Pathways: The Lives and Ministries of Leigh and Carol Adams

PATHWAYS

The Lives

and Ministries

of

LEIGH AND CAROL ADAMS

By

Leigh and Carol Adams

Copyright © 2013 Leigh Adams.

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Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-1959-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-1086-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-1087-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013918350

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/07/2013

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Preface

The Fulton Path

The Oswego Path

The Two Paths Merge

The Path To Texas

The Path To Missions

The Path To Québec

The Path To New York

The Path To Ohio

The Path To Retirement

The Family Paths

Acknowledgements

Our life story has taken more time to complete than anticipated since we are still on the path. Now having advanced into our octogenarian years, we remember the many blessings received as we followed God’s paths. Yes, there have been some obstacles along the way, but compared with our blessings, they were insignificant! We are truly thankful for the privilege of serving Him in missions. Our key word is PUSH or Pray Until Something Happens.

We would like to thank our family by dedicating this book to each of you and to the churches and individuals who have partnered with us through prayer and material support.

Walking down our memory path we see, in our mind’s eye, our first Pastor, Earl Leiby, Bill and Doris Weaver, Jeff Cromeens, George and Lillie Steele, our Québec co-workers John and Judy Garris and Jessica Minns, Pastor Arthur Larkin, Pastor Kenneth Spink and Gladys Alger who volunteered to typeset all issues of CBF Good News.

In addition, we would be remiss not to express our sincere gratitude to the family of Baptist Mid-Missions including President Gary Anderson, Vice-President David Ferguson who, on our retirement, assumed direction of the Medals for Glory ministries; Steve Butler, Field Administrator for North America, Steve Fulks, Administrator for Church Relations and Enlistment; Bill and Nan Mosher, Field Administrator; Council member Roger Buettell and our many many friends. Words fail us to express adequately our appreciation.

The Baptist Tabernacle, renamed Bible Baptist Church, in Oswego, NY, commissioned us to missionary service in 1959. West Genesee Hills Baptist Church in Camillus, NY became our home in 1970. When we moved to Ohio to assume administrative responsibilities at Baptist Mid-Missions in 1974, we joined Berea Baptist Church, which recommissioned us. What a blessing these churches have been to us! Thank you.

We also are grateful for having had the privilege to write two books depicting the missionary ministries of the Seymour families. They are I Will Help Thee, The Story of Linda and Arthur Seymour, Two Pioneer Missionaries Called to Take the Light of the Gospel to Africa, and But God, The Story of Dr. David and Ruth Seymour, Medical Missionaries to Chad Africa.

Finally, we want to thank our children: John, Jeffrey, Thomas, Roger, and Julie and their families. They are a wonderful blessing as they continue to accompany us along the path God has set before us.

Foreword

Leigh and Carol Adams have invited us to walk with them along the pathways of God’s leading in their lives. Many of us, who have had the privilege of walking along with them on this journey, are reminded of God’s faithfulness to His Word and to His promises.

The Adamses led with unshakeable commitment. We too learned to PUSH (Pray Until Something Happens). Their efforts in reaching the lost were tireless—their methods varied. Those of us who walked with them found ourselves reaching beyond our own abilities because of their example.

This book, while not avoiding mention of some of the difficulties, emphasizes that practicing what you believe will provide a fulfilled and fruitful life.

I trust this book will result in a renewed sense of commitment and purpose, joy, and enthusiasm in your walk and service

for God.

John Garris

Québec, Canada

Preface

A visit to Oswego County in upstate New York is to experience living history. This is where we, Carol and Leigh Adams, have our roots. Please join us as we take you on a journey, describing our pathways as we merged trails to follow the Lord’s leading for our lives.

In 1722, the British established a trading post at the mouth of the Oswego River in New York State. This strategic location on the shore of Lake Ontario was approximately thirty miles north of Salt City, now known as Syracuse.

The central New York system of rivers served as highways for the Iroquois, Onondaga, Mohawk, Oneida, and Seneca Indians. However early settlers also needed navigable waterways to transport the lumber, salt, and increasing quantities of manufactured goods.

Governor Dewitt Clinton (1769-1828), recognizing the need to connect Albany on the Hudson River with Buffalo on Lake Erie, commissioned the construction of the Erie Canal. His critics dubbed it Clinton’s Ditch. Syracuse, situated on Onondaga Lake, was its central port. Its opening in 1825 provided a vital link to the Great Lakes bringing prosperity to many communities in upstate New York. The total length of the waterway was 363 miles. In 1827, the Oswego canal was completed thus providing access from Syracuse to Lake Ontario hometowns, Fulton and Oswego. By the time we arrived on the scene, there was no need to travel by horse or canal barge. There were excellent roads on each side of the Oswego River.

Leigh’s parents were both native Fultonians. This village, located approximately eleven miles from Oswego, was then known as Oswego Falls. Carol’s parents were from Oswego, the Gateway to the Great Lakes. Its Indian name meant Pouring out Place as the Oswego River emptied into Lake Ontario.

When we were in school, there was a definite rivalry between our towns. School colors, Fulton’s red and green and Oswego’s blue and white, identified team territories. One year an Adams’ boy surreptitiously managed to paint red and green lines on Oswego’s main street during football season. No doubt, that rivalry continues, but that is another story… .

A young man from Cooperstown, New York, at the time a sleepy little village southwest of Schenectady, was then twenty-eight years old. His father William founded the village in 1787. Today it is home to the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Farmers’ Museum. James Fenimore Cooper was neither a trader, nor a merchant, nor a traveling salesman, but a poet and author—best known for his novels, The Last of the Mohicans, The Deerslayer and The Pathfinder. In doing research for his novels, in all probability, James traveled by horseback, or at times, as a passenger on one of the barges pulled by mules along the towpaths of the Erie and Oswego canals.

Pathfinder Island, the site of one of Cooper’s novels, is in the Oswego River, between Fulton and Oswego. As a young boy, Leigh used to wander paths along the riverbank and the island searching for arrowheads and other Indian artifacts. Thus, we have chosen Pathways as theme for our life’s story. Please join us as we retrace our paths.

***

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways, acknowledge him,

and he shall direct thy paths.

Proverbs 3:5-6

THE FULTON PATH

The year was 1928. Calvin Coolidge was president. He was famous for saying so little. A guest invited to a dinner in the White House made a bet she could get him to say more than two words. When she told him of her bet, he replied simply You lose!

Other interesting happenings that year include the discovery of antibiotics by Alexander Fleming, the Iron Lung by Philip Drinker, invention of a bread slicer by Otto Frederick Rohwedder, Bubble Gum, first called Double Bubble by Walter Diemer, and in Fulton, the birth of Leigh Edward, the first son of Walter and Dorothy Adams.

The Adams Family

I never knew my grandfather Walter Hamilton Adams. He was 46 when he died in 1913 shortly before the United States became involved in the First World War and fifteen years before I was born. Grandma and Grandpa Adams had four children: Ula, Eunice, Arol Lee and my father Walter. Arol died in his first year. Eunice was named after my great great grandmother Eunice Waugh, known as Grandma Eunni.

My grandmother, Alice Adams, after the death of Grandpa Adams, married Charles Porter. We called him Charlie. After graduating from the Oswego Normal School (now SUNY-Oswego) Charlie taught school. He later opened a Socony gas station at the top of Crosby Hill. He also had several cabins available for travelers headed north to the Thousand Islands and Canada.

I guess my Uncle Ula must have followed the admonition of Horace Greeley to Go west, young man, go west, since he ended up in Akron, Ohio where he found employment at the B. F. Goodrich Company. We recently learned that Uncle Ula had had a brief marriage and a son who bore his name. Following a divorce, he met Helen Hartranft, a young secretary, who worked in the Firestone Rubber Company office. They were married in 1922.

My aunt Eunice was a short, freckled-faced woman with auburn hair. She accepted a marriage proposal from Fred Loughrey. They settled in Bundyville, a small settlement on the east side of the Oswego River between Fulton and Oswego. In addition to operating a small farm, Fred worked at the Minetto Shade Cloth Company, a major supplier of window shades. During the war, they produced camouflage materials for the Army and Navy.

Dad’s full name was Walter Percy Adams. His older brother was named Ula Sidney Adams. Little did my grandparents know that the initials of their sons (USA and WPA) would have future significance.

After Dad completed high school, he decided on a career as an electrician and enrolled in the Coyne Electrical School in Chicago. His textbooks fascinated me. Later, he taught me the basics of electricity—simple things like lamp wiring, circuitry, and the meaning of terms such as volts, amps and ohms.

However, this career path did not last, as he later enrolled in the Simmons School of Embalming and Mortuary Science in Syracuse. Following graduation as an embalmer, he formed a partnership—Chapman, Adams and Company, Funeral Directors in Fulton.

In 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt, as part of his New Deal Administration, established the Works Progress Administration, known as the WPA. Dad’s initials had no association with this federal program designed to provide employment during the depression years. He now had a good job as a funeral director. Uncle Ula enjoyed his patriotic moniker—USA.

Mom’s parents, William and Estella Best, were of English descent. Before moving to the Fulton area, they had lived in northern New York State near the Canadian border. Grandpa Best did not complete school. However, in later years, he learned to write his name. Most people in town knew him as Bill. Grandma Best was a very special woman. She loved everybody and worked very hard to help provide for her family of thirteen children. She was an excellent cook and baker. Eventually she even made our wedding cake. Summers were her busiest times. She was a part-time employee at Snider Foods, which we simply referred to as the Canning factory. It later merged into the Birdseye Frozen Foods Corporation.

My mother, the third of the baker’s dozen, was born in 1906. She attended Fulton High School and later received her RN degree from the School of Nursing at the Albert Lindley Lee Memorial Hospital in Fulton.

Dorothy Best Adams (2nd from left)

Grandma and Grandpa Best lived in an old, but solidly built house at the end of West Third Street in Fulton. Can you imagine one bathroom with thirteen children! In winter, it was a race to see who could stand over the one central-heat register near Grandpa’s chair. When he was not working at the Velvet Tissue Company, where he tended the boilers, he relaxed in his special chair listening to his four-tube Philco radio.

Mom and Dad Meet at the Hospital

Obviously, I was not around to witness the encounter, but I understand they met one night when Dad went to the hospital to pick up a dead body. Mom just happened to be the duty nurse who authorized release of deceased from the hospital morgue. As their friendship grew, they would often take walks together. One day, while sitting on concrete steps alongside the Oswego barge canal, Dad proposed and she said yes.

She said Yes

They were married in Phoenix, NY on December 22, 1926. Their marriage represented a merger of Dad, an East-Sider with Mom, a West-Sider. Years later, there would be another merger, this time between a Fultonian and an Oswegonian. Read on to get the details.

Leigh’s Birth

Mom was happy as she went about to establish a home. She was able, for a while, to continue nursing at the Albert Lindley Lee Memorial Hospital. On June 1, 1928, Mom became a patient in the maternity wing and I appeared on the scene.

While too young to remember, I imagine the office of the Chapman Adams Funeral Service was a happy place for a change. Dad smoked cigars and undoubtedly passed them out to all his friends in honor of my birth. Their office was located in the downtown area, across the street from the dizzy block where Friday night shoppers parked and watched people as they circled the block.

What’s in a Name?

Both Mom and Dad had a great appreciation for Dr. Simpson who had given me my first spanking to start me breathing. To demonstrate their gratitude they named me after Dr. Simpson’s son Leigh. Some feel Dr. Simpson’s popularity was the reason so many boys in the area were named Leigh. If they had asked me, I would have preferred spelling it Lee, which was less confusing and easier to spell.

In fact, while in sixth grade I decided to change the spelling of my name to Lee. It wasn’t long before the principal invited me