying squirrels jumping from one tree to another close the house. We didn't see the flying squirrels in the daytime.)
The projects Dad and I worked together on most of the time were tending the garden crops and clearing the land of brush. One of our leisure time activities was target shooting with my twenty- two rifle. Once we walked to Elk river and went swimming. This was the only time I ever saw Dad swim. He wore his overalls and swam with a breast, or frog, stroke. With each stroke the bib of his overalls would balloon out. Dad had many experiences and stories to tell me as we worked and played. He enjoyed walking through the garden and around the farm as we rested from work on Sabbaths. He planted fruit trees of many varieties and raised blue ribbon quality Rhode Island Red Chickens.
Indians--probably Cherokees--must have lived and hunted on Bug Ridge. Of the several artifacts we picked up on our land, Dad's was the finest--a black spear head perfectly crafted. It is the best artifact in my collection and I wear it now as a striking bolo.
I probably would not have chosen to spend those summers on the farm but now I would not exchange those experiences for any other activity I might have engaged in. The saying is certainly true, "You can take a boy out of the hills, but you can't take the hills out of a boy".
I almost draw a 'blank" on school experiences in junior high. Miss Pepper was my home room teacher and I adored her. Mr. A.G.T. Brissey was our principal. On one occasion, when he was called into our room because we were not cooperating in picking up the litter on the floor, he commanded, "Clear the floor or feel the lash!" No doubt the litter was picked up promptly. (Is my memory playing tricks on me when I seem to remember he took off his belt?)
Walking to and from junior high school, in the same building with Salem high school east of the downtown business area, I sometimes stopped in the pool hall to watch on my way home. (I seldom, if ever, had money to play .) As you would suspect, the pool hall reeked of stale tobacco and though I flapped my coat vigorously in the air on the way home, Mamma always knew when I had been in the pool hall. She thought of a pool hall as a den of vice.
Nelson Tully became my closest friend in these early teen years and we shared many of the experiences of youth through high school and college. Nelson was endowed with a large ego, backed up by a brilliant mind and many talents. By my standards, the Tully family was affluent providing Nelson with most anything he desired--including a Model A Ford car.
I struggled valiantly to be competitive with "Tully" in academics and athletics. We played "one on one" basketball in his barn; we boxed and we spent endless hours competing on the tennis court. In our senior year in high school we played together on a championship basketball team. (More of that later.) He and I wired our home for electricity. I was good competition for Nelson at tennis and competed with him on the Salem College tennis team.
It must have been during our junior high school years that "Tully" and I first went to the Robinson Grand theater in Clarksburg. What an adventure The interior of the theater was magnificent in its decor. The orchestra set an exciting mood. Vaudeville acts in the matinee shows left us breathless. I remember seeing Gertrude Ederlee, the first woman to swim the English Channel. She appeared on the stage in her bathing suit and swam in a glass tank that must have been ten or fifteen feet in diameter. Another Clarksburg adventure of those early teen years was going to swim in the WI high school swimming pool or in the Enroe apartment building pool.
During two or three summers of my early teen years three women teachers from Ripley, West Virginia roomed and boarded-in our home for the period of the Salem College summer school. They were: Greta Corbin, Carmelita Cunningham and Velma Fisher. They were attractive, vivacious and fun-loving. How they could be satisfied with the facilities in our little house is beyond me. Of course, the food my mother served was always excellent.
Sleep walking and nightmares have plagued me much of my life since my early teens. (I'm glad retelling them to friends has entertained them.) A classic example was my sleep-walk in winter traversing the forty-eight icy steps and going down main street to Swiger's store and back. (I was only wearing "long John" underwear and didn't wake up until morning.) Clarence Batson, who lived on our hill, found me on the college campus and led me home.
Looking back across nearly three-quarters of a century, the period of my education in Salem High School was rich with physical, mental and emotional growth and development. By today's standards, the facilities and equipment were meager but the educational and moral qualifications of the faculty made learning an adventure in achieving.
Principal Clarence "Bud" Tesch was a BIG man in every sense of the word. He was an alumnus of Salem College who had become a legend as a brilliant athlete in football, basketball and baseball. I saw him compete often in all three sports during my childhood. Salem High School students accepted Mr. Tesch's fairness in discipline and respected him for his dedication to learning. I remember a plaque on principal Tesch's desk. It read, "When you play, play hard. When you work, don't play at all."
I had the highest regard for Miss Loretta Findley whose teaching subject was history. Her personality was testy but friendly. She taught with enthusiasm and a thorough knowledge of the subject. I knew her as a caring friend and an excellent teacher. Miss Findley gave me a mature, untrained German police dog name Jiggs. I was unsuccessful in bringing him under control and so I gave him to my brother, Ashby.
The teaching of Miss Gladys Miller--English and Literature--has had a marked influence on my life through the years. She introduced us to the great writers and poets and made their literary contributions live. We got our first "taste" of Shakespeare with Miss Miller. I am forever her debtor.
A number of extra-curricular activities helped round out my high school education. I went out for football in either my freshman or sophomore year. But after two weeks of practices I decided this sport was not for me. I only weighed 118 pounds and was not competing well against the BIG boys. My trial at basketball early in high school ended when I got a broken nose in an early practice.
I had a role in one play during high school and was the sports writer on the staff of the high school paper. Cheer leading was fun for one or two years and I sang in the boys glee club. Miss Wilma West directed the glee club.
Physical fitness was an absorbing interest and effort with me during all of my youth. I usually ran two at a time up the forty-eight steps to our house. At one time I exercised until I could bend over backwards and touch my head on the floor. I was able to kick the top of the doorways at home-several inches above my head. Then there was the period when I ate a cake of yeast every day. This was supposed to guard against adolescent skin problems. Fleischman's yeast was gooey and horrible tasting--a dry cake was much more palatable. I don't recall having any serious illnesses or health problems during the high school years.
This will be a good point to punctuate my high school experiences with accounts of falling in love, not once but twice. Then we can continue with the telling of my most thrilling high school activity--playing on the Little Mountaineer League Championship basketball team in my senior year.
I was a high school freshman when I met Garnet Garner at a basketball game between Salem and Bristol. She was a Bristol high school freshman student and I found her attractive with dark hair, brown eyes with glasses and a trim figure. After our first meeting we found other opportunities to be together. I recall an occasion when we were sitting together in the Salem College auditorium. We shared a pocket dictionary and took turns pointing out words that communicated how we felt about one another--words like, "beautiful", "gorgeous", "lovely". An interesting technique for "puppy love" courtship.
Garnet's family lived on a farm at the head of Cherry Camp Run, east of Salem. In those long-ago days it was customary for farm families around Salem to come to town on Saturday night to do their shopping and promenade on the business section of main street. The Garner family joined the Saturday night crowds during the fall weeks, giving me the delightful chance to meet Garnet and be with her for an hour or two.
With the setting in of Winter the dirt roads up Cherry Camp Run became almost impassable so the Garner family Saturday night excursions to Salem stopped. At this juncture I received a letter from Garnet inviting me to her home on Saturday night. She gave careful instructions on the route to follow across the hills to Cherry Camp Run. It must have been a two or three mile walk through fields and woods, not to mention it being in the dark of night. Garnet promised in her letter that her father would tie up his fox hounds.
The first hike across the hills to Garnet's home, flashlight in hand, was an adventure. The instructions were that when I reached the top of a hill I would be an open field where I could look down and see the lights of my destination. I found myself in a woods and sat on a stump to decide which way to go. The next crises came in an open field when my flashlight beams spotted eyes all around Lie. The "eyes" turned out to be a flock of sheep.
I must have made the trip to date Garnet three or more times. They were happy experiences and I'm certain I was reluctant to start the trip home. I do remember playing a record on the wind-up victrola, "Come to Me My Melancholy Baby". On one trip home, in the snow, I came upon a 'possum track and followed it quite a way.
Time has blotted out any memory of why or how my relationship with Garnet ended. I have learned in later years that her life was unhappy if not tragic.
Late in May of 1930, after my junior year in high school, my friend Nelson Tully asked me to have a "blind date" with a girl from Fairmont who was visiting the Tullys with her parents. My first glimpse of Madeline Watts was of her reflection in a full-length hall mirror as she sat in the living room of the Tully home.
For me, this was a case of "love at first sight". Madeline was a blue-eyed blond, quite tall with lovely features, a pleasant voice and a charming personality. Later I often called her "laughing eyes". She had just celebrated her fifteenth birthday and my seventeenth was three months away. We enjoyed a delightful evening. I was so charmed by her that I gave her my high school class ring.
The next day after my first date with Madeline, at Mamma’s suggestion, I asked for my ring back saying, "I don't know you that well". Within a few days I traveled to Fairmont for my first visit to see Madeline, without her knowing I was coming. My memories of that trip are painful.
A friend, Bob Wise, offered to take me to Fairmont and return on his motorcycle--an eighty mile round trip. The motorcycle did not have a second seat so I rode on the fender with the scant padding of a folded burlap bag. Enough to say that the experience was excruciating. I did see Madeline but she was entertaining a group of girl friends so may stay was brief.
The summer of 1930 I spent on the farm and corresponded regularly with Madeline. What a thrill it was to receive a box of cookies she had baked. I walked many miles to the post office in Sutton to pick up her letters a day before they were normally be delivered by the mail man. The cost of one extended telephone conversation with Madeline was voided by Alma Jurgens, Brady's sister-in-law and head telephone operator.
It was a happy surprise to learn that Madeline's Watts grandparents lived a mile or so from us on a Bug Ridge Farm. How wonderful that she could visit her grandparents that summer. She rode their gray horse, Charlie, out to visit me. The romantic moonlight walks on the dusty Bug Ridge road were memorable.
With the coming of fall and my last year in high school, I hitch-hiked to Fairmont on several weekends to be with Madeline. Her parents must have approved of my coming. Mr. Watts would let me drive his Plymouth car to a movie or just for an evening ride. Then there times when Madeline came to Salem with her parents to visit the Tullys. We made the most of those times.
By 1932, when Madeline was a high school senior and I was a college freshman, the glamour of our romance was wearing thin. We did see each other infrequently and the contacts were friendly. Both of us were forming new friendships and having exciting experiences in the circles in which we moved.
As most of you who read this know, the account of the parting of the ways of Elmo and Madeline was not finalized in 1932. As you follow Elmo’s "lifeline" across the years and decades, Madeline's star will come into focus and shine brightly as a guiding light in their journey together.
Several of the Salem high school basketball players were my close friends. So when the 1930-31 season began I joined the squad trying out for the team. Our coach was John "Cracker" Wilks. He was a Salem College graduate whose athletic success was outstanding--especially in basketball. I was privileged to watch him play throughout his college career. "Cracker" Wilks and Sammy Kistler teamed up as forwards to make the Salem College basketball program formidable during their collegiate years. Sammy Kistler was my physical education instructor and coach in college.
The progress I made in the basketball practices pleased and surprised me. When the large squad was divided, I was included on the A squad. It was a thrill to be issued one of the fifteen first squad uniforms and sweat suits. I made the trip to Clarksburg for the game with Victory High School. My first game experience was with Pennsboro High School where I played briefly.
Our Salem high school team was winning its games and was in contention for the Little Mountaineer League championship. I was competing for the position of substitute guard with another senior, Francis Bouffioux. Joe Davis and Harold Zellar were the regular guards--Joe very fast and an excellent ball handler, Harold big and athletic.
I learned what it's like to play "hurt". In one period during the season the tendons in my heels became very sore and tender. It was painful to run but I practiced and played through that agony. I would have walked through fire for coach "Cracker" Wilks.
A crisis came for our team late in the season. Harold Zellar cut his hand badly while working in his father's glass plant. He was out for the season. It was obvious that Francis or I must step into the lineup.
The next game, against West Union High School on their floor, was crucial. We had defeated them by one point in Salem. I played briefly in that game. Our championship was on the line in this contest. I was torn between wanting desperately to play and being fearful the coach would take his chances with me.
I did get the call to start the game and what an unusual game it was. West Union scored eight points in the first quarter to zero for us. They scored eight more points in the second quarter and we scored sixteen to tie the score at the half. (I believe I scored the first field goal for two points.) The second half the lead changed several times and with time running out we had a one point lead when I fouled Carl Christie. His first free throw was good tying the score, but he missed the second foul shot. Joe Davis took the rebound and raced down the floor where he was fouled near the basket. He made his first free throw, giving us the winning point, and when the gun went off ending the game he threw the ball straight in the air. (Carl Christie became a college classmate and starred in football, basketball and baseball.)
The final score of that game was 23-22, I believe. It's surprising how low high school and college basketball scores were in those years. Our team did win the championship of our league and went to the state tournament. I did not go to the tournament with the team because the first game was on Friday (Sabbath Eve)--a very tough decision for me. Our team roster was: Nelson Tully and Bob Wise, forwards; Joe Davis and Harold Zellar, guards and Bud Murrow, center. I replaced Harold Zellar after his accident.
Here is an interesting "side" story in my basketball experience. At some point during the season my locker was broken into and my basketball shoes and sweatshirt were stolen. Some days later as I was walking up the steep sidewalk to the high school I looked down to see the boy in front of me wearing my shoes. Stopping him I said, "Sit down and take off my shoes". He begged that he couldn't go to school without shoes so I said, "Bring my shoes and my sweat shirt at noon or I tell Mister Tesch". He insisted that he didn't have my sweat shirt but I said, "Bring it anyway", and he did.
For our high school senior class picnic we went to Blackwater Falls. it was a wonderful day. I was thrilled to have my girl friend, Madeline Watts, with me. Our seniors from the basketball team were wearing our sweaters with the coveted S. Madeline and I rode with Nelson Tully and his girl friend in his model A Ford.
Sometime during the picnic fun I waded across the Blackwater river not many yards above the falls. The water was about waist deep and very swift. A slip on the rocky bottom would most certainly have carried me over the falls. How many times do foolhardy experiences like that one end in tragedy?
There were fifty-eight graduates in our 1931 Salem High School class. I wrote the Class Prophecy for the graduation exercises and sent a copy to be read for the class reunion in 1981.
I am forever grateful that an arrangement was made with the administration of the college for me to work out my tuition doing maintenance and janitorial work during the summer months. I don't remember how much the tuition was. By today's standards it would be ridiculously low. The arrangement was for me to work ten hours a day, six days a week, during the summer vacation months. The hourly pay rate began at 25 cents and was later raised to 30 cents. A big advantage of the plan for me was that 1 could participate fully in the academic and social programs of college during the school year.
Being a Salem College Freshman was exciting. Friendships quickly developed with classmates and upper classmen. Introduction to a variety of courses, and their professors, was stimulating. At some point I decided to major in English and minor in physical education. The curriculum I chose stressed a liberal arts education including literature, mathematics, history, chemistry, French, physical education and music. Throughout the first three years of college I was committed to preparation to be high school teacher.
I feel especially privileged to have studied math under Dean M. H. Van Horn. He was considered to be one of the outstanding math teachers in I-lest Virginia. The course I had with him introduced us to algebra, geometry and trigonometry.
Chemistry introduced me to science with Dr. Gould as teacher. The lab work was most interesting--especially the experiments in qualitative analysis.
Dr. Ferdinand Ruge taught French and deserved the role of most eccentric professor on campus. There was the incident when he put his lighted pipe in his pocket before stepping on campus. As he walked down the hall, smoke was observed rolling up from his pocket. The pipe was removed promptly.
Dr. Ruge made a practice of harassing one or more students in his French class. He chose me for that dubious role and once said such offensive things about me that I slammed my books on the floor and confronted him eyeball to eyeball. From that time forward Dr. Ruge and I became fast friends. On learning that I planned to enter the ministry, he offered sage advice. Two examples: "Don't ever preach to the people what they ought to hear. Preach to them what they want to hear. If you preach to them what they ought to hear, the moving van will back up to your door." "The choir and the ladies aid are the war department of the church" (Dr. Ruge had been an Episcopalian minister). I was invited to tea several times with Dr. Ruge, his lovely wife and daughter, Genevieve.
My English and Literature professors were Dr. M. Channing Linthicum and Miss Nannie Lowe. Dr. Linthicum once suggested to me that I could make a successful politician. Is it not true that a successful minister must be something of a politician? Becoming familiar with English and American literature--especially poetry--inspired me in ways that have lasted through my life.
Pastor George B. Shaw, beloved minister of our Salem Seventh Day Baptist Church, taught a Bible course that was very popular with Salem College students. I still treasure the textbook he authored and have used it often.
I was the first male student to take the Table Service course offered by Miss Cleo Gray. She headed the home economics department and in the course we worked in teams to prepare and serve a number of meals, teas and receptions. College officials were invited as guests for these occasions. I baked an angel food cake and a meatloaf as assignments and for the table decoration for one event I decided to use dandelions. I arranged the decoration in advance of the event but alas, when the class members and guests gathered the dandelions had all closed up. My experience in the Table Service course paved the way for other college men, including a number of athletes, to benefit by it. What I learned from Miss Gray has been invaluable to me through the years.
The credits I acquired in the music department came close to being enough for a minor. Music courses with Miss Elizabeth Bond included Music Appreciation and Sight Singing. I studied piano with Miss Bond and reached the level of playing Chopin and Brahms in recitals. It is one of my educational regrets that I did not become a more proficient pianist.
Following is the text of a brief paper written as an assignment in the Music Appreciation class. At the end of the piece is a comment signed, E. Bond.
"Using the word "appreciation" in its most sincere and deep sense I feel that Music Appreciation has really meant a great deal to me. Strangely enough, Music Appreciation has never seemed to be "just another course", but rather it has stood among my activities as something finer, something that has had a real appeal--a subject devoted to happiness and true beauty.
I have learned to love music and all that it carries with it. Beautiful melodies and harmonies stir up feelings within me that reach far into my being.
Everything about me seems to have suddenly turned musical. Birds wake me in the morning with their happy chorus and their evening songs haunt my sleep. Nature seems especially musical.
Then too, I have learned to feel a deeper sense of appreciation for the composers who have given us our music. The stories of their lives reflect the beauty and sincerity of their compositions and their tireless work and effort make us appreciate the fruits of their labor even more.
Through the study of Music Appreciation" I have come to recognize some of the possibilities of music and what it can do to make people happy and contented--better able to enjoy the real fullness of life."
The grade on this piece was A, with Miss Bond's comment handwritten on the bottom of the page: "Fine! I copied this and intend to keep it. You have been an inspiration in the class and this little essay makes me very happy."
In addition to the regular required physical education course, I took boxing and wrestling and tumbling. In boxing I was glad to learn rope-jumping. I excelled defensively in wrestling, being difficult for opponents to pin.
Samuel Kistler headed the physical education department. As an alumnus of Salem College, he had earned a reputation as a celebrated athlete in football, basketball and baseball. His teaching skills and dedication were of a high order.
The tumbling class was most enjoyable for me. We developed a team of tumblers who performed in a number of high schools in the area. Our routine included front and back flips, dives and a number of other tumbling maneuvers.
The tennis team was coached by Samuel Kistler, too. I made the team for only a few matches. One I played in against West Virginia Wesleyan on their courts is memorable. I did not win a point in the first game. From then on in the match I won the next eleven games--several of them going to deuce over and over. My opponent conceded the match to me when it began to rain. It is interesting to note that in the period up to college graduation I played endless hours of tennis. Since college I have seldom had a racket in my hand.
I was close to Salem College sports and athletes from childhood through college. Several outstanding athletes boarded at our home and ate Mammals cooking during their college careers. A few of them I remember were: Matthew Bowers, "Peely" Hogue, Doy Neville and Irving Menzel. I'm sure there aren't many Salem College fans who witnessed more athletic contests than I in the years from 1925 to 1935.
In October 1932, early in my sophomore year, I was elected head cheerleader for Salem College. Sandford Randolph, my cousin, nominated me for the position and after "trying out" for the assembled student body I was surprised and elated to be elected. The Salem College "S", with a megaphone on it is a treasured memento from many thrilling experiences of yesteryear. How exciting the pep rallies were, with bonfires and snake dances, on the nights before home football games. The Salem College songs still ring in my mind.
Now let me interject some memories of the summer work project that covered my tuition for the four years of college. Okey Davis was head custodian at the college, in charge of all janitorial and maintenance work. I consider it a real privilege to have worked for four summers under his direction. He became my friend as well as boss. He had a hearing problem and I remember him telling me, "One advantage of being deaf is that you can't hear a mosquito buzzing before he bites you". We worked on many assignments in the course of a summer: lawn mowing, window washing, floor maintenance, painting and varnishing and miscellaneous other projects. The most physically exhausting work I remember was mixing mortar at ground level and carrying it in buckets to plasterers on the third floor of Huffman Hall.
One summer experience is unforgettable. Nelson Tully and I, with girl friends, attended the summer school picnic on a river near Clarksburg. When we went to our car--after most of the picnickers were gone--we found a girl waiting for her boyfriend in a car. Concerned, we checked in the bathhouse and found his clothes. Quickly getting into our bathing suits, Nelson and I went into the river to search for the man. I carried a good sized rock so I could walk on the bottom of the river between coming up for breaths. It was a shock to step on the body as it drifted along on the bottom of the river. Calling for help, we lifted the body into a boat and brought it to shore. A rescue squad tried resuscitation but it was futile. The summer student's name was Bailey. I had played tennis with him but didn't know him well. The memory lingers.
The experience of falling from a window of the physics lab on the top floor of Huffman Hall is still vivid. Roommate Reece Burns and I were washing the windows at the end of a work day. I was standing on the window sill washing the outside of the pane, holding on with one hand on the top of the window. Reece finished the inside of the window and pushed it up briskly, knocking my hand from its grip and causing me to fall backward. I went into a crouching position and landed on my feet on water-soaked ground. I was stunned by the impact and could not see for a brief time. The first sound I heard was Reece flying down the stairs to my side. lost two days work from the soreness of my ankles, knees and hips but did not check with a Doctor. The distance of the fall was about thirty feet.
Twice during the summers I went on B. & 0. railroad weekend excursion trips to Washington, D.C. We got on the train on the night after the Sabbath; arrived in Washington in the morning; walked around the capitol area all day Sunday; came back on the train Sunday night and arrived home--very tired--Monday morning. On one trip I was with Bob Wise. Nelson Tully was on the other with me. I do not think it the ideal way to tour Washington.
It was certainly not unnatural that I should have "an affair of the heart" during college days. Helen McCullough was a classmate from Hole Hill, West Virginia. (The town has now taken the name, "Mountain"--proving that a mole hill can be changed to a mountain.) Helen's brothers, Tom and Harold, were in college with her. I have forgotten how our friendship started but it grew into a serious relationship over a two year period. We studied together, were a formidable bridge team and enjoyed shooting bows together. Helen transferred to West Virginia University for her senior year and we parted company. I have speculated that her family decided I was not the man she should choose.
It could be said of my life during college that I did not let academics interfere with extra curricular activities. When I tried out for the Men's Glee Club I made it as the first second tenor. Professor Clark Siedhoff was our director and we were proud to represent Salem College by performing concerts in a number of West Virginia communities. Wearing a tuxedo made me feel sophisticated and debonair. One of our favorite numbers, "Give Me Some Men Who Are Stout Hearted Men" still resounds in my memory. "Creation Hymn" was a real test of our musical competence.
I was fortunate to be chosen by the college as a delegate to a Rural Life Conference in Washington, D.C. On the bus trip to Washington I met Margaret Herndon. She was a harpist and director of music for the Clarksburg Presbyterian Church. A friendship between us blossomed as we walked and talked far into the night on the streets of Washington. The year was 1933 or 1934. We would not walk at night in Washington in 1994. During the conference I rode in an elevator with Secretary of Agriculture, Henry Wallace. Later he became Vice President with President Roosevelt.
Margaret and I continued to see each other after the conference. She was generous in agreeing to give harp recitals I arranged at the college and at our Salem church. The church recital was a benefit for the choir robe fund. Mrs. George Trainer's large contribution made purchase of choir robes possible. No doubt Margaret was several years older than I. Our rather brief relationship was a happy one. I have wondered what has happened in Margaret's life.
The spiritual life of Salem College students was not neglected. Daily chapel was mandatory and, for the most part, students appreciated the Christian emphasis. Area ministers and educators brought chapel messages. Our singing was heartwarming. Number 17 in the song book, "In My Heart There Rings A Melody" was a favorite. My theme hymn in that period was, "I Would Be True". For some reason, that hymn doesn't appear in current hymnals.
President S. Orestes Bond often led the chapel services. He was a dedicated Christian gentleman who successfully guided Salem College for many years. The students of those years remember that his prayers were eloquent and moving but sometimes overly long. The life of President Bond blessed us all.
YMCA and YWCA organizations were active on campus. It was inspiring to attend Christian Student Conferences on other college campuses. One such experience at Bethany College--founded by Alexander Campbell of the Church of Christ--made a deep impression on me.
The fellowship of our Seventh Day Baptist college youth was wonderful. We often gathered for parties and a number of us sang in the church choir. Dean Van Horn taught our college Sabbath School class. We met in the back pews of the church. I recall how Dean Van Horn stood with one foot up on the pew in front of us, ingling the change in his pocket as he spoke and taught. His teaching was always forward looking and positive. We respected and loved him.
The Christian influence of Pastor George B. Shaw and members of the congregation of the Salem Church was greater and richer than we knew then. And the friendships made in those college days will never be forgotten.
Matthew Bowers, Fisher Davis, Claude Nagel and Reece Burns each had a turn as my roommate during our college years. Matt distinguished himself in football and basketball. While he roomed with me I had a nightmare one night, dreaming that Matt was falling out a hotel window. In a desperate effort to save him, I grabbed him around the neck with both hands. Waking up rudely, he hit me a sharp blow on the chin with his fist. My nightmare ended abruptly.
Fisher Davis, "Eph", was from Bridgeton, New Jersey--the son of Elizabeth Fisher Davis who wrote the Seventh Day Baptist Young People's Song. "Eph" was very tall and a good tennis player. He graduated in the class of '32.
Claude Nagel was also a New Jersey product, from Plainfield. His father was a successful New York artist. Claude was a sophomore in 1935 and wrote in my Dirigo, "Elmo- I can't adequately express my appreciation for my stay in the Randolph cottage on the hill. I leave here as though I was leaving home."
Reece Burns roomed with me for our last two college years. Vie became more brothers than roommates. He was sincerely Christian, serving at times as a Methodist Protestant minister. Because Reece's parents were dead, he came to think of my mother as his, too. Mamma accepted that role graciously. She sewed pajamas for both of us out of feed sacks. She kept a length of rope that she whipped us with to get us out of bed mornings. It was a contest to see who could pull the covers off of the other when Mamma was swinging the rope.
Reece and I worked together at the college one summer doing maintenance and janitorial assignments. His influence on my life--especially when I was considering entering the ministry--was of great import. After college Reece became a minister in the United Methodist Church and was elevated to the position of District Superintendent in southern West Virginia. (I was honored to have him serve as "Groom's Man" at my wedding.)
My room in our little house during college years was a happy haven for me. I rigged a chinning bar that hung from the ceiling. On the walls of the room I pasted favorite poems and quotations. "The House By the Side of the Road" was one of the poems and I believe "Invictus" was another. Psychologist Coe was popular in that period. A quote from him on my wall amuses me now: "Every day in every way, I'm getting better and better."
A poem I wrote is illustrative of my darker moods of college days:
Sweep down on me, oh wind!
Why waste thy roaring on the darkened sky
Or on some tempest-twisted tree
From whose lean boughs the leaves were lately torn?
Sound not thy wrath against the silent hills
For naught but echoes will avail thee thus.
But rather, seek thy vengeance to allay
With merciless and unrelenting blasts
Designed to buffet and to purge
My soul, ill-steeped in worldliness.
Reflecting now, I understand that I often felt insecure and inadequate as I struggled through the stresses of college life. However, they were good years.
The experience I record now happened at the beginning of college spring recess in April, 1934. I began hitch-hiking from Salem to Sutton--about a one hundred mile trip--planning to spend the vacation week with Dad on the farm. At four o'clock in the afternoon I was still thirty-two miles from Sutton and wasn't catching any rides so I began walking. Is it ironic that the name of the town where I started the trek was Walkersville?
During the day the temperature was warm and springlike. With sunset it cooled off rapidly. I wasn't dressed for cool weather and I was carrying a small suitcase. That stretch of road was through hill country and was sparsely populated. I was not carrying a flashlight. Traffic was very thin.
I walked a few miles until after dark and decided to make a bed in a field beside the road and try to get some sleep. Cushioning the ground with a layer of broomsage (a West Virginia grass) I tried sleeping without success. The only option seemed to be to walk. So I walked all night long. Infrequently a car would approach me and pass, dousing my hopes. As I passed one home near the road I thought of stopping but a dog barked viciously and I kept walking.
Toward morning I came upon the site of a crosstie fire set by railroad workmen the day before. There were still hot coals and the ground was warm. It was restful to lie down for a while. I may even have fallen asleep.
I believe I walked up a final steep hill to brother Brady and Mary's home at seven or eight o'clock in the morning. A hot tub bath was refreshing and sleep was welcome. When I awoke my knees were so stiff it was difficult to walk for some time. The miles I have covered walking in my life are many but at no other time have I totaled thirty-two miles on a cold spring night carrying a suitcase.
Being elected president of the college junior class in 1933-35 was thrilling for me. The other class officers that year were: Vice president Milton Van Horn, secretary- Virginia Thompson, treasurer- Abby Brent. I must have had a successful year because the class elected me president again for our senior year--1934-35. Arthur Bland was vice president, Leah Virginia Davis was secretary and Fred Early was treasurer. It was another good year. Our class gift to Salem college, for which we raised a sizable amount of money, was improving the electrical system in the administration building.
Following college tradition, our senior class presented a class play near the end of our college days. Miss Nannie Lowe directed THE YOUNGEST for us. I played "the youngest". Milton Van Horn was my elder brother in the play and Wilma Keys was the female lead. It was fun doing the play and it was well received. (In earlier college years, Shakespearean plays were the tradition.)
There were two "happenings" for me during my senior year that impacted strongly on my life and future. At our Seventh Day Baptist General Conference in Salem in August, 1934 I met Helen Mae Button. Her home was on a farm near Friendship, New York and she was preparing for her freshman year at Alfred University. After our brief introduction in Salem we carried on correspondence through the school year that was heart-warming and exciting for me. (It's odd that I remember she dotted her i's with little circles.)
Blossoming romantic interest in Helen Mae led me to borrow Ashby and Ruth's Plymouth car to drive to New York State for Christmas vacation, 1934. Betty and Ed Bartley and Ruth Sarah Davis made the trip with me and I was Betty and Ed's guest in Bolivar, New York. We attended Christmas Eve Midnight mass in a Catholic church in Portville, my first experience in a Catholic III church. I visited my aunt Cleo--Dad's sister--in Olean.
The overnight visit to Helen Mae’s home completely captivated me. If I was falling in love with Helen Mae, I was immediately charmed by her parents and her home. I would call her father, Lon Button, an entrepreneur farmer. He had trout ponds and in the winter trapped foxes. Strawberries were a successful crop in the summer. Amelia, Helen Mae’s Mother, was a quiet, white haired lady who was an immaculate housekeeper and an altogether charming person. They were sincere, committed Christians. Mr. Button was a Deacon in the Nile Seventh Day Baptist Church. I was awed by my visit with the Buttons.
I made a pair of moccasins for Helen Mae as her Christmas present. Here are the verses I placed in the moccasins:
These moccasins I fashioned with a prayer
That they might lead you in your eager quest
For happiness unbounded, wild and free.
O moccasins, like Indian maids did wear,
Thy steps must not stray, thoughtless, like the rest
For in thy trust I leave one dear to me.
Suffice it to say that Helen Mae and I corresponded frequently through the rest of my year in college. It may have been a case where "Absence makes the heart grow fonder".
The second "happening" that occurred during my senior year in Salem college gave a new direction for my life that has marked all my days since. Rev. A.J.C. Bond had accepted the deanship of the School of Theology in Alfred University and was visiting Salem College to recruit students studying for the ministry. He visited with me on campus, between the Administration building and Huffman Hall, saying that his daughter, Wilma, had suggested I might be a candidate for the ministry. He urged me to consider the ministry as my life "Calling" and join his first class at the School of Theology.
This invitation was something of a "bombshell" of an idea for me. I had pursued my college course with the assumption that high school teaching would be my life work. Working toward that end I acquired the necessary education credits including practice teaching for six weeks in Salem High School. It was interesting to get the reaction of other people on my entering the ministry. An interview with Rev. Herbert Van Horn, Milton and Elston's father, was very encouraging and helpful for me.
After serious consideration and soul-searching, I made the decision to study for a Bachelor of Divinity degree--a three year course--at the Alfred University School of Theology. At this point in time I was not certain of a "Calling" to the ministry and so made my decision on an exploratory basis.
Graduating from Salem College with the class of 1935 was the ultimate in achievement an excitement at that point in my life. I was the first member of our family to earn a college degree. (Brother Ashby graduated the next year.)
Dr. William L. Stidger, noted radio preacher, was our Baccalaureate speaker. His sermon title was: TITANS OF THIS TUMULT. He highlighted the current roles of Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini in 1935. Then he made the point that Dr. Albert Sweitzer, the Japanese Christian, Kagawa, and Mohandas Gandhi were the real Titans of This Tumult. His prophetic message has stood the test of time.
As president of the graduating class, it was my privilege to be at the head of the receiving line for President Bond's reception following the commencement exercises. Several years previous to this Mrs. Bond had employed me to keep the punchbowl filled during the reception for the graduates. I carried the punch from the basement of the president's home up to the reception table. I must be the only person who ever served in both roles.
My family members--including cousins, aunts, etc.--presented me with a gift of money. I had to decide whether to use the gift for buying a class ring or a new suit. Reluctantly, I chose the new suit--I needed it more.
The summer of '35 was a period of crucial change in several areas of my life. My classmate friend, Byron Whitford, from Little Genesee, New York, invited me to spend the summer with his family before entering the School of Theology in September. Being in New York State appealed to me if for no other reason than I would close to Helen Mae Button.
In the beginning of the summer Byron and I teamed up with his Dad, Ferris Whitford, selling HURLBURTIS STORY OF THE BIBLE and Bibles door to door in the rural area around Little Genesee. Our salesmanship was not very productive so we gave up on that project. Next Byron and I undertook cutting wood for a pulp mill. I believe we were to receive $6.00 per cord. The trees we cut were elm and willow growing near a stream. Our task was to cut down the trees--some quite large--saw them into four foot lengths, debark them and stack them in cords. I enjoyed working with ax and two man crosscut saw but Byron was inexperienced and that slowed our production. We didn't stay with it long.
When it was the season to harvest hay, I moved to Helen Mae’s home and began working in the hay fields for neighboring farmers. The pay was $1.00 a day and dinner. I helped harvest the hay for three farmers I can remember and stayed in the Button home nights. Haying was hard, hot work but I soon learned the correct techniques for "pitching," "cocking", "mowing away" etc. When I stopped at Mr. Guilford's barn for my pay, he stood up from his milking stool, paid me and said, "You were better help than I thought you would be". (I had letters of recommendation from president Bond and Dean Harley Bond but the farmers weren't interested in them.) It was while we were in a hay field at work that news came of the death of Will Rogers and Wiley Post in an airplane crash in Alaska on a round-the-world flight.
It was very pleasant living in the Button home while working on surrounding farms but as the summer wore on it became increasingly obvious that Helen Mae was no longer interested in more than a casual friendship with me. I suspect that through our correspondence she may have fantasized a "me" that didn't measure up to her expectations. It is fair to say that I was devastated by the breakup of what I hoped would be a lasting and deepening relationship. She went to Salem College as a sophomore and I entered the Alfred University School of Theology. It tore at my heartstrings when friends in Salem reported to me that the word on the campus was, "Button, Button, who’s got the Button?"
I attended General Conference at Alfred in August and stayed with my uncle Alvah and Aunt Mary Randolph. Uncle Alvah was said to have the highest grade average of any Alfred alumnus up to that time. He taught me a valuable lesson that has helped me through the years.
At Conference I was asked to speak on the Young People's program. wrote a speech and asked uncle Alvah to critique it for me. In the introduction I was apologetic. Who was I to be addressing the General Conference, etc., etc.?" On reading my speech, uncle Alvah said, "Elmo, if you have to apologize for what you're going to say, don't say it." I rewrote the speech and have always been thankful for the advise.
How the arrangement came about, I can't remember but Bertha Lewis went from Alfred Station, New York, to Salem College and lived with my mother. My first year in seminary I lived in Alfred Station with Bertha’s mother, Ivanna Lewis and high school age daughter, Jean. Mrs. Lewis was a brilliant woman who was Postmistress of the Alfred Station Post Office for many years. In high school Jean was an outstanding student. I enjoyed an interesting, happy year in the Lewis home. It was often fun teasing Jean and then retreating to my room where she was not allowed to enter. Ivanna Lewis was an educated conversationalist and a good listener. She helped me through homesickness and intellectual and spiritual trauma. The two mile walk to and from Alfred was good exercise but there were times when the wind and the cold were intense.
It was sometimes difficult going in the beginning days at the School of Theology. (Before leaving home in Salem I went to Pastor Shaw for any advice he might have for me. He simply said, "Just use your good horse sense.") I did experience some loneliness and homesickness. It was my first extended time away from home and Mamma. Then, too, I had been in the limelight through college in Salem and in Alfred few university students knew me or cared. No doubt I suffered a deflated ego from the ending of my romance with Helen Mae.
There were three of us in Dean Bond's first class: Marion Van Horn, Luther Crichlow and I. Through our years together we developed warm, strong ties of deep friendship. Marion was the son of a Seventh Day Baptist minister, Christopher Van Horn. I believe he was a Milton College graduate. His health was precarious. Luther Crichlow, a Negro, was a graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C. He was a fine trumpet player and had played varsity football in college. (Alfred's football coach persuaded Luther to play tackle on a winning team one year.) I believe Luther Crichlow was the first Negro I had known personally. He and I became fast friends during our years together. The three of us, with Dean Bond, became quite successful singing as a quartet.
I came to seminary with an open mind. There was no preconceived intellectual or theological position I was committed to defend. The conservative religious beliefs of Lon and Amelia Button seemed to work good in their lives and so I thought to lean in that direction until something better came along. In church and college experience I had been surrounded with people of intellectual integrity who practiced genuine Christian principals in their daily lives. The School of Theology proved to be an excellent environment in which to discover direction and meaning for my life.
Dean A.J.C. Bond served as a safe harbor in a stormy sea for me often. He brought a wealth of knowledge and experience to his role as Dean. Perhaps even more importantly, he loved and understood his students. A rich sense of humor was one of the attributes we lauded him for. His teaching field included Bible, homiletics and Seventh Day Baptist polity and beliefs. How fortunate we were to come under his teaching and to have him as a counselor and friend.
Dr. Edgar Van Horn was our professor of practical theology, giving us the techniques of pastoring and administering a church and congregation. In addition to his teaching, he pastored the Second Alfred Church in Alfred Station.
The whole range of history courses related to Christianity and other religions were taught by Dr. Walter Green. We admired him for his prodigious knowledge of his field and his enthusiasm in sharing it. In his college days he had been formidable as a football player. His presence was impressive.
Frail, sweet, elderly Dr. Powell was our Greek professor. Some university student wag was reported to say that he knew Dr. Powell moved because when he saw him at one point on the sidewalk and then looked minutes later he was not in the same place. Dr. Powell had a passion for Greek and tried valiantly to imbue us with it.
The little chapel in the Gothic was a perfect setting for the Sabbath Eve worship services Crich and Van and I conducted for Seventh Day Baptist university students. We took turns leading the services and received excellent support from the dozen or more faithful attendees. It was also in this chapel that we did our practice preaching under Dean Bond's critical but compassionate ear and eye.
Another activity the three of us became en-aged in was the publication and distribution of the Seventh Day Baptist Youth Newsletter, THE BEACON. We ran each issue off on a mimeograph and when it broke down one option was to end the publication. Instead, we mounted a campaign with youth across the denomination to raise a fund for the purchase of a new mimeograph machine. The campaign was successful and publication of THE BEACON continued.
My first opportunity to conduct a Sabbath Morning Worship Service came when Pastor Harley Sutton invited me take over for him in the Little Genesee Seventh Day Baptist Church one Sabbath. I prepared an eight-typed-page sermon and placed the manuscript on the pulpit at the beginning of the service. At the insistence of the choir director, I wore a choir robe with flowing sleeves and before time for the sermon caught the robe sleeve in the corner of the sermon manuscript. Page by page the sermon fluttered to the floor.
A quick decision was called for. Did I go down the steps, stoop over in my robe, pick up the pages one by one and finally, put them in order? I thought, "I wrote this sermon and I know what's in it, so let it lay." I preached without the manuscript and at the close of the service an elderly lady stopped to shake hands and said, "If that was your first sermon, I'd like to hear your last one." I did not ask her to explain her meaning.
On several occasions our Dean arranged for us to visit other seminaries for guest lectures or conferences. One such visit was to an Interseminary Conference at Gettysburg Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. On the afternoon before the conference began we three had a guided tour of the Gettysburg Civil War battlefield. The experience left a deep impression on us.
At dinner time Crich, Van and I went into a Gettysburg restaurant to eat. As we checked the menu, the waiter said, "Do you want to eat it here or take it out?" Taken aback, we replied, "We want to eat here." Then the waiter said--looking at Crich--"Your friend can't eat here." When he suggested the two of us could stay and eat we informed him, "This place isn't good enough for us, either". We were stunned to experience blatant racial discrimination so near the site of a decisive Civil War battle fought less than a century ago.
There were times in my early seminary days when I wondered if I was doing the right thing. Intellectually and spiritually I was plowing new ground. My self esteem and ego were sometimes low. I needed a lift and accepting the position of Scoutmaster for a new Troop of rural boys in Alfred Station gave me that lift.
My memory is that there were ten or twelve boys in this new Troop. Leighton Austin was the assistant Scoutmaster with me. Outdoor activities were what the boys liked most. We bought material for a fire-by-friction tool and experimented with it ‘til we could light fires with it. From that time on all our campfires were lighted with fire-by-friction. A dramatic achievement.
I recall a winter snow hike on Hartsville hill when we built a fire and hung a large pot of hunter's stew over it to cook while we chose up sides for a snow battle. If you were hit by a snowball from the enemy, you went over to that side. So the game went on and on until the stew was ready. It was good.
In the summer we found an ideal campsite on the bank of the Filmore Valley trout stream. Our overnight camps there were great fun.
It was a turning point in my life when I attended a Steuben Area Boy Scout Council training course in Bath, New York. There I met Percy L. Dunn, the Scout Executive for the Council. Neither of us knew then that we would impact each others lives in many important ways for years to come.
The summer of 1936, following my first year in seminary was coming up and 1 I didn't know what I would be doing. So, on an impulse, I asked "Chief" Dunn if there were any job openings for the Council summer camp--Camp Gorton. He answered that they needed a craft director and wondered if I could qualify.
The truth was that I had little experience with crafts but I believed I could learn quickly and the craft projects the Boy Scouts did were mostly from kits that required minimal skills. I was promised the job that night and left that first meeting with Percy Dunn with mixed emotions--elation at the prospect of a Boy Scout camp summer and anxiety over my ability to do the craft job. Chief Dunn arranged for me to attend a two day workshop in Rochester where I learned to braid "boondoggle" and other craft skills I would be working with.
My employment at Camp Gorton began a month before the Scouts came. Chief Dunn took me and Floyd "Beef" Crane to camp where we lived and worked doing the many maintenance jobs needed before the opening of camp. "Beef" was the camp cook and a friendly, easy-going young man. We got along well, had good meals, and accomplished the necessary work assignments. Our pay was $1.00 a day.
Camp Gorton, owned by the Steuben Area Boy Scout Council, was located on the shore of Lake Waneta, east of Hammondsport and Keuka Lake--a finger lake. Waneta was a twin lake with Lamoka, joined by a channel. The farm land bordering on the channel is an ancient Indian site, called the Lamoka site, dating back to five hundred years before Christ---the oldest Indian site in York State. One-hundred-fifty Scouts were in camp for one week periods during the summer. The adult and junior staff numbered about twenty. During the 1936 camping season we had three directors: an Alfred University dean, a retired army captain and a Presbyterian District Superintendent.
Serving on the Camp Gorton staff was an ego-builder for me. The staff were all high quality men with whom I related happily. In addition to being craft director, I assumed a number of roles including leading songs and conducting church services. I supervised the construction of an attractive outdoor chapel. I enjoyed participating in the campfire programs, too. My status as craft director would have been in jeopardy but for the talent and excellent performance of James Wymant. He was a high school senior, skilled in crafts and dedicated to Scouting. I could not have had a better assistant.
My relationship with Percy Dunn strengthened during the camp season. He asked me to go with him and his wife, Clara, when they took their son, Larry, to the Doctor to have stitches in his head from a wound inflicted by a golf club swung by brother, George. (Percy was prone to fainting at the sight of blood.) The Dunn family, who lived in the "Chief's cabin" by the lake, were: wife, Clara; daughter Ruth and sons, Larry, George and John.
Imagine what a shock it was, not long after the end of camp in 1936, to receive an announcement from the Scout Council office that Randy Randolph would be the director at Camp Gorton for the 1937 season. I had not been consulted before this announcement and my first thought was that the Chief was only using my name until he could recruit a qualified camp director. It was a bonafide appointment that catapulted me into a role of high responsibility when I was twenty-three years old.
1937 certainly was a BANNER YEAR in the unfolding of my life story. The Scouting experience gave me a strong sense of direction and worth, enhanced by the trust Scout Executive Percy Dunn placed in me. My involvement in Scouting was to take on even greater importance for me in the years to come.
Entering my second year in seminary, I moved into the Gothic with my classmates, Luther Crichlow and Marion Van Horn. We each had our own room and shared the kitchen and bath. It was a really good living arrangement that bonded us and brought our friendship to a deeper level.
I made friends with a ceramic student named Davidson. We cooked and shared our meals at least for a semester. Davey went to his farm home weekends and brought wonderful canned food and meat back for us week after week. remember finding a large puffball on campus that I fried for us. Davey was skeptical about this mushroom and may have refused to eat any of it. I confess he caused me to worry that evening over whether the puffball was safe. English steak was a favorite with us--hamburger mixed with egg and chopped green pepper.
Miss Creighton headed the women's physical education department for the university. She made archery an important part of the program and I worked out a deal to repair arrows for us. For ten cents an arrow I replaced tips, glued on feathers, straightened shafts, etc. It was a good spare time activity.
Crich was a city boy, having grown up in Washington, D.C. It was fun introducing him to the natural world around us. One day as we were hiking on pine hill I spotted rabbit tracks going into a brush pile. I said to Crich, "There's a rabbit in that brush pile and I'll scare him out for you to see." Crich laughed in disbelief until I jumped on the brush pile and the rabbit came out. From then on he appreciated what to him was my superior out-of-doors knowledge.
It was somewhere in this time frame that Marion (Van) and Erma Burdick began a serious relationship. Erma was an Alfred girl who lived with her Mother. Crich was a great "kidder" and the two of us gave Van a difficult time as he carried on his courtship with Erma.
It's fun to remember when Crich decided to trap the mice that frequented the Gothic. Finding a mouse in one of the traps he had set, we tied it to the end of a light cord in the hallway where he would grab it in the dark. We were not granted the satisfaction of knowing how he reacted on lighting the light.
We, like all students, looked forward eagerly to the Christmas holidays. My plan was to spend most, if not all, of the vacation with Mamma and Dad on the farm on Bug Ridge. Arriving at the farm and greeting Mamma joyfully, it was like a stunning blow when she said, "I hear that Madeline (Watts) is married".
True, I had had no contact with Madeline for at least a year or two. In fact, there was no romantic interest in my life at this time. But the sudden word that Madeline might be married gave me of feeling of loss and panic.
Previously in this book you learned that Madeline's grandparents lived just a mile or so from our farm. So, to check on what was happening to Madeline, I took a basket of fruit and walked to the Watts home. There I quickly learned that Madeline was not married. How reassuring it was to be shown her college senior picture they had just received in the mail.
Next I made a quick decision. I must net in touch with Madeline and I will go to Salem on the chance that she and her parents will be visiting the Tullys. Madeline wrote later in a letter she thought the chances of our getting together again were about one in ten. I would put those chances at nearer one in a hundred.
The Salem college alumni banquet was scheduled for the next night in Salem. So, on the excuse of attending the banquet, I took a bus to Salem and arrived in the late afternoon the day of the banquet. Walking up main street I looked across to where I knew Madeline's dad would park his car. IT WAS THERE!
After tidying up a bit at the Bill Price home, I rushed over to the Tully home to find Madeline and the family at the table eating dinner. Our greetings were full of surprise and friendly. It was too late to invite her to attend the alumni banquet with me but she agreed to go to the basketball game after the dinner.
Memory escapes me of what happened at the game. I do know Madeline and I were having a good time getting reacquainted and after the game we joined alumni friends for a good time at a little night spot on the west end of town. Madeline's Dad had loaned us his car and we sat in it and talked until two o'clock in the morning.
There was no doubt we had much "catching up" to do. She was having an exciting senior year at Fairmont State College. I was happily involved in study for the ministry and in Scouting. I do believe that in those first hours we had a mutual understanding that now our separate ways were moving toward "togetherness".
During the Christmas vacation we enjoyed several days together In Salem and on my return trip to Alfred I stopped off for a day at 700 Pittsburgh Avenue (the Watts home in Fairmont). That day two or three of Madeline's suitors came to see her and I waited patiently while she sent them on their way.
The parting was painful when I left for Alfred but I was thrilled to be given a framed senior portrait of Madeline that often warmed my heart through the coming months. (Interestingly, she had intended to give the portrait to a man who failed to keep his holiday appointment with her.)
Returning to the School of Theology and my friends with the exciting news of my holiday experiences, I surprised everyone. Crich and Van looked at Madeline's picture, turned the frame over several times and Crich said, "That's a nice frame, Randy". This response from them was not unexpected.
Dean Bond's reaction when I showed him Madeline's portrait and shared my serious love for her was reassuring. His enthusiastic word was, "Elmo, this can't happen too fast".
Letters began to be exchanged between Madeline and me two or more times a week. We have preserved them and review them with joy from time to time. It seems strange that we never talked by phone during those months apart. It just wasn't the thing to do in that faraway year 1937. The letters were wonderful!
Madeline has sometimes complained--not bitterly--that I never proposed to her. Reading over our correspondence from the early weeks of 1937, it is evident that we both were committed to marriage at some not-too-distant date. I do remember following her father all the way to his attic workshop to ask his permission to take her hand in marriage. I don't remember when that happened but he was graciously approving of our plans.
On Valentine's Day, 1937, Madeline received her engagement diamond ring in the mail from me. Mr. Russell McHenry of McHenry's Jewelry store in Hornell was a friend who was a member of the Executive Board of Steuben Area Council Boy Scouts. He sold me Madeline's ring at a special price. I'm embarrassed now to remember that the diamond ring cost me $25.00. How times have changed.
Classmate Marion Van Horn was courting Erma Burdick in the same time frame of Madeline's and my engagement. Both Erma and Madeline would bake cookies for us that we shared with Luther Crichlow. When Van would bring Erma’s cookies, Crich would taste them and say, "Randy, I believe Erma has a little the edge on Madeline." Then, when cookies came from Madeline, Crich would cagily inform us that her baking was slightly superior to Erma’s. The cookies kept coming from both sources and Luther was a beneficiary.
Let me digress briefly to report that I sang in the Hornell Episcopal Church choir during the 1936-37 seminary year. It was an enlightening ecumenical experience. I was interested, but not overly impressed, with the high church formality of the Episcopal service. Learning to sing the chants was most enjoyable. (I've never succeeded in persuading Seventh Day Baptist church choirs to master chanting.)
In a letter from Madeline she told me that her best friend, Ruth Powers, wanted to know what we were going to live on after our marriage. In reply I sent an itemized budget for a year that, if not amusing, was indicative of the times. The budget total of expenditures was $300. There was a question mark for how the total income would be achieved. It was significant that rent and utilities for our apartment in the Gothic amounted to $30.00 a semester. I also anticipated working part time for the Boy Scout Council during the school year. I was not told if Ruth was satisfied with my financial future.
A surprise opportunity came for me visit Madeline in West Virginia in late April. Dean Bond's wife's sisters, Mrs. Wardner Davis, was ill and the Dean had me drive Mrs. Bond to Salem in their Ford V8 for a few days visit. Alerting Madeline that I was coming, I arrived in Fairmont at 11:00 P.M., picked Madeline up and drove with her and Mrs. Bond to Salem. From Salem the two of us drove to the farm on Bug Ridge, near Sutton, to visit Dad and Mother. The morning of May first, after driving all night, was glorious in the West Virginia hills. We heard cardinals calling. Dogwoods and azaleas were blooming on the hillsides. The world was warm and fresh with springtime and we were happy together. I was thrilled to have Madeline visit Dad and Mother.
I surprised Madeline by coming to Fairmont in late May for her college graduation. The weekend of her graduation (Monday morning) I directed a Boy Scout Camporee for 700 Scouts at Camp Gorton. Percy Dunn learned that Madeline was graduating and urged me to drive the Council Pontiac to attend. After the Camporee was over on Sunday afternoon I started the 350 mile drive to Fairmont, West Virginia, arriving at 700 Pittsburgh Avenue before daylight Monday morning. When Madeline looked out her window she was really surprised to see me. I must have had to fight sleep during the commencement exercises.
We were all thrilled to see Madeline receive her college degree. Her parents did not want her to go to college but now that she was graduating, they were proud and happy. She attended summer school to finish her degree work.
When Percy Dunn appointed me to direct Camp Gorton for the 1937 season I asked to have my friend, Bill Price, come on our staff as craft director. Bill agreed to come and I drove to Salem to bring him to camp for the summer.
On the way to Salem I stopped to see Madeline and her mother showed me a newspaper clipping that stunned me momentarily. The clipping announced that Madeline had signed a contract to teach English and library at East Fairmont High School for the 1937-38 year. (She was a graduate of East Fairmont High.) I went to the college to find Madeline and we went to an Italian restaurant for a spaghetti dinner. I was eager to hear an explanation of her decision to take a teaching position rattler than complete our plan to be married September 1. At some point in our conversation I said, "We will either be married September 1 or we will no longer be engaged". It was a stressful time for both of us.
Madeline told me that the school board representatives had approached her and pressured her to sign a contract for the teaching position. This in a time when college graduates were finding it difficult to secure teaching jobs. She thought, "Should I turn such a fine offer down? Would Elmo want me to delay our marriage and improve our financial status?" So she signed the contract knowing that she could change her mind and cancel it promptly. It was clear from our sharing that Madeline definitely wanted us to be married according to our plan. She gave up the teaching position and chose to marry me.
Directing the 1937 season at Camp Gorton was an experience of major responsibility for me. The high quality veteran staff was cooperative and the program went smoothly. Having Bill Price with me was a real bonus. In addition to being craft director, Bill brought his experience and expertise in Indian lore to the program--especially to the campfire programs. Bill and I slept in a tent together and his advise and counsel as I looked forward to marriage meant more to me than I can express. Madeline’s wonderful letters all summer highlighted my days and weeks.
The Camp Gorton season ended just days before our September 1 wedding date and again Percy Dunn went the "second mile" to be helpful to me. I was driving the Scout Pontiac back to Salem to take Bill home and the Chief sent Floyd "Beef" Crane, the camp cook, with us to drive the car back after the wedding. We stopped to see Madeline briefly on our way to Salem and then Beef and I drove to the farm on Bug, Ridge where we spent the last day of August with Dad and Mother--my twenty-fourth birthday.
What an eventful wedding day! Beef and I first drove from the farm to Gassaway where I picked up a new 1937 Chevrolet from the garage where brother Brady was manager. As a wedding gift from Brady, the Chevvy cost me $600.
I drove the new Chevvy with Beef following me in the Pontiac and we arrived at the Watts home in time for a chicken dinner with the family and some of the wedding guests. That Wednesday, September 1, 1937 must have been the hottest for that date on record. After dinner I took a tub bath before dressing for the wedding at 2:00 p.m. Reece Burns, my Best Man, was with me when I tried to dry off with a towel after the bath. Several times, before I could dry myself with the towel, perspiration would cover my whole body. I began to wonder if I ever could get dressed. With Reece's help I succeeded.
The Rev. Lloyd Powers, Madeline's beloved longtime Baptist Pastor, performed the wedding ceremony in the living room of the Watts home. Madeline's parents, John and Etta Watts; her brother Ralph and his wife, Susie and their son, Billie, attended. "Captain Jack" and "Mall Tulley with Charlie, Ruth and their daughter, Lenore Phillips were there. Matilda Whitlatch, a sorority sister, played the piano. Floyd Crane attended, too. Brady and Mary were my only family members attending. (My Mother could not cope with highly emotional experiences so she and Dad were not there.) Madeline's best friend, Ruth Powers--eldest daughter of Pastor Powers--was Maid of Honor. Reece Burns "stood up" with me.
I recall an interesting comment from Pastor Powers during a visit with him before the wedding. He said, "You are going to learn that you have married strangers." I don't believe Madeline and I have ever found that to be true.
After receiving congratulations from the guests, and enjoying wedding cake and punch, we left on our honeymoon--not yet knowing where we would stop for the night. Floyd Crane left for New York State driving the Scout Pontiac and carrying a load of Madeline's possessions. Included was the beautiful American Chestnut hope chest with hammered aluminum trim built by her father.
When Beef got back to Hornell, Chief Dunn asked him what he thought of the bride and Beef replied, "If Randy can't get along with her, he can't get along with anybody."
After a few blocks of driving we stopped to remove the tin cans tied to the back bumper of the car and then were off into Pennsylvania and finally New York and Camp Gorton on a two-weeks honeymoon. Before we reached Morgantown Madeline opened a letter from her Mother and with it was a "keepsake" cameo necklace. Madeline wept softly and I was touched.
Road signs advertising a hotel with "special rates for honeymooners" led us to the impressive Summit Hotel atop a Pennsylvania mountain. Checking into a room we changed into bathing suits for a swim in the hotel’s Cabana Beach. (The pool didn't live up to its name and we didn't swim long.) The hotel dining room looked a bit too ritzy for our budget so we drove down the mountain to a restaurant called "Dad's Place" and enjoyed a ham dinner.
Back at the hotel, it was fun walking around and listening to the orchestra play the dance music of the period in the ballroom. Enough to say our first night of married love was glorious!
On Thursday, September 2, we drove to Salemville, Pennsylvania for lunch with Marion and Erma Van Horn. It was great having them meet Madeline, my wife. That afternoon we were on to Punxsutawney, PA, and spent the night in a neat little cabin on the back lawn of a tourist home. Friday we traveled to Alfred Station, New York, where we were guests of Mrs. Ivanna Lewis and daughter, Jean over the Sabbath. I could not have been more proud, introducing my wife to my friends in the Second Alfred Seventh Day Baptist Church. Madeline had her first look at the Gothic in Alfred--soon to be our first home.
Driving to Camp Gorton on Sunday afternoon, we met the Dunn family on their way home to Hornell. All of them seemed especially excited meeting Madeline and we were to learn the reason when we reached Camp Gorton. Going into the Chief's cottage, where we were to live the next two weeks, we discovered that the Dunns and the staff members left in camp had made special preparations for our coming. Amusing signs and notes were placed in appropriate places in the cottage: On the living room stove, "Old Home Week". On the bathroom mirror, "Shave twice a day the first week". Etc., Etc. A large cardboard box on the kitchen table contained forty-two pieces of Corning top-of-the-stove cookware with clamp-on aluminum handles--gift to us from the Boy Scout Council. We had fun discovering the mischievous welcoming ideas my Scouting friends had worked out for us.
Two Sea Scout staff members--one of them Addison Scholes--were still in camp and invited us to dinner with them in the mess hall. Tired of being dressed up for several days, Madeline and I changed into comfortable shorts and culottes. I-Then the dinner bell rang, we went to the mess hall to find our hosts in full Sea Scout uniform dress. Incidentally, the menu they served was scrambled eggs and fried potatoes. After the meal we loaned the men our car to go to a dance on Keuka Lake. It was a good way to start our Camp Gorton honeymoon.
In addition to the use of the pleasant Chief's cottage, there was a canoe and a sailboat at our disposal. Sailing was a "first" for Madeline. She learned quickly but often preferred to experiment with cooking and baking in the new Corning glassware, I remember that one night we paddled the canoe across the lake, following a shaft of moonlight.
Farmer Wood, a friend of Camp Gorton whose farm was at the end of Lake Waneta, offered us any vegetables we would like from his garden. The sweet corn, tomatoes and other vegetables we gathered made super meals.
One day we found an injured chipmunk on the lake shore. All of our efforts to save him failed. We named him "Rocky" because we found him on the rocks.
It was a good experience to visit my first cousin, Dr. Lowell Fitz Randolph and his wife in Ithaca, New York. Lowell was Uncle Alvah's only son. He was a world renowned plant geneticist at Cornell University. I believe that visit was the last time we saw him. (Dr. Lowell's son, Robert and I are in frequent contact now by phone and correspondence.)
Our honeymoon over--two weeks of bliss--the plan for our life began unfolding. Madeline drove the Chevvy, with cousin Rev. Elizabeth Fitz Randolph riding along, home to Fairmont, West Virginia. I joined Percy Dunn on the trip to 1-iendham, New Jersey where we enrolled in the month-long 55th National Training School for Boy Scout Executives. (Percy had been a Scout Executive many years but had never taken the national training course.)
In anticipation of my qualifying as an executive, Percy worked out a contract with me to work for the Steuben Area Council half time for the year beginning October 1, 1937. I would be continuing my study in the School of Theology at Alfred. The outline of the contract follows:
a. Duties to be substantially half time in field travel. Salary to be $50.00 per month October through May.
b. Duties to be full time at Camp Gorton June through August. Salary to be $100.00 per month for the three months.
c. Two weeks vacation with pay granted in September 1938.
Travel Allowance: a. For the twelve months listed above Randolph will maintain and operate his own insured auto, compensation to be based on itemized statements at 5 cents per mile.
Loan Agreement: The Council will advance $200.00 of 1938 travel budget, same to be covered by promissory note payable without interest on or before September 30, 1938.
Signed by me and by K.E. Plants, Council Comptroller
Schiff National Boy Scout Reservation, near Mendham, New Jersey, was a sumptuous estate eclipsing anything I had ever experienced in opulence. Forty-eight men seeking to become Scout Executives attended this 55th school. I was placed in the "B" group of twenty-three men and was a member of the "Puffer Billy" Patrol. Percy was in the "A" group and was patrol leader of the "Johnny Appleseed" Patrol.
In my introduction at the opening meeting of the course I reported that on the next Wednesday I would be celebrating the third-week-anniversary of my marriage. Every Wednesday for the next four weeks special attention was given to my "anniversary" at the dinner meal.
The course schedule and program were demanding. We listened to presentations by national Scouting executives day after day for long hours. Some Staff members responsible for our training stand out: Gunnar Berg, Green Bar Bill and Judson Freeman for example. We were all impressed when Chief Scout Executive James E. West visited.
Wonderful letters from Madeline buoyed my morale through the month. confess to experiencing shock when she announced that I would become a father in June. It was naive of me not to be prepared for such news.
The STUDENT’S APPRAISALS ON PERSONAL QUALITIES was a unique and revealing experience from the National Training School for Scout Executives. Three times during the month each member of our group of twenty-three evaluated every other member on thirty personal qualities. The results were tabulated and averaged, giving each individual a numbered ranking in the group. Here is how I came out in that searching process:
| RANK | |
| Scouting Spirit | 7 |
| Likely to succeed as an Executive | 8 |
| Leadership of men | 7 |
| Vigor | 1 |
| Industry | 13 |
| Initiative | 5 |
| Neatness | 17 |
| Poise | 19 |
| Alertness | 4 |
| Adaptability | 9 |
| Enthusiasm | 1 |
| Sociability (Good Mixer) | 3 |
| Originality | 1 |
| Resourcefulness | 4 |
| Clear Thinking | 11 |
| Public speaking | 3 |
| Tact | 8 |
| Tolerance | 3 |
| Punctuality | 18 |
| Loyalty | 4 |
| Sympathy | 3 |
| Perseverance | 10 |
| Refinement | 17 |
| Personal appearance | 19 |
| Balanced ego | 12 |
| Judgment | 15 |
| Sense of humor | 3 |
| Sincerity | 4 |
| Team play | 11 |
| Spirit of unselfish service | 5 |
| RANK IN CLASS OF TWENTY-THREE | 6 |
There was a "bonus" experience for me at Schiff that has served me through the years. Judson Freeman, director of the Schiff Scout Reservation, gave an impressive demonstration of a memory technique early in the course. Several of us asked "Jud" if he might teach the technique to us. He generously agreed to our request and gave us excellent instruction in his memory methods. Over the years I have entertained many groups of young people and adults with a semiprofessional demonstration of memory. leaking "mental pictures" is the idea on which the system of memory is built.
A course in "Cubbing" took an extra week after completion of the Scout Executive’s Training. Percy Dunn thought I should stay for it, so I did. The really happy part of that experience was that Madeline drove to Schiff and was with me during the week of training in Cubbing. I was thrilled to introduce Madeline to the staff and members of the special course.
One evening the two of us were having a leisurely drive through the area of beautiful estates near Schiff when a raccoon ran across the road in front of us and climbed a tree. We got out of the car and I had Madeline stand under the tree holding my top coat ready to throw it over the coon when he came down. I climbed the tree and the coon jumped to the ground but the strategy didn't work. Is it possible I tried such a ridiculous stunt and Madeline cooperated?
Our apartment in the Gothic at the School of Theology in Alfred was waiting for us on our return from Schiff. A bedroom and living room were ours and we shared the kitchen and bathroom. Paul and Ruby Maxson lived in the apartment opposite our wing and Earl and Mabel Cruzan had a third living space. Luther Crichlow cooked in our kitchen, too. Marion Van Horn had left the Gothic to live with his new wife, Erma in her Alfred home.
Furnishings for our apartment were sparse but it might be said that we could have lived on love. The first visit paid us by Madeline's parents, Dad Watts insisted we needed a better bed and bought one for us.
My Boy Scout work took me away from Alfred most week nights and I worried about the fire hazard at the Gothic. There were no fire escapes and the only exit from the second floor was by a long hallway and wooden stairs. I secured a length of very heavy rope that would reach from the bedroom window to the ground. Tied on one end to the heat register pipe, it could be thrown out the window for a person to slide down to safety. Instructing Madeline in how to accomplish this feat in case of fire was comforting to me. Fortunately, it was never necessary to use it.
Madeline's first visit to Dr. Hitchcock was cause for deep concern. He feared that her condition was not normal and that she might not carry the baby to successful birth. It was our first brush with frightening realities that, in this case, did not prove to be true. Dr. Hitchcock served us faithfully and well through all our years in New York State. We had great confidence in him.
Perhaps our first rather serious disagreement should be documented. Newell Babcock--Calvin Babcock's father--was an inveterate trader. He traded for the pure joy of trading and when he visited us he brought "trading stock" we would haggle over as I offered what I would exchange.
On one such visit Newell brought a nearly-new Corona portable typewriter that he had traded some radio parts for with an oil-worker friend. He was willing to sell the typewriter for $25.00--perhaps a third of what it was worth. Although I owned a Remington portable typewriter, I was certain the Corona would be marketable on the university campus at a good profit.
I bought the typewriter with our last $25.00 without consulting Madeline. She was incensed over, and uncomprehending of, how I could use our only dollars in such a transaction. I quickly had the Corona appraised and soon sold it for $35.00. There is no doubt in my mind of the rightness of Madeline's rationale regarding this episode. She found it in her heart to soon forgive me.
Madeline's adjustment to life in Alfred as a "theolog's" wife was most gratifying to me. We had never seriously discussed whether she could become a Seventh Day Baptist or not. I believed that if becoming a Seventh Day Baptist was right for her to do, she would do it--without argument or pressure from me. Her fifty-six plus years as a devoted, dedicated Seventh Day Baptist give credence to the soundness of my thinking on this point. Dean Bond deserves credit for giving Madeline helpful counsel in matters of her Christian faith.
Madeline was excited when Mr. Frank Crumb, editor of THE ALFRED SUN, invited her to write a weekly column in his paper focusing on what was happening in the Gothic and the School of Theology on the Alfred University campus. She titled her column, GLIMPSES OF THE GOTHIC and the weekly series began December 9, 1938. We believe her remuneration was five cents per line. She bought a baby carriage with earnings from the column. Here are two poems she composed. he first one was in the May 12, 1938 column, the second in the May 19 column:
Ah, I must have a garden
With flowers blooming there.
Flowers that will tint the morning
And scent the evening air.
My love will plant my garden
And love will keep it neat;
Love for each little flower-face
Nestling at my feet.
For love is rarest beauty
And beauty brings releaser
For every pain or anguish
This loveliness brings peace.
Now I must plant my garden
And quickly make a start,
Exchanging thoughts for flowers
And plant--A garden in my heart!
The rain slid down our pointed roof
And ran across the eaves.
It fell so softly no one knew
It washed the May-born leaves.
I never have in all my life
Seen such a gentle rain.
There was no lusty, blowing strife,
No pounding on the pane.
Then all at once, the sun shone bright,
As if it did not know
The rain still fell so clean and light
Upon us here below.
The pine tree leaves hung bright with drops,
The grass was glistening so;
And all out-doors was glad to see
The lovely promise--a rainbow!
Imagine how proud Madeline's published writing has made me always.
A happy experience of our year in the Gothic was getting well acquainted with uncle Alvah, aunt Mary and cousin Fucia. Uncle Alvah offered to pick up our $600 loan with a bank in Hornell and have us pay him in monthly payments without interest. We accepted his generous offer and this arrangement gave us opportunity to visit them every month when we made the payments. We were pleasantly surprised when uncle Alvah gave us clippings from the BUFFALO EVENING NEWS with excerpts from Madeline's GLIMPSES OF THE GOTHIC. The column, LIFE ‘ROUND ABOUT US used Madeline's material several times, and credited her for it. Fucia sometimes sent us home with a loaf of her fresh-baked bread.
Our plans and program in study and Scout work changed when Percy Dunn accepted the position of Executive for the Manhattan Boy Scout Council in New York City. Steuben Area Council asked me to work full time for them while they searched for a successor to Chief Dunn. With Dean Bond's approval, I took the assignment in Scouting and continued to carry one course in school. There was concern by some of my professors that I might never return to the ministry. Dean Bond felt that the experience in Scouting was excellent preparation for serving the church. I have always appreciated his confidence in me.
On June 3, 1938, I took Madeline to the hospital in Hornell and Anne was born. I was alarmed at seeing our baby for the first time when they brought her from the delivery room. Never having seen a new-born, I was fearful that she might not be normal. As a Boy Scout Executive, perhaps I would have preferred that our baby be a boy. What a blessing Anne has been to us--and still is! I tried celebrating by smoking a cigar with Crich and Van. It didn't go well at all.
While Madeline was in the hospital I woke one night with severe pain in my side. Fearing it might be appendicitis, I called Dr. Hitchcock. At his suggestion I walked about a block to his office and he took me to the university infirmary. In the morning I went to the hospital with Dr. Hitchcock and my entrance into Madeline's room no doubt shocked her. There were ten days of intermittent sickness and testing in the hospital before my problem was diagnosed as a strictured tube from a kidney to the bladder. Two medical students observed the glystoseopic procedure that located and corrected the problem. Their interest made a painful experience more bearable for me.
One night, when Madeline and I were both in the hospital, I got out of bed and walked in my sleep down the hall toward her room. The night nurse on duty caught up with me and escorted me back to bed. When she asked where I was going I said, "I'm going to the farm". Hospital gowns being what they are, I was embarrassed and greatly relieved to get back in bed. The next day Miss Crandall, the supervisor of nurses, visited me in my room and said, "I have a problem." When I asked what the problem was, she replied, "All my nurses want to be on night duty." The doctors who came in enjoyed the story, too.
Coming home to Madeline and baby daughter Anne was a joyous occasion. Ruth Powers, Madeline's Bride's Maid, came from West Virginia to help with our new baby. My recovery from the hospital experience was rapid and complete. I'm sure an anonymous member of the Boy Scout Council Board paid a major part of the hospital bill. We were prepared to meet the expense of Anne's birth but not a ten-day medical and hospital bill.
Before the 1938 camping season began Wally Hill came to Steuben Area Council as the new executive replacing Percy Dunn. I was camp director at Camp Gorton again and was successful in recruiting two new staff members who were high school coaches in area communities. The two coaches and I rented a cottage on the lake near camp and our wives, with baby Anne, lived in it through the camping season. Dick Lambert, Arkport coach, and his wife, Beulah, became close friends. We were deeply saddened when Dick contracted polio and died.
The relationship between me and Wally Hill was not smooth. My complete loyalty to Percy Dunn and his method of operation made it difficult to adjust to a new Executive. I vigorously opposed Wally's idea of changing the name of Camp Gorton. He did not accomplish that innovation. The 1938 camping season was successful and it was good to be back in the Gothic with Madeline and Anne, carrying a full seminary course. Now I was doing half-time Scout work again.
At some point during the fall semester in 1938 we were called upon to make a decision that would impact our lives in exciting ways. Dr. Edgar Van Horn had resigned after a long pastorate in the Second Alfred Church in Alfred Station and the church had "called" several ministers without success.
It was like a "bolt out of the blue" when Mr. Lynn Langworthy stopped me on the street in Alfred to inform me that Second Alfred Church was about to issue me a "call". I was elated and stunned at once. It was significant that I was perhaps a year from receiving the Bachelor of Divinity degree. I felt greatly honored to be considered for so fine a pastorate but the $600.00 salary offered seemed woefully inadequate for our family needs. We had very few furnishings for a parsonage and we were still paying for our automobile.
In a meeting with the trustees of Second Alfred Church, I expressed a genuine enthusiasm for accepting the "call" but shared with them my feeling that $600.00 was hardly a subsistence salary. With the exception of one trustee, they asked among themselves, "Who thought a Pastor could live on $600.00?" Asking what my financial requirement would be, I suggested $900.00. They quickly agreed to that figure and I accepted the "call". It is interesting that the one trustee indicated that "His financial concerns are no business of the church. He should either accept or reject the "call". This person and his family chose to attend the Alfred church during my pastorate.
It is my memory that Madeline and I moved to the parsonage in Alfred Station about New Year 1939. The congregation welcomed us with a party to which they brought many useful gifts. Deacon Palmiter, Erving Palmiter's father, gave us a rocking chair that must have been a treasured possession.
My first efforts at preaching were traumatic for me. The perspiration would drip off of my nose and chin and if I wiped it off it would come out again. By sheer will power I persevered and in time overcame the problem.
Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick inspired me in those days. I listened to his radio sermons regularly and read his books. Again I cut back my course load at school and so took five years for the three year course, graduating in 1941. In my first days in Alfred Station I leaned heavily on Dean Bond's counsel.
I submit that there were few rural churches with music programs of the quality we enjoyed in Alfred Station. The adult choir was blessed with good voices in all four parts and under the professional direction of Mrs. Lois Scholes the choir sang the most uplifting choral church music.
Mrs. Scholes was a rare soul with whom Madeline and I became warm friends. Coming to our church to direct the choir--two trips a week--was a labor of love with her. She did insist on being paid $1.00 a trip because, she said, "If you pay me, you can fire me any time." Lois often made suggestions for changes in the worship services that I was reluctant to introduce for fear the congregation was not ready for such innovative ideas. It was a joy to work with her and I learned many lessons as I came under her dynamic spirit.
Madeline, whose music education in college was extensive, organized and directed a junior choir in the church. Robes were sewed for them and they made a fine contribution to the church worship when they sang.
One idea I had difficulty selling to the church was the conducting of Friday night (Sabbath Eve) worship services. I felt that welcoming the Sabbath with a service in the church was highly appropriate and that such services could bring in community people who would not otherwise be served. Our farming people who lived some distance from the church, liked to take their baths and study their Sabbath school lessons Friday nights.
At one diaconate meeting I pressed again to begin Sabbath Eve services and Deacon Fred Pierce said, "The Pastor wants Sabbath Eve services and I move we let him have them." That could have been interpreted more than one way but we did plan and lead a long series of services on Friday nights that were well received and attended. I believe those service outlines are still in my files.
After Madeline came to Alfred Station she continued to write her column for THE ALFRED SUN with the title, DAYS TO REMEMBER. The new demands on the Parson's wife made it seem wise to discontinue the column after a few weeks.
The Boy Scout Troop continued to be active. He put a ping pong table in the front room of the parsonage and the boys were free to come any time. In the spring, after a hard sleet storm, the Scouts came to the parsonage with a strange bird in a cardboard box. It's feet were webbed and its eyes were red. There was a topknot on its head that raised and lowered. It had been beaten down by the storm and was very weak. We knew it was a water bird so we filled our bath tub and set the bird in it. Our avian guest was obviously pleased when we dropped several of our goldfish in the tub and he swallowed them. When the goldfish were gone the Scouts caught minnows in the creek for him to eat. A bird authority at the university identified this bird as a Horned Grebe.
Our stranded Grebe stayed in our bath tub over the weekend, eating minnows and gaining strength. When we needed to use the bathroom, Scouts and children had to be shooed away from the edge of the tub. The bird bit little Anne's finger with no serious results. On Monday we crowded the Grebe and eight children into a car and drove to Andover. First we took the bird to be banded by Mr. Watson. He was greatly pleased to band a bird that was only passing through. After the banding we went to Andover pond and set our guest down in the water. Immediately he dived several times and then took off to fly one lap around the pond and land almost at our feet. What a thrill It was like he was saying, "Thanks for everything, folks." Mr. Watson reported to us that our bird stayed on the pond two or three days before continuing his migration to Greenland for the summer.
Dad and Mother Watts came to spend his vacation with us every year. One year he told me he had been reading a book on Amateur Telescope Making and wanted to grind a mirror for a telescope. My first reaction was to be skeptical. I knew he was an excellent craftsman but I feared grinding a telescope mirror might be too much for him. When I took Dad to visit professor Potter, physics professor at Alfred University who had ground mirrors, it was evident that Dad was already well read on the procedures of telescope making.
Our next trip was to the Corning Glassworks, in Corning, New York, where we interviewed Dr. Gates. Dr. Gates was one of the scientists who worked on the 200 inch Palomar telescope mirror. His son had been at Camp Gorton when I was director. He was most helpful, giving us two pyrex six inch mirror blanks and a source for Dad to order the supplies he needed for the grinding work.
When the folks visited the next year, Dad had the mirror ready for polishing. He set up the mirror on a barrel in the basement and proceeded with the polishing stage. He called me down one day to help him test the mirror, using a knife-edge test he had set up. There were two facing pages in his telescope making book with pictures showing how the mirror should and shouldn't look with the test. I determined clearly that he had succeeded perfectly with the mirror. Dad had the mirror silvered commercially and their testing confirmed our opinion. He completed his first telescope by building an aluminum tube and a portable mount. Dad gave the finished telescope to me and I have enjoyed excellent viewing with it for more than fifty years. In the ensuing years he ground several mirrors. His crowning achievement, shortly before his death, was the completion of a twelve-and-a-.half inch mirror that is now in use in the John Watts Memorial Telescope at Camp Paul Hummel. More on this at a later point in my life story. I was so proud of Madeline's Dad!
During our pastorate with the Second Alfred Church, Madeline had the rewarding experience of singing in a trio organized and trained by Mrs. Lois Scholes. Lois was a soprano and Madeline an alto. Betty, whose married name eludes me now, was the third member of the trio that achieved a near professional level of performance. They memorized their programs and sang them a capella. There were many requests for them to sing in our area. Mrs. Elma Strong, a close friend who sang in our church choir, replaced Betty.
Mrs. Scholes also organized a choral group called, Friends of Music. I believe Madeline and I both sang in that group. Music has enriched our lives.
After just over a half-year as Pastor of the Second Alfred Seventh Day Baptist Church, the congregation voted to "Call their Pastor to Ordination." So, on August 11th and 12th, 1939 the Services of Ordination on Sabbath Eve, Sabbath morning and Sabbath afternoon moved me through a spiritual experience that has given my life direction and meaning from that time on.
My good friend, Pastor Harley Sutton of Little Genesee led the Worship Sabbath Eve in which I presented Statements of my Christian Experience and my Christian Beliefs. Following my statements, the Ordination Council "examined" me and voted to continue with my Ordination.
The following is my Statement of Christian Belief: (Each article was prefaced by reading that belief from the Statement of Belief of Seventh Day Baptists--to which I heartily subscribed.)
GOD - I believe we may discover and know God, and find Him sufficient for our every need, as we come to Him in honest faith and humble, thoughtful prayer. I am awed by the mystery and the majesty of God whose plans transcend all time and whose creation leaves man in wonder and amazement. I am impressed by the Law of God and I believe God uses His Law as a manifestation of his love to mankind.
JESUS CHRIST - I believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He serves as the true example of God's plan for all men. I believe the ruling principle of Christ's life on earth was perfect love and that, as love never dies, Jesus can never die. I believe the power of God's love, through Christ, is as strong for men today who will follow Christ, as it ever was. The complete sacrifice of self that Jesus made on the cross I believe is the supreme example that men of all time need for salvation.
THE HOLY SPIRIT - I believe that God has the power to enter into the life of men and that the continued presence of God with men is what we know as the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the all pervading presence and force which God in love uses to bring men unto Him. The Holy Spirit, I believe, becomes active in life as men seek after God and attempt to do His will.
THE BIBLE - I believe the Bible is our greatest reservoir of spiritual truth; that it contains the highest and the best that man has discovered in his search for truth; and that it witnesses to the capacity of man to grow in God's grace to higher spiritual levels. The Bible, I believe, serves as no other book can to lead men into the way of eternal life and to show us the principles upon which true spirituality must be based. I believe we have yet to come into the full understanding and knowledge that God has for us in the Bible and that if man is to progress toward the good in any phase of his life it must be as he discovers and uses the principles of life that flow out of the Scriptures.
MAN - I believe that man, as the noblest creation of God, has unlimited capacity for growth toward the goodness of God. I believe that God has given man a free will, with the power of choice between good and bad in order that man may grow toward the perfect love of God. I believe that good has no virtue in itself except as man chooses it through the strength of his own will.
I believe that man may leave God out of his life, to his own destruction, but that God has the power and the desire to save every man through his infinite grace who will choose to know and serve Him.
SIN AND SALVATION - I believe that sin is any act or condition whereby we fall short of God's purpose and goal for us. I believe that sin in all it forms is the result of man's selfishness, and we are all so entangled in the snares of selfishness in every field of our existence that only through the unmerited favor and the forgiveness of God may we find salvation. I believe our salvation depends upon our confession of sinfulness and our active faith that love and truth can bring us into fellowship with God. I believe that God is interested in the soul and the salvation of every individual and that He has given His Son in sacrificial love upon the cross in order that men may catch the spirit of selflessness which alone can save us. Salvation, to me, is not a point at which I have arrived but a condition of life which I must constantly strive to achieve. I believe that as we come more and more into fellowship with God by revolting against all that is not high and true in our lives, and by seeking all that is good and strong and right we come into a knowledge and feeling of salvation. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, ever stands as the example we must follow as we seek salvation.
ETERNAL LIFE - I believe that God is infinite and that his love for man has no end in time. I believe that God's final aim is to accomplish perfect and complete and universal fellowship of love with all men for all eternity. believe the Kingdom of God is with us in this life now in so far as we have caught the spirit of God as revealed in Christ. As truth and love can never die, so I believe that man, a he grows in fellowship with God, will have eternal life. I believe the physical body is the temple of the soul and that physical and spiritual union are necessary to our existence in this life; but I believe God has greater things in store for us than we have yet dreamed of.
THE CHURCH - I believe man finds strength and courage to face the problems of life as he shares that life with his fellow men. He finds peace and joy and happiness as he shares life with his fellow men and as he joins with others in the expression of his life. I believe the church is an organization, divine in its origin, yet using the corporate powers of men for the bringing of God's Kingdom on earth. I believe the function of the church is to keep before all men the way of life that Jesus proclaimed; to give men the high privilege of worshipping God in the spirit of beauty and of truth; to offer an organization and plan for service to all men in need; and to bring all men into a universal fellowship of unselfish love. I believe that the church, because it is carried on by men, needs always to rediscover the plan of God, and act upon that plan in undying faith.
THE SACRAMENTS - The sacraments, to me, are the paths by which Christians are led to the "Mountain Top"" experiences of religion. There is in the experience of Baptism and Communion a closeness to God for the true worshiper that is not felt in the routine experiences of life. There is a divine mystery for me, in the sacraments that strikes the deeps of spiritual experience and lifts me away from all that is cheap and coarse and ordinary. Baptism, I believe, through the mysterious power of God, does cleanse us spiritually of our sin and does prepare us for a new life. Communion, I believe, is essential to continued spiritual growth as we join with Christians of all ages who have renewed their covenant by partaking of the bread and wine symbolic of Christ's body and blood.
THE SABBATH - I believe the Sabbath is a gift of God to man and that the law of the Sabbath is a law of love given by a Father who knows the needs and the weakness of His children. I believe the Sabbath law holds for all time and that men suffer spiritually and physically today because they ignore its meaning and purpose in their lives. There is spiritual significance, for me, in the fact that the Sabbath has been a part of Gods plan since the dawn of religious history. I discover spiritual strength and power as I worship on the same sacred day that the Bible heroes helped to sanctify and glorify. I believe in the power of religious tradition so richly present in Sabbath observance. I am impressed by the importance of keeping God's time, sunset to sunset, and I firmly believe there are great spiritual values to be obtained as we prepare for our day of worship and rest on Friday evening. lie have yet to learn God's full blessing for us in true Sabbath keeping. Seventh Day Baptists, I believe, have a tremendous responsibility in spreading Sabbath truth and when we live according to what we believe, then surely the Sabbath of God will find its way into the hearts of many Christians who seek the Way of life.
EVANGELISM - I believe that men throughout the world are eager to discover a better way of life than they now have, provided they can be made to see how that life is better. I believe that the seeds of love will find soil in which to grow in the hearts and minds of men in all conditions of life if these seeds are planted in the spirit of love that we find in Jesus Christ. The task of every Christian and of every church, I believe, is to take the Good News of love and truth to all the world and make it so radiate from life that it will set the world on fire with the love of God.
Dean A.J.C. Bond preached the Ordination Sermon on Sabbath morning, August 12, 1939. The title of the sermon was, THE HELP THAT GOES BEFORE, using a text from John 1:48--"Nathaniel saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him. Before Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee." The full text of the sermon was published in the September 4, 1939 issue of THE SABBATH RECORDER.
In the concluding Ordination Service Sabbath afternoon a Charge to the Candidate was given by Reverend Walter Greene; Reverend Edgar Van Horn gave a Charge to the Church; and Reverend George B. Shaw--my former beloved Pastor-offered the Prayer of Consecration. Reverend Clyde Ehret extended a Welcome to the Ministry to the newly ordained minister.
Mrs. Lois Scholes planned and directed the special music for the services. On Sabbath Eve The Friends of Music sang. In the Sabbath morning worship the anthem was, The King of Love My Shepherd Is, (Shelley). Two anthems were sung in the Sabbath afternoon service: God Be In My Head, (Davies) and Thou Hast a Work for Me to Do, (Robson). The Rev. James L. Skaggs, Pastor of the Salem Seventh Day Baptist Church, offered the Pastoral Prayer in the Sabbath morning service. Paul Maxson, my friend and college classmate, gave the benediction Sabbath Eve and Rev. Emmett Bottoms had the invocation in the Sabbath afternoon service. Francis Palmer was organist for the services.
Awesome is the word to describe an experience that occurred after the Sabbath Eve Ordination service. Our family hurried up Hartsville Hill to observe the most spectacular display of Aurora Borealis (northern lights) I have ever witnessed. It was wonderful to have my parents and Madeline's parents visiting us for my ordination to the Christian ministry.
How privileged I was to be invited to join the School of Theology professors in attending the Steuben County Ministers Association. Dean Bond, President Norwood, Dr. Edrar Van Horn and I often rode to the meetings together. The conversations were always stimulating--and sometimes hilarious. Papers read by members of the association on relevant religious topics were discussed and evaluated on the rides home.
I remember a Minister's meeting held in the Gothic chapel when Dean Bond presented a paper on The Sabbath. In the discussion that followed the Episcopal priest from Hornell pontificated, "I believe every Sunday should be a "little Resurrection", and every Saturday should be a "little Creation".
It was at one of the Minister's meetings that I met Rabbi Karl Wiener. He was the Rabbi of the Reformed Jewish congregation in Hornell. With his wife, Eva, he had escaped from Nazi Germany and had come to the United States by way of Israel. Madeline and I and Karl and Eva developed a warm, vital friendship that has lasted through the years. (More on this friendship later.)
I have never enjoyed a richer fellowship with ministers than in The Ministerium of Greater Alfred and the Upper Reaches of the Kanakadea. Alfred University Chaplain William (Bill) Genne and Betty; Alfred Pastor Everett (Ev) Harris and Clora and Madeline and I had lunch together twice a month. It was always fun being together but there were often serious matters to share and discuss. Bill was a confirmed pacifist and our discussions on that theme often caused deep soul-searching among us.
The three of us became involved in a serious situation with the Board of Education. The board refused to divulge why they fired the high school principal, appreciated in the community for his long tenure and excellent record. With approval from the principal--who insisted he was not told why he was being dismissed--we confronted the board for answers. They gave us none but out of community-wide pressure, the board established a policy giving the public access to their deliberations and decisions. Our efforts were not without good and lasting results. (Bill and Betty honored me by having me perform a Service of Dedication for their baby son, Tom.)
It was a major event in the life of the Second Alfred Church when Dr. Dumont Clark, founder of The Lord's Acre Plan, shared the plan with our congregation. Dr. Clark was a charming, white-haired minister from the south who presented his Lord's Acre Plan with enthusiasm and fervor. It was a joy having him as our guest. Our congregation "bought" the Lord's Acre Plan and incorporated it in our program for several years.
Along with many individual Lord's Acre projects the first year, we carried on a joint project by planting five acres of buckwheat on land donated by Irving Palmiter. Though there was a profit from the harvest of the buckwheat, it was not as much as expected because the deer rolled in the buckwheat and ate around the edges of the field. Some wag in Alfred Station said, "The deer ate the Lord's buckwheat". The Lord's Acre Sale each fall was supported by people from the area and raised appreciable monies for the church budget.
Madeline sustained a serious injury in the Alfred Station parsonage. Half awake and missing the hall light switch, she walked through the open stairway door in the dark and fell seventeen stairs down onto the kitchen floor. I carried her back up the stairs to bed. Her back pain did not improve over several weeks so we sought help from an orthopedic specialist in Rochester. He advised an operation with six weeks in bed to recuperate. For a second opinion a specialist in Buffalo suggested sleeping on a hard bed and letting time bring healing. We followed that course with some success but Madeline has never been free of some back pain.
The first funeral I was called on to conduct was for a seventy-five year old man from Olean, New York. No one in Alfred Station remembered the man. His wife, from whom he had been separated, told me he did not believe in God but she thought she ought to take him through a church.
As you can doubtless appreciate, the funeral service I conducted was brief. It was reported to me that the undertaker, Phil Place, when asked how the young preacher had done, said, "I like that young man. He's short".
My first wedding in the Second Alfred church united Elmer Willard and Bertha Lewis in marriage. Elmer has had a successful career as a school principal and Bertha was an elementary teacher until their retirement.
Charles Bond, with whom I had grown up in Salem, came to the School of Theology to study for the ministry. Madeline and I enjoyed having him spend-a number of weekends with us. During a Christmas vacation in Salem Charley and Margaret Skaggs were married. Margie had to return to Plainfield for a couple of weeks after the wedding and when Charley returned to school to told us about the wedding. He regretted that the Salem friends had not serenaded them. (They were prepared with refreshments). In West Virginia they called it a "serenade"--in New York it's a "shivaree".
When Charley and Margie were together in Alfred, we invited them for dinner and a movie with us. On the pretense of taking Anne to a baby sitter, we left the newly weds at the parsonage. By prearrangement, our church people were gathered at the church with all sorts of noisemakers. We surrounded the parsonage and broke the silence with all the noise possible. (Fred Palmer had a public address system with which we summoned the couple to come out). When our bewildered guests could no longer stand the racket they came out to greet their tormentors. We concluded the evening with a reception for the Bonds in the church social room.
When Charles Bond became Pastor of the Hebron, Pennsylvania Seventh Day Baptist church he invited me to preach evangelistic sermons on two weekends with the two of us visiting in the community during the week.
Clyde Willard owned the only grocery store in Alfred Station. Memory fails me on how he and I developed an interest in raising goats. He did own fenced pasture land and an unused poultry house a short distance from our parsonage. Our conversations about goats soon led us into a partnership agreement in which we would purchase goats to be kept on his land and be cared for by me. We would split the cost of feed and share in any profits. Each of us would have milk as the goats produced it.
From a newspaper ad we purchased a doe goat with horns and a bad disposition. She was blind in one eye but she did give milk. I had never milked a cow so it was interesting to learn to milk this goat. Clyde took a pint of milk a day and soon came to me with an amazing disclosure. He had been troubled for years with a serious skin condition on his legs for which he could get no help from doctors. Since drinking goat's milk, the condition was cured. A man in Alfred with stomach ulcers was a regular customer for our goat milk.
Over a period of time we added several does to our herd and with the acquisition of a registered Toggenburg buck started having kids. Madeline often had the chore of feeding the kids with a bottle several times a day. We sold male kids at premium prices at Easter time.
At one time we had fifteen goats and were having quite some success with them. Mrs. Carl Sandburg, the poet's wife, raised blue ribbon Toggenburgs and we began negotiating with her to purchase a young registered doe. We didn't complete the transaction because our family moved to Maine in 1943. Clyde and I sold our goats to Mr. Milo Palmer who was successful with them.
Raising goats was really a rewarding experience. They are clean, beautiful animals that are not difficult to care for providing you have a good fence. The kids are fun to watch in their playfulness. We were entertained when two or three kids would jump from the ground onto the hood and then on to the top our car parked in the driveway. We trucked several goats to Dad's farm on Bug Ridge in West Virginia. Dad had great enjoyment in raising them.
Another farm experience I enjoyed in Alfred Station was helping in Robert Ormsby's sugar bush during the maple syrup season. We waded through snow from tree to tree emptying the buckets of sap and putting them in the tank on the sled to be hauled to the shed where the sap was boiled into syrup. Tasting the fresh, warm maple syrup was delightful and having "sugar on the snow" was a special treat.
Since many of the church congregation were farmers, Madeline and I decided to accept an invitation to join the Grange. We have never belonged to any other fraternal organization and membership gave us the opportunity to fellowship with community and rural people in the area who did not relate to our church congregation. Perhaps the rituals practiced in the Grange did not have as much meaning for us as they were designed to have.
We raised wonderful vegetables in the small garden between the parsonage and the church. The soil was very rocky but also rich and productive.
My introduction to church youth camping came at Eggelstone Park, near Belmont, New York where I directed Western Association one week youth camps in 1940 and 1941. There were about twenty teenagers in 1940 and perhaps 30 in 1941. A staff of seven adults made for a good program and happy campers.
Pastor George Shaw, then retired and living in Alfred, led a featured hour in the program that we called, "Grampa Shaw’s Story Hour". Rather than have a rest period after lunch with the campers lying on their bunks, they gathered after lunch under a huge tree and listened to Pastor Shaw share a series of talks on "Seventh Day Baptists I Have Known". What a great shame that we were not able to record or video those stimulating, informative historic sessions.
Reverend Harley Sutton, Executive for the Seventh Day Baptist Board of Christian Education, and I co-directed the first Pre-Conference Youth Retreat on Cotton Lake near Battle Creek, Michigan in 1940. I recall that Dean Bond was guest lecturer on the staff and Harley's wife, Madge Sutton helped too. One evening Harley attempted to lead a worship service from a boat off the shore of the lake but the mosquitoes were so vicious we had to move indoors. Someone composed the following lyrics for a fun song we sang often:
Randy Randolph is a peach,
But he’d rather fish than preach.
Hey, hey, do-anonny, do.
The 1941 sessions of General Conference were held in Denver, Colorado so the second Pre-Conference Young People's Retreat was held at Rocky Mountain Seventh Day Baptist Camp on Lee Hill above Boulder. Harley Sutton and I co-directed this retreat. I remember the two of us taking a hand saw up on the mountain above the camp and cutting pieces out of a seasoned western cedar tree. Taking them back to Little Genesee, Harley made a cross, or had a cross made, that is now on the mantel at Camp Harley Sutton near Alfred Station.
It is good to observe that Pre-Con Youth Retreats have continued to be a successful part of the Conference program for young people for over fifty years. Now the program has been expanded to provide Young Adult and Family Pre-Cons. How many hundred Seventh Day Baptist youth have attended?
The Boulder Seventh Day Baptist church was without a Pastor at the time of the 1941 Retreat at Rocky Mountain Camp so they invited me to preach for them on Sabbath. Sometime after returning to Alfred Station from the Denver Conference, I received a "call" to the pastorate of the Boulder church. declined for the reason that I had been at Alfred Station so short a time.
Our second child, first son, was born July 30, 1941, seven days before I left for the Pre-Con Retreat at Rocky Mountain Camp. My mother came from West Virginia to help Madeline with the family. We named the new son, Daniel, and the next day, Sabbath, I preached on the text: "And Daniel purposed in his heart".
In the years since 1941 I have directed a Pre-Con in West Virginia and Madeline and I co-directed a Young Adult Pre-Con at the university in Alfred.
It was a rewarding experience to be one of three Scoutmasters who took a full Troop of Boy Scouts to the New York World's Fair in the summer of 1939. The Scouts came from two or three Councils of our area. We lived for a week in the Boy Scout camp that was a part of the fair. One-hundred-fifty Scouts coming from all over the United States were in the camp each week. We slept in tents and ate our meals that were prepared and served in the camp.
The Scouts and Scouters in the camp gave half of their day to work assignments for the camp and the other half we were free to enjoy the fair. Assignments given us were, for example: guiding groups of school children and serving as color guards at special ceremonies being conducted often in the program of the fair.
Our Troop was fortunate to participate in Boy Scout Day at the fair when 60,000 Scouts assembled in the Court of Peace to celebrate the special day. There were many national celebrities who took part in the program. It was a real thrill for me to be an honor guard for Miss Helen Keller for about a two hour period. Many lost Scouts were brought into our camp that night to be returned to their Troops or sent to their homes. Our camp ran low on food from feeding those hungry lost boys. I saw the legendary "old-time" Scouter, Dan Beard that day, too.
On the Sunday our Troop was in the World's Fair camp, I had the honor of conducting a worship service for the Scouts and Scouters in the camp. On Sunday afternoon another Scoutmaster and I accepted an invitation to tour Long Island with a volunteer Scouter and his wife. This proved to be one of the highlights of the week. Our genial host was an executive in the research division of Bell Telephone. Interestingly, he gave me a pamphlet on research he had done on the dynamics of bows. (This, no doubt, through his involvement in Scouting.) I kept in touch with this couple for several years.
I met the president of the Diamond Tent Company when he was visiting our camp. (His company had provided the tents used in the camp.) On an impulse, I told him about our rural Scout Troop in Alfred Station and asked if might have damaged or second grade tents we could purchase. He responded that he was having two tents from our camp repaired and he would ship them to our Troop without charge. Imagine the excitement of our Alfred Station Scouts when the tents arrived. It must be true, "If you don't ask, you won't get".
How pleased I was to be invited to fish and hunt with Irving Palmiter, Bill Woodruff and other members of our church. Ice fishing on area lakes was great fun in the winter time when our farmers had free time. We watched our tip-ups, shelled and ate peanuts and made hot tea on our oil-burner stove. We pitched a tent out on the ice. And we did catch a fish now and then.
Ruffed grouse bunting and deer hunting were exciting. I did learn to hit grouse with a shotgun and I saw many deer while hunting with a bow, but never had a shot at a buck. Catching buckets full of smelt was one big adventure.
My life story in Alfred Station, New York isn't complete without including Uncle Dreadful, the big, bugle-voiced coon hound who came to me as a gift from the Ag-Tech teacher from Pennsylvania who lived across the street from our parsonage. I learned from him that his family raised and trained coon hounds and I shared my interest and enthusiasm for coon hunting with him.
To my surprise, my new-found friend said he could give me a hound from his Pennsylvania family. Amazed at the offer, I quickly accepted and was thrilled to receive Uncle Dreadful into our parsonage family. The barn-garage made fine quarters for this huge canine. Fortunately, he did not howl much.
At the first opportunity--before the season on coons began--I took my hound into the field to see if he would run a coon. He did, and I was overjoyed. Of course I did not follow through to catch the coon. When the season opened, I invited my teacher friend to go coon hunting with me and Uncle Dreadful treed a raccoon that we were successful in catching. Back at home after the hunt I asked my friend if he would like to have the coon. He replied, "You keep the coon and I'll take the dog". He then confessed to me he believed the hound was ruined for hunting as a pup in training. Not so! He did not expect me to return the dog and I had number of successful hunts.
Paul Button was with me one night when our dog treed a coon and Paul climbed the tree. When he was well up in the tree, he shouted, "Boys, this tree is full of coons"! (One of them was climbing his leg). He dislodged them from the tree, one by one, and we brought four raccoons home with us.
Uncle Dreadful had one bad fault. If he crossed a deer track before a coon track, he would follow the deer beyond where we could call him back. On a few occasions I had to wait several days to learn from a newspaper ad where he was being kept. I hung a buck deer's scent glands around my hound's neck in an effort to break him of chasing deer. I don't believe it worked.
I was guilty of one regrettable mistake from my coon hunting experience. Aunt Sarah and cousin Blondy Randolph gave me a beautiful muzzle-loading rifle that I had treasured for a number of years. In my enthusiasm for hunting coons, I traded the valuable rifle for a pneumatic pistol I could use to shoot raccoons in trees. Now the rifle would be worth a considerable sum of money.
Madeline recalls the night when a couple came to the parsonage wanting me to perform their marriage. I had just started out with Carlton Green to hunt coon and Madeline was able to call me back. I changed my clothes but did not remove the long Johns I was wearing. By the time the wedding ceremony was over, I was uncomfortably warm. Carlton and I did get on with the hunt.
Pastor Everett Harris was with me on one coon hunt when Uncle Dreadful struck a track and followed it a long time without treeing it. The hour was getting late and Ev got discouraged and went home without me. I stayed on to help my hound if he treed the coon but we were never successful that night.
As I recall, the pelts of the raccoons we caught were worth about $5.00 each. The total we received probably covered the cost of Uncle Dreadful’s food. How many ministers do you know who have owned and hunted with a hound?
Through my connections as a Scout Executive in the Steuben Council territory and membership in the Hornell Area Ministers Association numbers of invitations came during my Second Alfred pastorate to preach in area churches. For reasons I cannot explain, many of these preaching appointments were in Presbyterian churches. New York State communities in whose churches I served included: Hornell, Arkport, Canisteo, Cohocton, Hammondsport and several rural or smaller community churches. There were times when the $25.00 remuneration I normally received saved us from serious financial straits.
I was privileged to preach for the Presbyterian Church in Arkport for several months while they searched for a minister. During that period the Arkport town clerk and I became fast friends. He was an avid ruffed grouse hunter and I enjoyed hosting him in a thrilling hunt near Alfred Station. He hunted with the most beautiful shotgun I have ever seen. It was a Scot and Wembley British made twelve gauge, double-barreled shotgun that was artistically engraved on the breech with water bird scenes. A gold cross was inlayed in the trigger guard. The gun may have once been owned by an English clergyman. My town clerk friend gave me a book I prize highly titled, NEW ENGLAND GROUSE SHOOTING, by William Harnden Foster. The illustrations are superb. Alas, this good Presbyterian's name eludes me now.
Christmas was celebrated in the Arkport church while I was serving them and they asked me to have our four year old Ann participate in their church school program. In just one week Madeline taught Anne the lovely Christmas poem, If Bethlehem Were Here Today. Anne stood in front of this congregation who were strangers to her and quoted the poem perfectly and with excellent expression to a point where, struck with momentary fright, she turned to Madeline in the choir and said, "Mommy?" With one word of prompting from her mother, she completed reciting the poem flawlessly. We were proud parents.
A teacher, Margery Darcy, in the congregation of the Presbyterian church in Cohocton, New York where I was substituting for several weeks, asked me to assist her Hammondsport church Pastor in performing her marriage ceremony on Good Friday evening, April 11, 1941. She asked that I have them exchange their vows and pronounce them "Man and wife". The wedding would be in the Hammondsport Presbyterian church.
I accepted Margery's invitation, making it clear that her Pastor, Rev. Bill Perry, whom I knew, must invite me to assist him in the ceremony. On Bill's invitation, Madeline and I drove to Hammondsport, forty miles or more, and checked in Pastor Perry for instructions on how we would proceed. He went through the ceremony we would use with me, explaining that we would pass the service book between us as we shared in the ceremony.
The ceremony was conducted on the sanctuary level below the pulpit and when the little flower girl processed she passed us and continued on to the pulpit and organ level. As we moved into the ceremony, passing the book between us, the flower girl walked across the bass pedals of the pipe organ. Pastor Perry almost lost the service book and his glasses. When the organ sounded out a second time with the little girl's crossing, we were prepared.
Our family life in Alfred Station was happily full of activity. Anne, our first born, was growing and delighting us daily. I remember the first sentence I heard her use. She looked up at the night sky, pointed her tiny finger and said, "See the moon". In Anne's imagination she had a pet bear that lived in the one-eye furnace in our living room. When she wanted to play with the bear she would stamp her feet and he would come up. When he got too rough, or she got tired of playing, she would send him back down into the furnace. Going to the "Ost Postist" delighted Anne. She both amused and embarrassed us one evening when Alvah and Elma Strong were dinner guests. When Alvah smoked a cigarette after dinner and twisted it out on his plate, Anne looked up at him and said, "Mow wasn't that a nasty thing to do!". We all laughed. Children's books and recordings were an endless joy to her.
Xenia Lee, Ashby and Ruth's oldest daughter, lived with us during her eighth grade year in school. Madeline appreciated her help with Anne and Dan. In school Xenia Lee was an excellent student and she and Jean Palmer became best of friends. We missed her when she returned home but I imagine she was happy to be back with her family in West Virginia.
Family picnics were great fun for us. We found an isolated spot in Irving Palmiter's woods where we made a fire ring for cooking and hung a swing for the children. Fred and Doris Palmer were friends with whom we shared wonderful times. Madeline and I have happy memories of crisp winter nights when we walked to the home of Milo and Hattie Palmer, Fred's parents, for evenings playing Rook with them. May Whitford was certainly one of our closest, dearest friends--a rare and unforgettable spirit whose loyalty to us was unsurpassed. Many were the hours I spent at the Post Office in stimulating conversations with Post Mistress Ivanna Lewis. I think of her now as having been my chief confidant.
Ev and Clora Harris were special friends to us. We enjoyed being in each others homes for visits and we often consulted one another when there were problems or situations involving our pastorates in Alfred and Alfred Station. I remember a time, too, when shotgun shells could not be purchased. Ev and I found half-a-dozen or so shells and had a successful rabbit hunt that provided meat we were pleased to have in war time. How rewarding to have such friends.
Winnie Cook lived across the street from us with her mother, Calla, and younger brother, Calvin. We were intimately involved with the Cooks and Winnie's courtship with Clinton Burdick was intensely interesting to Madeline and me. In fact, their courtship was often carried on in our home with our blessing. It was a disappointment to us and them that their marriage came after our departure from the Second Alfred Church. We have stayed in touch with the Clinton Burdicks through the years until now.
A family outing we enjoyed each fall was driving to the Keuka Lake area to pick grapes. There were seemingly endless acres of grape vineyards on the hillsides bordering Keuka Lake. We could pick baskets full of ripe grapes and process them at home into juice or grape jelly. We haven't forgotten when Anne accidentally sat back into a large pan of new grape juice.
On December 7, 1941 Madeline and I were in a Hornell church rehearsing with an interchurch choir for the performance of MESSIAH during the Christmas season. We were stunned to hear the word passed along from singer to singer, "The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor!" That was the signal for major changes in our lives as in the lives of most Americans.
Here I must confess how utterly naive I was in my thinking in the days when Hitler's forces were first attacking the French along the Maginot line. I was strongly convinced that these military operations would not spawn a major conflict. "Mankind has advanced too far toward international understanding and peace to become engaged in all-out war", I thought. How wrong I was! "The day of infamy" shook me out of any unrealistic optimism.
As the war progressed and young men from our church and community joined the armed forces, I began feeling that I should be involved in the national effort beyond what I was able to do in Second Alfred church. (Calvin Cook was a tail-gunner on a B29 flying bombing raids over Europe.)
When the pressing need for chaplains in the armed services was circulated, I felt a strong sense that my background and experience equipped me to make a contribution in this field. I first thought to apply for service with the paratroopers but Madeline vetoed that idea. She was supportive of me in my intention to enter the chaplaincy even though it would mean great sacrifice for her. I don't recall any effort on her part to discourage my enlisting.
I moved promptly to complete the paper work and the physical examination required to be accepted in the chaplaincy, applying as a Seventh Day Baptist minister. Imagine my surprise to be informed that Seventh Day Baptist ministers did not qualify because the adult communicants in our denomination totaled less that 50,000.
When I checked with the American Baptists, I learned they could not fill their quota for chaplains and that they would support an application by me under their sponsorship. So I repeated the application procedure, getting a physical at a military installation in Buffalo on New Year Day, 1943. Within a few days word came from the Army that I should arrange my civilian affairs to be prepared for induction in ten days.
I resigned my church pastorate and found an apartment for the family. Then a telephone call from the Surgeon General’s office informed me that because I had been hospitalized within a five year period, a cystoseopic examination would be required before I could be accepted in the chaplaincy. In consultation with Doctor Hitchcock on this development he said, "That examination is dangerous, and if they don't want you any more than that, stay at home with your family where you belong". I took his advise and withdrew my application.
Good did come out of my efforts to enter the military chaplaincy. A number of Seventh Day Baptist ministers learned from my experience and were readily successful in entering the chaplaincy during World War II.
A surprise letter came from Scout Executive Percy Dunn in the spring of 1943. He had become the Executive of Pine Tree Council in Maine and needed a Field Scout Executive to be Chief of Staff at Camp William Hinds beginning in June. Would I consider joining him again in this new assignment?
The offer was attractive since I was looking for a new and greater challenge in this time of national crises. It was not my intention to leave the Christian ministry. A war time commitment interested me. At Percy Dunn's prompting, I flew to Portland, Maine for a job interview. It was always inspiring to be with P.L. Dunn and this visit convinced me to team up with him again in Pine Tree Council and Camp William Hinds. Percy introduced me to Maine lobster at Boone's Place on the wharf in Portland. How delicious!
There were many decisions to make and arrangements to settle before leaving for the Scout camp in early June. Madeline was expecting our third child the first of June so the church agreed for her to stay in the parsonage until I would come for her and the children in August. Clora Harris volunteered to take Madeline to the hospital when the time came. John Preston—named for his two grandfathers--was not born until June 30, 1943, a month later than expected. Through all the stress of this transition period Madeline demonstrated remarkable courage. Looking back, I marvel at her faith and stamina. The ensuing weeks were perhaps the most trying of our lives.
Camp William Hinds, owned and operated by Pine Tree Council Boy Scout of America, was located on Panther Pond with the Tenney river running through the camp and emptying into the lake. Pond was a misnomer. It was a four mile long lake, half a mile wide. The water was clear and refreshingly cool. Most of the camp property was wooded. I was enthralled on my first visit to the camp.
As camp Chief of Staff, I worked with thirty-five adult and junior staff men and two-hundred-fifty Scouts for two-week periods through the summer. Soon after camp began problems with some veteran staff members developed. We learned that the former Scout Executive had in effect turned over the camp program to a few men whose ideas of camping and personal behavior were unacceptable in Scouting. The fact that I was a newcomer to Maine, and a minister, were like two strikes against me with these renegade staff men.
In the course of time we learned that a ring of men on the staff were gambling far into the night and some of them had women on the lake. The junior staff also had their own ring perpetrating activities bad for camp morale. Keep in mind that Percy Dunn had come to Pine Tree Council too late to evaluate and recruit camp staff. He once said to me, "Next summer we'll be in control".
It is hard to believe that these adult staff men took all of the dining hall benches out into the woods one night and hid them. Another night these men paddled our canoes down the lake to a women's camp and exchanged them with that camp's canoes. Percy and I were waiting for them when they paddled back to our dock so they had to return those canoes and bring ours back. They were unhappy "campers". It the end of camp this ring of staff men went on a drunken bash, destroying a dory boat and convicting themselves beyond recovery.
I do not want to give the impression that the 1943 camping season at Camp William Hinds was a failure. Five or six adult staff members, and perhaps as many junior staff personnel, created the problems. There were a number of talented and dedicated men who were loyal to me and who helped to make the camping experience memorable for the hundreds of Boy Scouts in camp. However, had it not been for the unwavering support of Percy Dunn, I doubt if I would have survived the summer.
Immediately after camp was over I drove the camp truck to Alfred Station to bring our family and household goods back to Auburn, Maine. Because it was war time, special arrangements to purchase gasoline for the truck and our V8 Ford had to be made with the proper authorities.
Returning to Madeline and the children after the trauma of the summer was an emotionally happy experience. What a thrill to see baby John, now eight or nine weeks old, for the first time. He was a beautiful baby! I could only guess at how difficult the summer had been for Madeline. She was a "survivor".
Tears were shed as we drove away from Alfred Station in the loaded truck and our Ford car. Madeline had Anne, Daniel and John with her as she drove. The more than four years with Second Alfred church, our first pastorate, had been fruitful and happy. We were leaving our first home, after the Gothic in Alfred, and many friends dear to us were being left behind.
The trip to Maine was arduous, especially for Madeline. We were fortunate to be able to spend the first night on the road in Berlin, New York with our friends, Pastor Paul and Ruby Maxson. It was difficult to find a motel the second night. No lights were allowed outside places of business because of the war so we literally groped our way into a motel kind enough to take us in.
It was heartwarming and reassuring to have Percy and Clara Dunn help us settle in to our rented apartment on Beacon Avenue in Auburn, Maine. Lewiston Auburn is the twin city that was headquarters for the Pine Tree Council district I was to serve as Field Scout Executive. Our first floor apartment was on top of a hill that overlooked the city of Lewiston and the Androscoggin river. Remodeled from an elegant home, the apartment had hardwood floors and a beautiful fireplace with a ceramic arch decorated with a woman's face, oak leaves and acorns. It was pleasant to come home from night Scout meetings and sit with Madeline in front of a cheery fire. I often brought home a huge Italian sandwich or a lobster sandwich to enjoy together. We paid $30.00 a month for the apartment. A coal furnace was our heat source and, because of war time restrictions, we brought coal home, one bag at a time, in our car. I foolishly used kerosene one morning to relight the furnace fire. The kerosene exploded in my face, singing my hair and burning off my mustache. It could have been a major tragedy but it was an embarrassment for a Scout Executive.
Because washing machines were not available during the war, Madeline was forced to wash all our clothes by hand until the Irish lady next door saw her predicament and gave her a working old electric washing machine. We were thankful for it and did not replace it until after the war. The washing was done by putting the clothes in a revolving basket with wooden slates. The war caused restrictions and inconveniences that are now forgotten.
Being Field Scout Executive for the Lewiston-Auburn District of Pine Tree Council was interesting and demanding. The district covered the communities from Lewiston-Auburn north to Rumford. More than four feet of snow the winter of 1943-44 made travel sometimes hazardous. Days found me in the district office much of the time and most week nights I was visiting Troops or conducting committee meetings relating to Scouting. A number of Troops were made up of French-Canadian Scouters and Scouts whose meetings were conducted using the French language. I remember Freddie LeBranche who was the Scoutmaster of an excellent Troop. He and his wife became close friends.
The British had a base at the Lewiston airport for training British pilots to fly Grumman aircraft. A number of the pilots were English Boy Scouts and came to our office to get acquainted. We had Norman Bleers, a charming British Scout, for dinner several times. We wonder, "Did he survive the war?". Those were the terrible days when England was being subjected to devastating bombings day and night. "The Happy Gang", a Canadian radio program we heard almost every day, often sang, "There'll always be an England, and England will be free, As long as there's a cottage small beside the crystal sea". When there was a movement under way to send English children to the United States to escape the bombings, Madeline and I applied to host one. We corresponded with the father of the child scheduled to come to us and he sent us a burned out German fire bomb. It was decided not to evacuate the children.
Madeline and I participated in a number of church and community activities in Lewiston-Auburn. Madeline sang in the Congregational church choir and was active in a Baptist Women’s organization. I preached many Sundays in rural and small town Baptist churches. My "barrel" of sermons was made use of often.
An experience with birds deserves telling. I came home from the office for lunch one day to find a flock of beautiful birds eating the seeds on the ash tree in our front yard. The markings on the birds were yellow and black and a search of our bird guide led us to believe they must be Evening Grosbeaks. One hitch was that the guide said this species was seldom seen east of the Mississippi river. This flock of birds couldn't have been farther east than this. When I telephoned Dr. Sawyer, a Bates College biology professor and a member of my District Board, he assured me that we were seeing Evening Grosbeaks. They had been observed in Maine for several years.
It was intellectually stimulating to meet monthly through the winter with Peter Bertocci, a Bates College professor, and the local Unitarian minister. We met in our home and took turns presenting a paper on some issue and then discussing it. I believe sociology was Dr. Bertocci’s field. He later became a professor at Boston University and authored one or more books. I can't recall how the idea of our getting together originated. We enjoyed it.
I joined a group of people interested in target archery in forming the Orumby Archery Club. "Orumby" was the name of a renowned Indian in the history of the area. We established an archery range on which we could shoot the York round requiring a number of 100 yard shots. In the archery club I met Harold A. Titcomb (Uncle "Hat"). His name was prominent in target archery circles and he was most helpful to us in organizing our local club. Madeline and I were honored to have him as a guest in our home and I was in touch with him later.
Our family life in Maine sometimes was lonely, especially for Madeline. We missed our families and friends acutely and were thrilled to have cousin Vida Randolph Barrs bring her three children from Boston to visit us. Christmas Eve we attended the very large and beautiful Saint Peter's Catholic church Midnight Mass. The priest was active in our Scouting program.
Anne was five years old in June of 1943 and so went to kindergarten in Auburn in September. It was exciting to follow her progress and enthusiasm in school. One winter day Daniel, who was not yet three years old, wandered away from our house causing Madeline to call me at the office greatly alarmed. I rushed home to receive a call from the nearby fire station that a little boy was there who might be ours. Baby John made us all happy as he grew. He was caught one day with a caterpillar in his mouth as he sat on the front lawn.
Before camp began in 1944 we were surprised to receive word from Rabbi Karl and Eva Weiner that Karl was going to be on the staff of a private camp not far from Camp William Hinds. Arrangements were soon made between us to have Eva and their baby, Danny live with Madeline and our children for the camp season. It worked out well for Karl and me to have the same day off each week from our camps and be at home together with our families. Madeline and Eva enjoyed being together. They had religious discussions in which they compared Old and New Testament scriptures. Eva was pleased to learn how to sew from Madeline. After the camping season the Weiners moved to Colorado Springs, CO.
Serving as Chief of Staff for Boy Scout Camp William Hinds on Panther Pond was sheer joy in 1944. Percy Dunn and I recruited the entire staff and we were in full control of the management and program for the camp. I was happily surprised to be inducted into The Order of the Arrow, a national Scout organization, in an impressive Indian ceremony. I supervised the construction of an outdoor chapel and an archery range for the camp.
Blueberries grew in abundance on the camp property and one week we sent the campers out, by tents, with #10 cans to pick blueberries. The winning tent got a watermelon as a prize. Our cook baked blueberry pies and blueberry muffins enjoyed by everyone.
One unique program event during the camping season stands out in my memory. The father of a camper was a talented camper, fly fisherman, canoeist and general outdoorsman. On our invitation he took a day at camp to set up a model camp and demonstrate axmanship, fly casting and poling a canoe. His relating of fishing and camping experiences kept the Scouts spellbound at evening campfire.
An Indian council fire I led at Camp William Hinds one evening when the "Old Timers" from Portland, Maine were our guests is unforgettable. The "Old Timers" were affluent business men who were supporters of the camp and who came to visit every year. The fire was laid in the campfire ring and the Scouts filed silently into the arena with blankets over their shoulders and wearing single feathers on their heads. I wore a full Indian headdress and opened the ceremony by invoking blessings from each point of the compass. Facing north with arms outstretched I intoned, "O north wind, bring us FIREI". At that moment flames burst out of the wood laid for the fire. It was awesome!
As you may have guessed, the burst of fire was brought on by a mixture of chemicals that were activated by a staff man in the edge of the circle who pulled on a black thread attached to the neck of an open bottle at the base of the firewood. I had never seen it done before but it worked perfectly.
In the spring or early summer of 1944 we received a letter from Milton, Wisconsin that challenged us to make a decision impacting the rest of our lives. The letter was a "call" to us to accept the pastorate of the Milton Seventh Day Baptist Church.
It is an interesting sidelight that the Milton church had "called" Rev. Albert Rogers to their pastorate before "calling" me. Al Rogers was pastoring the Second Alfred church following our service there. Because he had served Second Alfred so short a time, he declined the Milton "call". By this turn of circumstances, I was the next minister to be "called" by the Milton church.
There were a number of considerations for us to ponder before answering this "call". I thought of the Scout Executive assignment as temporary, perhaps covering the period of the war, though I had not served Pine Tree Council a year-and-a-half yet. What was my obligation to continue in this work?
The pastorate of the Milton church offered perhaps as great a challenge and opportunity for ministry as any church in our Seventh Day Baptist denomination. If I refused this "call", would any other church "call" me at a later time?
Percy Dunn was typically fair-minded and understanding when I shared the news of our "call" with him. He would support us in whatever decision we made. It became evident that the Council Board was not pleased with the possibility that we might be leaving.
Personal letters from my college friend and classmate, Milton Van Horn and Rev. Willard D. Burdick, both of Milton, were enthusiastic in their hope that we would come to the Milton pastorate. These letters were helpful to us in our decision making.
Our answer to the "call" from the Milton church was in the affirmative. We concluded our work with Pine Tree Council September 1, 1944 and agreed to begin the Milton Seventh Day Baptist Church pastorate October 1, 1944.
During September we visited our families in West Virginia enroute to Wisconsin and the new challenge.
God willing, We intend to add another volume to our autobiography. Perhaps it will be titled, THE MILTON YEARS. Completing the experiences for that period of time, we should move on to our last experiences, THE BOULDER YEARS.
In closing, we can only hope that you, our reader, will find as much pleasure in the reading as we have in the writing.
GOD BLESS!