A

FAMILY AFFAIR

Adele Mcparland

FAM I LY
AFFAIR

By
Adele McFarland

Copyright 1976By Adele McFarland

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my husband, Harrold, and

to our six children.

To Harrold, whose vision, faith and persistence, God used to publish news of His laborers around the world. To our six children, who have matured so beautifully to the glory of God, and thus are a part of the solution to this world's problems, and not a part of the problem.
-Adele McFarland, 1976

Copyright 1976 By Adele McFarland

First Edition November 1976

Second Edition (Illustrated) August 1977

PREFACE

From time to time over the years, it has been sugges

ted to me, "You ought to write a book about Mission Ser-

vices from your point of view; how it began and grew and
how it affected the family. " I always rather airily said, "Someday I will. " This seemed to be the right year to do it. Mission Services is 30 years old this year of 1976. It seemed
appropriate to get the beginnings down in black and white

before memory became even more inaccurate and hazy. So, after a New Year's resolution, on January 2, I got out
my typewriter, set up a folding table and began. This is a very personal story. This is because Mission

Services was a very real part of our personal lives! It shaped our marriage and our personal growth. It shaped the lives of our children. It showed up our strengths and our weaknesses. Just as God used us to bring into being
the work and influence of Mission Services, He used Mis-

sion Services to enhance our lives and give meaning to our being alive and wanting to expend our energies within His
will.

In the same manner as wise parents let loose of a child

when that child is ready to take his place in the world,

Harrold felt it was wise to turn Mission Services over to other capable hands while he was still alive to advise or

help as needed or asked. Harrold has always been some

thing of a pioneering spirit; preferring to go on to something

else, after what he has started is doing well and can be
turned over to other able people. That is one reason we are in Place rville, California today.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

PAGE

1 War's End: New Beginning 1946

2 PREACH 1946

1
5

3 First Big House 1947-1949

4 Disappointed, But Not Quitting 1949-1950

13

5 New Baby, New Opportunities, Many Problems

6 7 Consolidation and Growth 1952 Fear vs Faith 1952

19
29 37

Crowded Out: Moved Away 1953

49

9 Raising The Roof; Settling in 1954

6l

10 Weekly HORIZONS; First Grip to California

11 Visiting Missionaries A Blessing

65
71

12 Making Room to Expand; McGilvreys Come 1956

13 Setback; Family Trip; First Wedding 1957

75
87

14 Joy, Sorrow, Reunion 1958

15 From Editor to Truck Driver 1959

97
111
119

16 New Press; Second Wedding; First Grandchild;

Sorrow Renewed

17 "Singing Victory" 1961

129

18 A Hard Decision; A Second Grandchild 1962

19 The Move West 1963
20 The Years March On
Epilogue

141
151
157

ILLUSTRATIONS

Adele McFarland
PREACH MagaT-iiie Big House in Southeast Minneapolis

Opposite I
4 3

McFarlands in front of Willernie, Minnesota house

17

Editorial, Typesetting and Mailing Department

Everybody Helped!

18
43

Mission Manor/Church Women/Ready To Mail!

First Church Men Raised the Roof

52
60

McFarland Family in 1954 Joan Getter and Hindi-style meal

McGilvrey Family joined Mission in 1956

,2 70
74

McFarlands Moved to Oneida Street Property

Mailing the weekly HORIZONS

76
77

Sprenger Family 1958/McFarland Family Reunion 1958 96

Harvey Church Farewell to Macs 1959/Mission Trucks no
Apartment House Bought in I960 Remodeled, Repainted Mission Manor H3 US

Singing Victory!
Adele, Tim and Julie McFarland

j23
2^4

Kelleys, Gibsons, Baseys

Opposite 164

Christensens, Jon McFarlands

Last Page

i -r:

S- ' ...

CHAPTER

WAR'S END: NEW BEGINNING

1946

It didn't seem like a particularly important day. It started out normally; except that there was a man in the house. After ten months of being apart, my husband,
Harrold McFarland, was finally discharged from the

Army Airforce Chaplaincy and was home for good.

I had

left him in Texas before our fourth baby was to be born because he was scheduled to go overseas. Now the war was over and he was home. The children no longer had

to look at a picture to remember what their father looked

like. There was a future ministry ahead of us that I

thought would follow the pattern of the years before he entered the chaplaincy: a located ministry. This day
would change that! I was in the kitchen ironing; Carol, our oldest was in

second grade in school, the baby was napping, the other two girls were outside playing. Harrold was upstairs in the partially finished attic unpacking his books, trying to bring some semblance of a study to the back end of the
attic. The front end of the attic already was closed off into a bedroom that Carol occupied.

I gathered up Carol's freshly ironed clothes to put away in her room, carefully manipulated the narrow attic stairway with arm's full, and paused alongside Harrold as he was bending over a box of books.
"How's it going?" I asked.

He looked up at me from his kneeling position before

the box.
later.

His face had an intense look that registered on

my mind but didn't hit me with it's full-impact until weeks

"I'm going to start a magazine!" he announced.
Amused, I asked, "What kind of a magazine? "

"A magazine to challenge young men to enter the mini

stry I "

I laughed aloud! I don't remember what I said but I do remember I actually laughed in his face! I have never since laughed at anything he has said he would do. I have lived to be ashamed and appalled at that laugh over and over again.
After I had convinced him that I took him seriously, he

began to talk to me about what he was considering for con-

A FAMILY AFFAIR

tent of the magazine, how we would finance it, what he would

call it, who he would ask to write for it. It still seemed

like a preposterous dream that people like us had no busi

ness aspiring to. However, in three short months, he had enrolled in

The University of Minnesota, school of journalism, and creative writing; He had accepted an ad interim minis try with the University Church of Christ that met in the

main building of Minnesota Bible College; and we had

moved from our little house in St. Paul to the church par

sonage in southeast Minneapolis. He had decided on the imperative word. Preach, for the name of the magazine; and I had agreed that we use the money from our war bonds to launch the magazine, believing that by the time that money was gone, the magazine would be self-sup
porting.

This was the spring of 1946. At this time we had been married nine years. We had four children; three girls and one boy. Carol Marie, born in California while we were still in college in 1938; Ann Louise, born in Clinton,
Iowa in 1941; Judith Jo, born in Canton, Illinois when we

ministered in nearby Lewistown in 1943; and Jon Harrold, born in Ft. Snelllng Army Hospital outside St. Paul in
1945.

This was a year of tremendous adjustment for all of

us; the basic and most difficxilt one being that of becom

ing a family again. I was not the same person I had been
when Harrold went into the Army and I wovild not be again. That was something of a surprise to him and not easy to

get used to.

wife.

I had been pretty much a totally submissive

I had made no decisions on my own; never once

went shopping by myself; had no money of my own; had never paid one bill. Now, for the last three years and especially the last ten months, I had made all the day-today decisions; paid all the bills and saved money, did all the shopping, and even kept the car running in Minnesota's
cold winter weather. I found that my judgement was

sound, my abilities adequate, and that if I had to, I was

able to get along alone.

This changed the whole relationship of our marriage and I think the adjustment of this year was more difficult

than the first year of our marriage. But we loved each

other, respected each other, growing and maturing in the

War's End; New Beginning 1946

process. We made it through to a stronger bond than we

had before.

Another thing Harrold had to get used to again was

small children imder foot. He loved his children and had

missed being a part of their lives, but now he had to get

used to nurturing his brood while learning to know me

and preparing for a new phase of his ministry which was still fairly hazy. As for my part, I had to remember that
I was not both father and.mother now, and that all the de cisions did not have to fall on me. After I got used to the

idea, I liked not having to be the last word; I liked having

someone to consult, someone to lean on. I am glad I learned I could stand on my own two feet if I had to, but I think my basic nature is I'd rather not.

However, it is a good thing I learned that I could and that my husband had confidence that I could, or he never
would have been able to do what he found was necessary

to do in the years ahead as Mission Services developed. A clinging, dependent wife I could not be!

A FAMILY AFFAIR

preach
"The preochmg of the

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Publishing ministry begins!

CHAPTER 2

PREACH

1946

We ministered to the University Church of Christ only

16 months and lived in the parsonage just one year, but as I look back on that time, it seems like a lot of things hap
pened. The first thing that happened that summer was a

frightening polio epidemic. The city government ordered that no children be taken into crowds, specifically not to
leave their yards for three weeks. This also included Sun day school and church. Some families with one or two

children had problems keeping their children occupied. We had no problems at all. Our yard was good size. Our
three girls would spread a blanket, each in one corner of

the yard and that would be their house. They had their dolls, dishes, chairs, etc. ; visited each other, played
house, school, and church for hours on end with no bore

dom and very little quarreling. I counted by blessings.

However, polio came very close to us that summer.

A young couple lived next door and they had a little boy just over a year old. I used to hear the mother playing
with him on their screened-in front porch. She would read to him and frequently I would hear her say, "mother
loves you, " One day an ambulance rushed her to the hospital and grandparents came to take care of the little boy. Three days later we learned the mother had died of

bulbar polio,

A week later the yotmg bereaved father

moved out, and in with his parents so his mother could care for the little boy while he worked. We hurt for this

young family and the children prayed for the little boy in
their evening prayers. This incident was to come back and haunt me a few years later.

When the summer session began at the University of Minnesota, we took into our home a young couple and
small baby from Lincoln, Nebraska. He had come to

enter the engineering school at the university on his G. I.

bill. Many young people were coming into Minneapolis for that purpose and apartments or rooms were just not
to be found. We took the young couple in with the idea, of course, that it was only until they found a place of their own. They were a real blessing to us. They were a de lightful couple and we thoroughly enjoyed them, I think

A FAMILY AFFAIR

they profited by being with us and she gained experience

and assurance with her first child. What I remember most was the lines and lines of diapers we put out be tween our two babies every other day. We would go out

into the back yard with our babies and sit in the shade, look at those lines of diapers plus the other clothes and say, "All for the love of a man! " Then we wo\ild hug our
babies to ourselves and voice how happy and thankful and
blessed we were.

When fall came, they had not yet found an apartment,

so we obtained permission to put a small house trailer on

the back of our lot and they moved into it. However, by
the end of the semester, they had decided it was no use to

try to stay in Minneapolis. He transferred to the Univer sity of Nebraska and they moved back to Lincoln. We hated
to see them go and missed them greatly. When Minnesota Bible College opened in the fall, E\anice

Warner became a part of our family. She was a student

from Gering, Nebraska. She became a sister to me. She was not able to go home for holidays or even the sum mer months, so she became a part of all our family acti

vities and my parents, who lived in St. Paiol, accepted her

like another daughter. We helped her by giving her room and board and she helped us in every and any way she
could with the house, the children, and by just being her

self. She stayed with us three years, then married Joe

Veach and moved around the corner from us. She had her

first baby the same year I had my fifth, so we remained very close. (At this writing, we still keep contact with
each other.)

Also with the opening of the fall semester, Harrold launched into the production of Preach Magazine. He
hired one of the students, Beth Jones {later Brooks), as

his secretary. He set up an advisory committee so that he would have input from wise, experienced men to add
to his zeal and technical know-how. They incorporated as Mission To Youth. The first publication was dated October, 1946. Preach Magazine included challenging articles, inspira tional articles, doctrinal articles, short, thought-provoking

articles, quotes, ideas, etc. As time went on, issues be gan to include missionary presentations and challenges, youth activities around the country, pictures; and a year

PREACH 1946

later youth lessons began to appear each month.

Bible

colleges across the country had input to challenge the yoiuig people, regardless of what state they lived in. The maga zine seemed to gain acceptance and subscriptions came

in gradually. We went ahead, confidently believing it was

meeting a need and would be supported and get on it's feet.

Harrold was very busy preaching, going to the university,

and preparing the publications with what all that entailed.

During that school year, we set up a policy of having

every student and professor and family in our home for a meal sometime during the year. Usually that meant Sun

day dinner. We invited them four or six at a time. My

mother once asked, "Don't you people ever eat alone? " We laughed because we didn't if we could help it. We
loved to have young people around. We also felt it was

good for our children, even at that early age, to see that Christian young people have fun and enjoy themselves
without being a part of what the world outside of Christ

thinks is fun. We felt this wovild help shore them up for the time when they would be tempted to join in the world's
idea of fun.

I remember one person in particular we had around that

winter. Her name was Joan McNamara. She was from

California and could not afford to go home for the winter vacation, so she moved in with Eunice and became a part

of our family for the holidays. I remember one night when Eunice, Joan and I were sitting up very late around the dining room table, making shepherds' crooks for the Bible school Christmas play. We were very tired and getting Silly. Our efforts only produced wobbly crooks and we were in hysterics over how they looked. We gave up and went to bed. As I recall, the Christmas program
went very well even if the crooks were limp. Another

thing I remember about Joan; she had a birthday while with us. She turned 20 years old, and she wept because she no longer was a teenager! Joan was (and is) a very special
person and as the years marched forward, God has been

using Joan in a very special way.

CHAPTER 3 FIRST BIG HOUSE 1947-1949

In the spring of 1947, the University church issued a

call to Arthur Poll to become their fulltime minister.

He was to come in the fall, so we began to make prepara tion to move out of the parsonage so the church could re model the kitchen and do the redecorating they wanted to do. We looked for a house to buy with some fear and

trembling because we had very little money to do with.

The Lord was with us, and we found a huge beautiful oldfashioned house in the same southeast Minneapolis area,

just what we wanted and for the downpayment we had. It

had a full basement and full attic,five bedrooms and a

bath on second floor; large living room, dining room, kitchen, front hall, and what today would be called a family room, large with windows all around and adjoin

ing half bath on the first floor.

It had a beautiful winding

staircase that came down into the large front hall and

opened onto the living room. The living room even had a fireplace ! It was everything we could ask for. My mother looked at the house and said, "Oh, Adele,
all those windows!" Yes, there were lots of windows,

but I delighted in them until I had to curtain them.

Eunice and I had a wonderful time deciding how to use the rooms, how to decorate and use as little money

as possible. That house really kept Eunice and I hop ping. It took two days to clean each week, just ordinary weekly cleaning. Our days went like this: three days to wash, two days for ironing, two days for cleaning. A few of those days overlapped because we didn't work on
Sunday a'nd we beiked on Saturday. We moved into the house in late June 1947 after pub lic school was out. By that time we had two children in school. Of course, it took us all summer to get settled

in and straightened around. In the fall we filled tKe rooms

we did not use with students from the Bible college. This was true of the next three school years. The first year

we housed four single girls. The second year we had two married couples, plus Eunice. The third year we had just two single girls. Subsequent events will explain why
only two.

10

A FAMILY AFFAIR

The year we had married couples was interesting.

Wayne and Shirley Armstrong moved in shortly after their wedding. Both were in school full time and not having to keep house was a big help to both of them. Joan (McNamara) and Bernel Getter lived with us the first year of
their marriage, too, while they waited for visas to enter

India for their first term of missionary service. They, too, were both continuing to take college courses as they waited. Living with us saved putting money into the trap pings of temporary housekeeping, and being in the midst of a busy household helped ease the tension of waiting. I did all the cooking and washing for them. They kept their rooms cleaned and did their own ironing. It was a work
able arrangement for all of us.

We continued our policy of trying to have every student in our home sometime during the school year. But the student body was growing so it was getting a little harder to do each year. We kept up the Sunday dinners and also added large gatherings. We invited the students to have

some of their parties in our home and we instigated parties ourselves. Our home was also used for small weddings
and wedding receptions. The staircase made a beautiful

bridal approach. The downstairs was so arranged that we could direct people from the foyer to the living room to the
dining room, through one corner of the kitchen back to the

foyer again. We really had a perfect set up for whatever

we wanted to do in entertaining.

We had a good number of over-night guests in that house,

also, and their comings and goings and length of stays were
varied and covered all three years. In the fall of 1947 Harrold began teaching at Minnesota

Bible College as an assistant to Conley Silsby in the speech department; he also taught visual aids and did some pri
vate tutoring in remedial English to those students who

needed to bring their grammar skills up to college level. He began going out weekends with Gospel Teams of students

from the college. Vacations would bring longer trips with the students. One summer he took the "Six Shirleys" out to California on a tour of singing in the churches, presenting
Minnesota Bible College.

He continued to attend The University of Minnesota work

ing toward a degree, and each month Preach Magazine went

into the mails. The circulation was growing slowly, not as

First Big House 1947-1949

U.

quickly as we hoped for, but we were not discouraged be cause those who were receiving the magazine seemed so pleased with it and its contents. In the spring of 1949, Eunice married Joe Veach and, after a brief time in another apartment, moved into a basement apartment just around the corner from us. So we continued to have a close sister relationship. Also in June of that year, Harrold graduated from the University of Minnesota with a B. A. degree in journalism, with a minor in creative writing. He turned right around and registered for the summer session, intending to go on towards his Master's degree. He was not going to be teach ing at the college in the fall, so he began accepting ad inter im ministries within driving distance of Minneapolis. He accepted dates to speak at youth camps, at Life Work Re cruit Rallies, and as missionary speaker. For a time, he also went out speaking for the Minnesota Temperance As sociation. All of this helped make money to live on, but
it also meant the children and I were alone a lot of weekends

and much of vacation periods. We went with him on week ends as often as practical, but most often the children and I went to University church by ourselves.

CHAPTER 4

DISAPPOINTED, BUT NOT QUITTING

1949-1950

In September of 1949 the last issue of Preach Magazine

went into the mails. To the subscribers it was a surprise,

but to us and the advisory committee, it had been a threat

for over six months. Actually, we published the magazine

several months longer than we should have, going into debt
to do it. Finally, we had to face up to the fact that continu

ing was not good stewardship for the Lord, so reluctantly

publication stopped. Harrold was greatly disappointed and vascillated between

being angry and being desolate. I think I preferred the anger

to the depression. I was at a loss as to know what I could do

to help. I didn't know whether to sympathize and weep with him or to encourage and "buck him up. " I suppose I did a
little of both. One thing I did believe and tell him: while

the magazine was short-lived, the people who received and read it were blessed and it did the job it was designed to do.
Its short life did not keep it from being effective while it

did live. We were too naive to know how much money it actually took to launch and keep a specialized type of maga
zine like Preach going. During the years of publishing Preach, Harrold became

well acquainted with most of the missionaries as they cor responded about contributing articles. There was a grow ing idea about a general missionary magazine that would be
a vehicle for all the missionaries to become known in all

the churches. Up to this time each missionary did his own

publicity to his own supporters on a rather sporadic sched

ule, usually as they had money. Few put out anything regu larly. All the missionaries had difficulty in becoming known beyond the few churches they could personally speak to on
their furloughs. On the churches side, those churches that

tried to be missionary minded had great difficulty in finding material for missionary studies and education except for
what was being printed in The Christian Standard at that
time. ~~

At the close of the war, in 1945, the Christian churches/

churches of Christ had only 90 missionaries at home and

abroad. Now in a few short years,, many young people who

had been G. I. 's in the war zones, and ministers who had

14

A FAMILY AFFAIR

been chaplains, were preparing themselves to go back as

missionaries to the countries where they had served as

soldiers. They were inspiring other young people to do the

same. So there was a growing army of missionary re

cruits finishing their education, raising money and get

ting overseas as fast as they could go. A way of getting

the news to the biggest number of churches, of spread
needed to be found.

ing the enthusiasm and zeal, and of inspiring the people in the pews to support this growing army of the Lord,
Although Harrold was afraid that confidence in him
was lessened because of the death of Preach, he went ahead and cautiously began mimeographing a newspaper

type sheet of missionary news in January of 1950. There

were no long articles; just short newsy notes about what was happening on the mission fields and to the mission
aries. He called it Among Ourselves and just sent it to

the preachers and missionaries, themselves.

It was an instant success ! Missionaries wanted it for

their supporting churches; preachers wanted it for their congregations. We increased the number of pages for
more news, but we continued to mimeograph it. We had an old hand-operated mimeograph in those

days. I can remember going to sleep at night hearing that thing cranking away, and waking up in the morning
to the same sound. The only way I knew Harrold had been to bed was the depression on the pillow next to mine.

He printed both sides of the paper so each one had to be slip-sheeted and time allowed for drying before the other
side was run. It was all done by hand and the older chil

dren helped with the slip-sheeting. All of us helped with the stapling and I got in on the addressing. And it grew
and grew ! !

By October of 1950, it was no longer possible for us.to

continue mimeographing and again we launched out on faith

and began to have it printed by off-set. This method al

lowed us to save some money by Harrold doing all the type

setting and paste ups, preliminary to the actual making of the plates and printing. It also allowed us to brighten up the paper with pictures and different colored inks and dif

ferent sized types. We were excited and thankful to God

for what was happening.

Disappointed, But Not Quitting 1949-1950

Other things were happening, too. Tom Rash, in Kulpahar, India, wrote asking what it would cost for us to print their paper Salute and mail it for them. They had been trying to prepare it, print it, and mail it all the way from India. It was taking so much of their time away from their missionary work and they had no idea how up-to-date their mailing list was. Yet they knew the value of attrac tive, interesting, regularly printed contact with their sup porting churches. Harrold did some figuring and told Tom

we could do it for $5 more than what they were spending at

the time. Tom shot back instructions for us to do it.

Shortly we received copy for printing and a while later, their mailing list. The first month we saved the Kulpahar mission quite a bit more than the $5 of added cost just by bringing their mailing list up-to-date. So many on their
list had moved or died or for some reason were not re

ceiving the paper. So much was being wasted. The U.S. postoffice does not send change of address or return un delivered mail to a foreign address. This was the begin ning of a service to missionaries that grew greatly over the succeeding years and is today the major portion of the service offered missionaries by Mission Services. We heard from another missionary during that time.
This time from Alaska. One of the missionaries wrote

that their old Ford had broken down. It was just a small part that was needed, but it kept the car from running and
was not to be found in Alaska. For three weeks he had not

been able to go out and visit the sick and housebound or do any evangelistic calling. Could we find the part for him? Harrold went looking and discovered the car was so

old that the company was no longer making the part. How ever, Harrold found a man who ran a junk yard, among other things, who wovild make the part. It cost us about

$1. 50 to have the part made, $8 to airmail it to Alaska. So, for around $10 cost, and 10 days from the time we received the request to the time they received the part, the car was back on the road being an instrument for God's
ministry. This began another service we could offer the mission

aries: the purchasing and mailing of things they coxild not get on their fields. We found we could purchase almost
anything asked for at wholesale or below cost and save the

missionary money. We answered some odd requests over

16

A FAMILY AFFAIR

the years. Among them, such things as rat poison. Coleman Lantern slide and filmstrip projectors, a dozen metal

men's collar stays, and a machine for making mud bricks.

This service continued until sometime in the 1960's when

it gradually faded out as wholesale houses proliferated in

the country and it was as easy for forwarding agents to get these things as it was for Mission Services.

A personal thing happened that winter of 1949 that pre cipitated a reevaluation of our condition, although I think
what followed would have happened anyway. I became preg nant with our fifth child; much to my delight, a niggling

financial worry to Harrold, and the utter dismay of my

mother. Jon would be entering kindergarten the next fall, and for me to start all over again was hard for my mother to understand. I could see her point, but I had no doubt in my mind that we would get along just fine in every way. However, we had some decisions to make. The grow

ing opportunities to serve the missionaries and the mission

cause in the churches was taking more and more of Har

rold's time, and money to live on was becoming more of

a concern. We still had a debt from publishing Preach

hanging over our heads, although gifts from people in the

churches was reducing it little by little.

After discussion, thought and prayer, we decided to

sell the big house in Minneapolis and find a smaller place

in some small community outside the Twin City area

where tzixes and general expenses would be less. We

found a house in the community of Willernie outside St. Paul near White Bear Lake. It had only three bedrooms,

but we felt we could manage. It had a full basement which

was good, and a large window-enclosed porch running the

full width of the front of the house. That is where we plan

ned to set up the office. It wasn't heated but a window and

French doors opened onto it from the living and dining rooms, and with them open, there was sufficient heat out there during the winter months. With the sale of the big house and the purchase of the
little house, we cleared enough money to pay off the rest of the debt on Preach and have a little reserve. Harrold

applied for and got a job of driving the school bus for the
local school, which was a consolidated school from kinder

garten through high school. This gave us some regxilar

income we coxild depend on.

Disappointed,

But Not Quitting 1949- 1950

McFarland family in front

of house in Willernie, Minnesota

Front Porch; Editorial, Typesetting and Mailing Department

CHAPTER 5

NEW BABY, NEW OPPORTUNITIES, MANY PROBLEMS

As the summer wore on, and the details and red tape of the sale of one property and purchase of another drag ged on, I began to wonder if we would get moved before school started and the new baby arrived, due the first week in September. Everything worked out just in time, and we were pretty well settled in the little house in Willernie by the time the children had to be in school and Harrold had to begin driving that bus. We had to msike a few changes in how we used the house, though. A young man by the name of Ray Downen had joined us to help Harrold with the publication work. We gave him the downstairs bedroom we had meant for Carol, put up a partition between the dining room and living room and made the dining room into Carol's bedroom. We made the living room into the dining room and put the living room furni ture in one end of the porch. That squeezed the office equipment into the other end of the porch, which wasn't the most convenient arrangement. However, we got every thing in, storing some things in the garage and in the
basement.

Harrold and Ray immediately got down to the work of meeting publication deadlines, keeping up the mailing lists, answering requests, and recording gifts. While still in Minneapolis we had begun a missionary slide library. Missionaries sent us a set of slides with accompanying

script or tape with the story of their work.

We would

duplicate these and rent them out to the churches for mis sionary programs. We started with just two or three sets, but the library grew quickly. Churches eagerly used them and the missionaries soon realized the value of having their work become known in this way. Much support and interest came to missionaries by way of these sets that might never have been generated without them. Today Mission Services has the most extensive library of slides, filmstrips, tapes and scripts in the world. The library is still growing; churches are still gladly using them, and old sets are be ing compiled into historical sets.
The children started school and soon were adjusted and settled into a regular regime. I spent my time un-

20

A FAMILY AFFAIR

packing boxes and trying to get some order out of the usual
chaos of moving, plus trying to put a ten-room family into
a six-room house. I wanted to get everything in its place
and make the house a home before the time came for me

to go to the hospital. So at first I was grateful when due day came and went. Then time began to drag, and instead of being grateful for time to rest up from the rigors of mov ing, I became impatient and restless and terribly tired of having people meet me at the door of the church with, "Are
you still here? "

Finally, early on a Monday morning, September 18, Claudia Margaret made her appearance. She had kept her father in suspense most of the day before, but was con siderate enough to arrive in time to allow him to get a little sleep before getting up and driving the school bus on Monday morning. Claudia was a beautiful, doll-like baby.
She was fair, round and chubby, no hair, with big blue

eyes and a sweet smile.

One of the older women in the

church said when she first saw Claudia, "Now, that is the

way all babies shovild look. "

We had put our membership in the little church in

White Bear Lake, which met in a basement building. Pheraba Hoskins (yes, a woman) was the minister at that time. Our family became quite a boost to the small con gregation as we entered into the full church program. The children added to each department. Since none of our children are or ever were the bashful type, they each

put some new life into their classes.

myself playing the piano rather often.
services.

After the next church

Ray Downen has a

election, Harrold became one of the elders, and I found

beautiful tenor voice and he added much to the music in the

We soon became involved in the congregation's hope

to put a top on the basement and build the church building they had always wanted to build. With Harrold's encour agement and a little of his know-how, they discovered they could borrow money to build. As the winter weather
cleared, the work began. It was the with great joy and thankftilness that the people of the congregation watched

the building take shape.

When the building was finished

and dedicated in June of 1951, several in the congregation were heard to voice the opinion, "We should have built it bigger. " The community was paying attention to the evi-

New Baby. N'ew Opportunities, Many Problems

dence of our growth, and we were reaping some results

from it.

The winter of 1950-51 was a winter of illnesses for

the family. First Ann had a bout with pneumonia. She did not need hospitalization, but there were frequent trips to the doctors as well as a lot of nursing care by me. Then the baby became very ill and the doctor declared she had
an inner ear infection, tonsilitis, and bronchitis. She was

only three months old!

wrong.

I kept wondering what I was doing

Before they were completely well, I became ill and was no good to anyone for three weeks. It started with a sore throat and general symptoms of flu, but I ran such

a very high fever and nothing seemed to bring it down. The doctor could not say definitely what was causing it. The illness was complicated by the fact the doctor had to
come to me and heavy snow falls at that time made that

difficult and time consuming. I fought to maintain my milk supply and nurse the baby, at the same time not wanting to reinfect her with whatever I had. Eventually we all got well, except that Ann, and then Jon, continued to have problems and that resiilted in both of them having their tonsils out in
April.

That was an interesting experience, although I don't think they would agree. The hospital was overcrowded and they were put in beds in the hallway, I sat between their beds after the surgery watching and caring first for one and then the other, Harrold came twice that day to
bring the baby and sit with the older children while I took

the baby down into the nurses lounge and nursed her. Then he took the baby home and I went back to Ann and Jon, Jon recovered quickly from the surgery, but Ann had
some painful congestion in her ears that took a while to clear up. Actually it was summer before I felt the whole

family was really well and on our feet again.

Two months after we had moved to Willernie, we had a

visit from Leah Moshier and Dolly Chitwood, They had with them the first child, Sosun, who had been given to them as they began their work of Kulpahar Kids Home in Kxilpahar,
India. Sosun was about three years, old at this time and it

was the first furlough of Dolly and Leah after beginning

their work at Kvilpahar, They stayed with us several days.

22

A FAMILY AFFAIR

sharing our crowded house, and we had a happy time to

gether.

Their visit happened to coincide with Jon's fifth birth day, so Sosun was a part of his party with some of the neighborhood children. Sosun probably does not remember any of this visit, but Jon still has among his memoirs the birthday card given to him by Sosun, signed with her Hindu
name.

This was not the first visit of missionaries that we en

joyed in our home, of course, but it seemed to set the pat tern that continues still today of missionaries home on furlough visiting Mission Services. While we lived and began the work in Minneapolis, we had visits from the V. Alex Bill family, Frank Rempel,
Mr. and Mrs. Paul Nielsen, Mr. and Mrs. Owen Still,

Mrs. Letha B. Shepherd and Mrs. Selina Hulin, Evelyn Jones, and the Wm. Gates family. There were brief
visits from others, also.

In the summer of 1951 Edna Hunt spent a week with us and the next year during the late summer, Tom and Leota

Rash spent a few days going over their mailing list. They
also attended a missionary rally at Redwood Falls with us.

There was never anything we enjoyed more than having the

missionaries in our home.

I remember others who visited us while we were in Willernie. I remember Dr. Zoena Rothermel scolding

me for feeding the baby a banana without washing the out

side skin first. In India one does not eat anything without

washing it thoroughly first.

I remember Rodney Northrup

with his trick glass and spoon at our table one evening.

The glass with holes so your drink dribbles down your chin,
and the spoon in the sugar that had no bottom so no one could spoon out sugar. We had Ray carlson and family in
one visit, and the Elston Knight family when they were pre

paring to go to the Philippines for the first time, in another visit. Again there were others that paid brief visits. In January, 1951, we launched a pocket size magazine
called Horizons which stated purpose was to "encourage

and stimulate missionary evangelism among free churches of Christ. ' While Among Ourselves was a newspaper of missionary news. Horizons was a feature magazine of
news and stories of missionary evangelism around the world. It also contained complete new youth programs for the chur
ches.

New Baby, Nuw Opportunities, Many Problems

23

Today I can admit that I was not enthusiastic about this new venture. I had little faith that it would be anymore

financially successfxil than Preach was. It was a good,

interesting little magazine, and as I reread some of those

issues, they are still interesting and some of the youth

lessons would be usable yet today. However, I felt that it did not appeal to a large enough market to make it fin ancially. I did not voice these feelings because I also felt that I did not have enough knowledge of the whole situation to voice any opinion. I wanted to be wrong. A mail order bookstore began to develop from our

efforts to help the missionaries by purchasing and mailing for them. We soon were able to supply at a discount to the missionary anything he might need by way of teaching materials; books, Bible school material, flannelgraph, cards, etc. In time, we began to offer to the churches certain items such as religious greeting cards. By fall, we had a fairly good variety to offer. During the early months of 1951, we began to bring in Bible college students from Minnesota Bible College on Saturdays to help in addressing and mailing publica tions. We'd have the house full every Saturday. We also
started a Saturday Bible school for children in the Willernie Village Hall. We had an enrollment of 26 children

from the area and they were led by two women students
from Minnesota Bible College. In the back of our minds,

we thought it might mean the nucleus of a new congrega tion, but it never developed beyond a children's program. Perhaps it would have if we had stayed in Willernie and
persisted in the effort.
that direction.

However, the mission work was

growing so fast, we soon had to expend our efforts all in

In March Ray Downen left to return to his home in

Missouri.

We moved Carol into the downstairs bedroom,

took down the partition between dining room and living

room, and brought the living room furniture into it's pro per room. Thus we were able to stretch the office equip
ment over the whole front sun porch, and give us more
breathing room. However, with Ray gone, Harrold had more work than

he could do by himself.

We began to recruit secretarial

help from the Bible college. We had several good ones.

14

A FAMILY AFFAIK

but their help was intermittent and subject to the college

schedules. One woman came regularly that spring, once a week, and stayed all day. Ina Mae Jackson was tops and what she was able to accomplish in that one day kept

the work up until school was out in the spring.

Ina Mae

was married and had a baby boy about Claudia's age. We

would put the two of them together in the play-pen and they enjoyed one another while Ina Mae and I did our respective
jobs.

That spring two taings happened that brought me directly into the daily work of the mission office. Ina Mae's husband, Bob, graduated from Minnesota Bible College and they moved.
That left us with no secretarial help at all. With school out,
We

we had no help on Saturdays, either. Then Harrold made

the decision to not drive the school bus another year.

had been adding, one by one, other missionary papers to

produce and mail, until the load had become so heavy that
Harrold did not have the time to stop three times a day to drive a school bus. This meant that we had to ask indivi duals and churches to support us in like manner as any
other missionary.

This was a very uncertain time for me. We had never had much money beyond our needs and now we had no sav

ings, nothing, to sustain us while we waited for response to our requests for support. I dreaded the approach of the
first of each month when the bills fell due. Our grocery

bill grew until we were told we could not charge any more. My parents agreed to make our house payments as their
contribution to our work. My father was a Christian busi ness man and as a good business man, he really didn't think
we were on a sound basis at all in our publishing work.

Wisely, he did not criticize but helped and encouraged where he could, and he supported and loved us and prayed for us daily. My parents had always helped by providing the chil
dren with the more expensive clothing, like winter coats,

and giving them as birthday or Christmas gifts. In our early married life, this largess from my parents was hard
for Harrold to accept, but gradually he believed that Dad
and Mother had faith in us and in our ministry for God and

that their giving to us was no reflection on him. Dad used to say he would rather give his money while he was alive
and could see the results of his giving, than wait until after

New Baby, New Opportunities, Many Problems

his death and not know what was done with his money. That is the way it worked out. When nny father died, there was money to sustain Mother, but that is all. So, I took over all the secretarial work, plus the main taining of the mailing lists, the typing of the address plates, the scheduling and mailing of the slide sets, recording of gifts and sending receipts. I did it to keep my mind off of
our financial situation and because there was no one else to

do it. Because of my main occupation as mother and homemaker, I would not get to the day's mail until sifter supper. I would begin after the children were put to bed and continue until I had finished all the operations that whatever was in the mail required, regardless of how late it was. When I began, I was usually through by midnight. As the months

went on, requests, questions, gifts,

mailing lists grew

until I was not getting to bed until three and four in the morn ing. Then 1 would sleep late and Harrold would get up, feed the children breakfast and get them off to school or whatever their activity was. Sunday was the only day that was dif ferent. Harrold was and is an early-to-bed, early-to-rise person. I became a late-to-bed, late-to-rise person, and although the years since have modified our behavior some, we are still essentially like that today. That schedule continued for the next year and a half. Gradually our financial situation got off the critical list and just became serious. Little by little we paid the gro cery bill so we could charge more. The dentist did the needed dental work on the children believing we would even tually get him paid. Once the doctor called the pharmacist and said she would stand good for the money, so we could
get medication for Carol when she had a severe ear infec

tion. Paying on our bills a little each month, somehow we kept people's faith in us and we kept going. Then suddenly it was December and Christmas was coming and not one cent available that did not have to be

applied to an existing bill. I remember watching the days get closer and closer toward December 25 and deliberately closing my mind to the thought I had not done anything to ward gifts, nor could I. Each day I would think, "there is
still time. " December 18, 19 came and went. Then on the

20th, as I was going through the stack of mail, I opened one addressed to us personally from Mrs. Ruth Morse, J. Rus sell's mother. I thought it might be news about J. Russell.

26

A FAMILY AFFAIR

He had been held prisoner in communist China since March of that year 1951. We had heard in August that he was
alive from a fellow prisoner who had been released. Since then, there had been no word. As I began to read Mother Morse's letter, I was praying for good news about J. Rus
sell. Instead I read of concern for us.

She wrote that she had been thinking about us all day

and wondering what in the world we were going to do about

Christmas. So, she was sending us $50 to be used for our

own personal Christmas with her love and blessings and God's blessings on the work we were trying to do for Him.
She made one request. She asked us please not to tell any
one she had done this until after she had gone on to Heaven.

Can you imagine how I felt? This sweet wonderful lady

was in her 80's; she had a beloved son in a communist

prison in China; and she was concerned about us and our

needs! ! ! I sat there and wept, thanking her and thanking
God. I have never felt so humble and I said aloud to God,

"I'll never doubt again, I'll never doubt again!" Then I

took the letter to Harrold and left him alone with his own thoughts.

Again this winter the children had a series of illnesses, although compared to the winter before, I felt we got along pretty well. In the fall Jon had a bout with pneumonia that kept him out of school almost a month. Toward spring he
and Judi both had the measles. Carol had ear infections
Then I had the flu again

and I had the baby, Claudia, to the doctor several times

with ear infections and tonsilitis.

with an after affect of swollen joints.

This scared the doc

It turned out to

tor and she did tests for rheumatic fever. be a freak after aifect of the flu virus.

So when spring weather melted the snow and the trees began to bud, my spirits lifted. In spite of the rather large
doctor bill, I felt life was good and every effort was worth
while.

In December of 1951 we put out the first Missionary

Prayer Calendar. It contained pictures of the missionaries

and their families on their birthdays, names and birthdates of each member of each family. Scripture and prayer sug

gestions for each month, monthly missionary topic, and a complete list of home and foreign missionaries with their
correct addresses.

New Baby, New Opportunities, Many Problems

2.^

Of course, preparation for this had to be done months ahead. Compiling the material, getting the pictures from the missionaries, checking and rechecking for accuracy
took lots of time and effort before the actual typesetting,

paste up, and printing. Then to keep the cost down, we agreed to do all the gathering of the pages into calendars ourselves, which would then go to the binders for the plas tic spiral bindings. We had continued to use the help of the Bible college students on Saturday as we did the year be fore. However, the pages came from the printer after
classes were out for Christmas vacation. If we were to

get the gathering done and to the binders in time to get the calendars mailed out by January, we had to work fast and needed lots of help. So we turned to people in the White Bear church. Three couples agreed to help us and we had a calendar gathering party. We set up the 12 pages plus front and back covers in stacks arotmd the dining room table. Then the eight adults, plus our older children until their bedtime, walked 'round and 'round the table gathering the separate pages into a complete calendar until it was all done. With brief breaks to rest and eat the refreshments prepared, it took us until one or two in the morning to complete. By this time we were all silly, dizzy and having a wonderful time. The next day, of course, they probably never wanted to see us again. This procedure was gone through again the next year when we were preparing the 1953 Missionary Prayer Calendar. The same people helped us so I guess they either had poor memories or were willing to sacrifice
themselves for the cause.

CHAPTER 6

CONSOLIDATION AND GROWTH

1952

In June of 1952 Horizons and Among Ourselves were consolidated into one publication, keeping the features of
both and mailed to both sets of subscribers. In announ

cing it, Harrold wrote, "We find it necessary to withdraw and consolidate our forces so that we may continue. " It proved to be a good move. It was accepted by everyone and circulation grew.
Also in June of 1952 Christian Standard made an an

nouncement that was a big boost to the need for our work and kind of pointed the direction it would take in the next ten years. Burris Butler, then editor of Christian Stan
dard, announced that the Christian Standard would no

longer print missionary study materials. Bro. Butler asked Harrold to write a column of missionary news to be printed each week in the Christian Standard, and said that except for missionary stories of unusual news value, Harrold's column would be the limit of their missionary cover age. They had reached that decision, Bro. Butler said, because the growing missionary picture was more than they could handle news wise since they were primarily a vehicle for news of local congregations in this covintry and their activities. He graciously pointed the churches to us for missionary information, and suggested that Horizons

be the paper for promoting the independent mission story. This meant that we had to begin producing monthly missionary material that local churches used for their
women's study groups and youth groups, and we had to find some way to finance a larger Horizons to accommo date the-increase in missionary news and promotion. A strong appeal went out for more support and more consis tent regular monthly support. The decision was also made at this time to change the
name of the work from Mission to Youth to Mission Serv ices because the latter better described the direction and

goals of the effort as it was developing. This decision was made by the executive committee composed of Russell E. Boatman, G. H. Cachiaras, Conley Silsby, Corwin Geringer, and W. H. Sperry. They also set the guide lines for enlarging Horizons and the other services, plus

30

A FAMILY AFFAIR

the work of preparing the monthly lesson materials. Un der their agreement and direction, we received new impe
tus and enthusiasm for the job that seemed to loom really
huge before us.

I remember driving home late one night during this time*

with sleeping children all around us, Harrold intent on his driving, and thinking about all that was happening and pray ing, "Lord, is this what you want for us? Are we really to take on this job? Can we do it? " I had the same feeling I'd
had at the very beginning; of awe that people like us should
even think about doing something that could be so important

in God's work of getting the Gospel out into all the world. I was learning that God does use "people like us" for His momentous doings. He presents us with the work that needs to be done, puts it in our hands to do, then says, "I'll give
you the ability to do it. " About this time I began to feel I was losing my house;

that we were living in a publishing house rather than a pub lishing work being done in our house. The office equipment
had been creeping, piece by piece, into the living room. In every open place against a wall or under a window v/as a table with a typewriter on it, or a cabinet full of drawers of address plates or a table for sorting and packing, or a
bookcase stacked with an orderly array of missionary slide sets. Boxes, boxes everywhere, in every corner, full of

printing waiting to be addressed and mailed. Our largest printings would be brought in at the back door and dropped on my kitchen floor right at the back door. They were too big and heavy to be moved, so there they sat as we gradu
ally emptied them by addressing the copies and getting them into the proper mail bags, I rarely got that spot on
the kitchen floor scrubbed because by the time we got one

printing in the mail so the boxes could be moved, another printing had come in and was sitting on the very same spot. Cleaning the house got to be a contest of obstacle courses. The only thing that kept me even trying was my strict Noregian upbringing in cleanliness. All I could hope for was
that the boxes in the corners would move from one corner

to another as they came and went during the week, so that

the corners were cleaned at least once or twice a month!

Then I began to lose my furniture. Piece by piece, things that someone would consider in the way, perhaps
fallen over or we had to climb over, were taken out to the

Consolidation and Growth 1952

31

garage and covered with something that hopefully would protect them. In the course of the next year, the only things left in the living-dining area were the piano, daven port, dining table and chairs, sewing machine, buffet with dishes, and a birdcage complete with bird. Everything else was office equipment, and we still stepped or fell over things. That summer of 1952 there was still just Harrold and I trying to keep up with the work. With the college out, we no longer had the college students help on the weekends or the intermittent secretarial help that we still used from time to time, I just did not have time to keep house. So we worked out an agreement with the children to help. Carol was 14 that year and a very capable girl. She much preferred to be busy doing something than spend her vacations doing nothing. So she took over the washing, ironing and house cleaning. I did the cooking with her help and she did the cleaning up afterwards with the help of her
two younger sisters.

Claudia was almost two years old and a toddler who

loved to be outdoors with her brother and sisters. I worked

out a schedule with Ann and Judi to be responsible for Claudia, one in the morning and one after her nap in the
afternoon. The next day they would switch. After a couple of days of that routine, one morning Jon
came to me with a hurt look on his face and asked, "What

about me. Mother, don't you think I can take care of Clau
dia, too? "

I was really surprised. I said, "Of course, Jon, I trust you to look after her, but are you sure you want to? " Now he seemed surprised that I would ask. "Yes,

mother, I really want to take my turn with the girls. " So we made a new schedule and it worked very well. No one felt burdened at any time. Since they dearly loved Claudia, they even enjoyed having her with them and she
was the best cared for toddler around that summer.

During the past year, Harrold had begun to travel for the mission. He coxildn't be gone very long at one time because of the work load. He was still the only one doing the typesetting and paste-ups. However, I began to see the
pattern developing that would escalate in the years ahead.

He was often gone over the weekends to spesdc in churches.

He wotild attend missionary rallies that were beginning to spring up in various areas. He would go to Bible colleges

32

A FAMILY AFFAIR

and hold three or four day seminars in missions. Few of the Bible colleges at that time had mission departments

so they were graduating preachers who had very little knowledge or information about missionary endeavors or
missionaries. In the summer, Harrold was in camps, as

many as could fit into his work schedule. Guess who was left holding the fort? Yes, Me! Some

body had to; besides, how often does one tcdce four children to camp? It shouldn't have been too bad. We lived just a
short distance from White Bear Lake. My parents lived

right on the lake. But taking the children swimming meant leaving my work, so they didn't get to go as often as they
would have liked.

One day when Harrold had already been gone a week and was not going to be back for another week, and the
weather was hot and humid, I was tired and in revolt. I

declared that on Friday we were going to take the whole

day off; we were not going to do one stick of work, not

even cook. We were going to go to the lake, stay as long as we liked, eat whatever was available without cooking; just be sinfully lazy. Carol was horrified! "Mother, " she said, "We have to wash clothes! We'll
have twice as much to do on Saturday to be ready for Sun
day! "

But I was feeling stubborn. So we had our lazy day. I don't think Carol enjoyed it as much as I did. And she was

right. We had twice as much to do on Saturday. Somehow

that one day of revolt satisfied me and the rest of the sum
mer I was content.

In September I got help. Dorothy Adams, a recent graduate of Minnesota Bible College, came on a perma- ^
nent basis to work with us. She moved in with Carol and

shared her tiny bedroom and double bed.

(and are).

I look back on

that now and think what tremendous people those two were

Imagine a woman old enough to be a college

graduate willing to live with a 14-year-old in order to be a part of a missionary endeavor as much in the infant stage
as Mission Services was. How patient and loving Dorothy was! Also imagine a 14-year-old girl willing to give up what little privacy she had to accept an older woman to live with so closely. How magnanimous Carol was. Oh, you

could say Carol had no choice; she had to.

In a sense, per

haps that is true. But she sure could have made life miser-

Consolidation and Growth 1952

33

able for us all if she resented the situation and chose to take

it out on us. They seemed to get along very well, and Dorothy soon was into the routine of the household as well
as the office work. She took a lot of the work off me and

Harrold, both. We loved and appreciated her from the very beginning. Dorothy became familiar with things just in time for me

to be free to accompany Harrold to the Fifth National Mis sionary Convention in Dodge City, Kansas. Dodge City is

Harrold's home town; and although his parents no longer lived there, he still had many friends whom he enjoyed
seeing and talking with again. By this time in 1952 the

missionary convention had separated itself from being an

appendage of the North American Convention and was an entity of it's own. Each year the attendance and interest

had increased, but we were not yet large enough to meet in convention halls or auditoriums. This year of 1952 the convention was held in the old square brick building of
First Christian Church. The church since has built a

larger, more modern building on another location. The convention attenders filled the old building to capacity and
we were big enough to let the town know we were there. The high point of the convention was when J. Russell

Morse spoke.

He had been suddenly, unexpectedly re

leased from communist prison on June 20.

Although he

sometimes spoke slowly, haltingly, groping for words

from his tired brain, his message was powerfvil and

strong, moving profoundly the hearts of the listeners.

He gave all power and glory to God for his deliverence,

and to the power of prayer. He urged everyone to mem orize Scripture; the Bible as a book can be taken away
from us as it was taken from him, but no one can take the
Word of God hidden in our hearts.

The convention was a refreshing, uplifting experience for us, especially for me since I hadn't had much opportun
ity to attend the meetings and rallies Harrold had. We

covildn't go back and forth from St. Paul to Dodge City

directly. That never happened any time that we ever tra

veled to a convention or large meeting. We always stop ped along the way, going and coming, in local congrega tions, speaking and promoting missions every opportunity
we had. So, fellowship in the churches and in the homes

of church families has always been a large part of the joy

34

A FAMILY AFFAIR

and satisfaction and rewards we have found in this work of

promoting missions. We might arrive home tired physically,

but always refreshed spiritually. We arrived home to something of a shock.

The children

all rushed to greet us, and there was Jon with his head all
swathed in bandages looking like an Indian swami. Poor

Dorothy! Both she and my parents were feeling guilty, but

no one can ever account for what a boy, any boy, will do at

any given moment. It seems they had been over to my par ents' for Sunday dinner, which is what we did rather regu larly. My brother and family were there, also. The cousins always had a good time playing together. Well, Jon

and a couple of the others were hanging on grandmother's

clothes line and it broke. The others just fell on the ground,

but Jon happened to be right where he fell back against the edge of the cement housing of the septic tank iron lid. The split in his head required seven stitches when they finally got him to the doctor. It was Sunday, so it took a while before they located our doctor and met her at her office
where she could take care of him. I was concerned about the blow to the head, but when I took him for a check on the

stitches, the doctor said since he had had no symptoms of concussion, we need not worry. She concluded by saying,
"The head is pretty hard. " Jon's accident seemed to start a sequence of accidents, or so it seemed to me at the time. Every time Harrold

would go out of town for speaking engagements and be gone

some time, one of the children would have an accident or become ill. I was always rushing to the doctor with one or the other and having to make decisions by myself about
their care.

Judi tried to see if she could ride down the cement front

steps (at least 12) of the house behind us on her bicycle and
ended up with stitches in her chin.

Jon was jumping in a pile of leaves in the fall not know

ing there was broken glass on the bottom. He cut his big
toe down to the bone and that required quite a lot of repair

ing. How I got him to the doctor that time is a story in

itself. We had a little Crosley as a second car at that time. I had a terrible time shifting it into high on our way to the

doctors, so drove most of the way in second. Whatever was wrong with the car, or whatever I might be doing to the car driving it that way, made no difference to me. 1

Consolidation and Growth

35

had to get that child to the doctor. Going home was even worse; the gears ground, but I got it into a gear where it
would move and so we crept home. When Harrold got home and took the car to a mechanic to see what the problem was,

they found there were broken motor mounts causing the

motor to bind on the drive shaft!

Another time during winter, Judi was jumping in a huge

snow pile, and again there was glass at the bottom where
she landed on her knee. This time I was without a car at

all and my neighbor wasn't home.

That knee should have

had stitches, but I cleaned it and pulled it together as best I could. She has a rather large scar which she will carry
the rest of her life.

Then there were times when I had to ask neighbors to

take me and a child to see the doctor; Carol with a severe

earache and Claudia several times with high fever, earache,

bronchitis. It got so that whenever Harrold came home from a trip, after greeting me, his first words would be,
"Well, what happened this time!"
Oh, I know there were lots of times the children were
sick or had accidents when Harrold was home, but those

don't stick in my memory as much as those times when I had to handle things by myself.

CHAPTER 7

FEAR VERSUS FAITH

1952

Two weeks after we returned from Dodge City, we entered a period of anxiety such as we had never known before. Jon's seventh birthday was coming up on October

21, We were planning on an evening dinner party with several of his neighborhood friends as guests. This was to be on a Monday.
The Friday before, Jon came home from school and

said he was going to get into his pajamas so he could go to bed right after supper. I was immediately alert. This is what he had said the year before when he had come down with pneumonia. I followed him upstairs, helped him un dress, questioned him about how he felt and took his temp erature. He said he was just tired; he didn't hurt anywhere. His temperature was just a little over 100. I relaxed a little, willing to watch and wait. Saturday morning his temperature was 101. He still didn't hurt anywhere. He spent the day in bed; didn't eat much but drank a lot. In the evening his temperature was down to normal and he acted perkier. I dared to give him a bath in the hopes he could go to church in the morning. Sunday morning his temperature was still normal, and outside of looking a little pale, he seemed himself again. We all went to church and Bible school in the morning, and later went over to my parents for Sunday dinner with my brother and his family. The cousins played together and
all seemed as usual. I concluded that Jon had had the com

mon 24-hour flu and was all right again.

Monday Jon went to school and we had the birthday dinner

as planned.

Jon didn't eat much but I put that down to the

excitement, fvin and attention.

Tuesday morning the temperature was back but no higher than 101. I kept him in bed, which was not hard because he didn't feel like being up. He slept a lot. I would go to the
foot of the stairs and listen to his fast, shallow breathing and think how he sounded so much like last year. The thing that fooled me was the relatively low temperature. Toward

evening he began to complain that his neck hurt.

tioned him closely as to where and how it hurt,

I ques
I discover

ed that he did not hurt in the muscles or cords of the neck

38

A FAMILY AFFAIR

where one usually has aches and pains during the flu, but
that it hurt at the base of his skull in the spinal cord itself.

I began to get mental warning signals that flashed brightly. That past summer, the Twin City area had been suffer ing from another dreadful epidemic of polio such as we had
had in 1946. Daily throughout the summer, the radio re

ported the new confirmed cases and the deaths. There were many adults as well as children. Remembering our neigh
bor's death back in 1946, my heart hurt for all the parents
of the sick children and all the children of sick parents.

But, as with so many things, that was happening to other

people; it wouldn't happen to us.

Now in October, the epi

demic was waning and the danger supposedly past.

During the summer, I had taken the time to read every thing I could get my hands on about polio: what the symptoms
to look for were, warnings, words of Sister Kinney, even

suppositions, since very little was really known of the disease

at that time. One little four-year-old boy in the White

Bear congregation had had a 24-hour fever and a week later began to limp with weakened leg muscles. It was diagnosed as polio and he was under treatment. I found out all I could
about what the doctors said about his case from his mother.
I tried to be as informed as I knew how to be.

When Jon told me exactly where his neck hurt, one of

the things I had read leaped into my mind. I decided not to panic and tell anyone my suspicions since no other symp
toms were present to confirm them. I took his temperature and it had not changed. So I decided to wait until morning
and see if anything more developed. To say I spent a restless night would be an understate ment. I prayed a lot, and I suppose, repetitiously: first of all, that my suspicions were completely wrong and that I would know that for sure the next day, or, if I were right, that I would recognize that, too, and we would get him to the doctor and hospital in time to save his life. I don't think I deviated from those two thoughts all night long.

The next morning the temperature was no nigher, the

neck still hurt. I asked him if he could put his chin on his chest. He could not. His speech was slightly slurred. He had difficulty saying some words. I brought him some toast and milk because he said he was hungry. He gagged on the toast and had such problems with swallowing that he gave up and just slowly drank his milk.

Tear vs Faith 1952

1 waited no longer. I went downstairs and straight to the phone. I called our doctor at her home. I didn't even apologize for doing that but abruptly told her:

"Jon has symptoms of bulbar polio. His neck hurts and is stiff. His speech is slurred, he can't swallow soft toast and must sip slowly to drink milk. He has temperature of

101 and has been sick since yesterday morning. " (I would
tell her later about the weekend illness. ) "It certainly sounds like it, Adele, " she answered.
"But

first bring him to me so I can look him over myself before I send him on to the hospital. I hope you are wrong. " I turned from the phone to confront Harrold and Dorothy
staring at me. I can just imagine Dorothy thinking about what in the world she had gotten into, living with us. Harrold said, "It can't be! Surely you are wrong. "
I told him, "I hope so, but I can't take that chance. " I went upstairs, told Jon we were going to the doctor, and helped him into his robe and slippers. I carried him down the stairs because I wanted him as quiet as possible.
Harrold met me at the bottom of the stairs and asked,

"Do you want me to go with you? " I knew that both he and Dorothy were working long hours to meet a printing deadline and I couldn't say positively whether this would be a short trip or how long it would take.
So I said,

"No, that's not necessary. You have all that work to do and I have no idea how long this is going to take or whether
I will be back in an hour. "

So Harrold carried Jon out to the car for me, said goodby and we left. The doctor was waiting for us and exam ined Jon on her living room couch. I watched her carefully make the tests and check the symptoms. Before she turned and looked at me, I already knew the answer. She stepped to the telephone and called the Ramsey County Hospital, told them she was sending in a polio suspect case, who he was and about how long it would be before we arrived. Ramsey County Hospital was the receiving center for all polio patients in that area. She kissed Jon, (she was es pecially fond of him) with tears in her eyes said she-would pray for us, and helped me out to the car with him.
It was about 30 miles from White Bear Lake to the hos

pital. As we drove along, Jon and I talked. I explained where we were going and what he coxild expect in the way

40

A FAMILY AFFAIR

of tests and examinations when we got there. Then we chat ted about other things for a little and fell silent. I am sure

he was trying to understand things in his own mind, and I was praying that I would get him to the hospital before he
had any serious breathing problems. They were waiting for us at the hospital. As the nurse took him from my arms, she said, "I hoped we were all

through with this for this year. " She took him into the ex amining room and I was led away to the office to fill out the
forms that would admit him to the hospital.

After I was through, it was not long before they finished examining Jon and they rolled him out on a gurney into an empty examining room where he and I were to wait for the
results of the tests. The nurse and doctor were high in

their praise of Jon's cooperation and behavior during the necessary tests. The doctor said, "I wish all of our pati
ents were as good as he was. " I smiled at Jon and told him I was proud of him. He was interested in the different things he saw in the room we were in. I answered his questions as best I could.
Then he turned to me and asked, "Mother, ami going to
die? "

It never ceases to amaze me how fast the mind can

suddenly race when confronted with such a crucial question. I could not lie and I must not frighten. I know the Lord
gave me the answer. "No, Jon, I don't think so, " I answered, "remember little Bobbie Vandeventar? He's being treated for polio now and he didn't die. Not everyone who has polio dies,

you know.

In fact, most of them don't.

Wc just hear about

those that do. "

He seemed to accept this and relaxed. Then he asked, "Do I have to stay here in the hospital ? I want to go home,
I don't want to stay here. "

Again, truthfully I could answer, "I want you to come home, too, Jon. I don't want to leave you here, but I don't

know enough to know how to make you well.

They do here.

They know exactly what to do to make you well and that is what is important now, that you get well so you can come
home. "

He nodded and agreed that that really was the important thing. The wait for the results seemed an awfully long time, so I was surprised when my watch pointed out that

Fear vs Faith 1952

41

less than an hour had gone by since we had entered the hos

pital. When the doctor finally came in, he gave me a long searching look, then said, "As you probably already know,
the tests are positive. " I followed the gurney into the elevator, up and over to the wing that was strictly for polio patients, isolated from the rest of the hospital. They wheeled Jon into the room right next to the nurses station where he would remain during the next four or five days of the critical stage of
his illness. The nurse received Jon and while she was

making him comfortable, the doctor met me and took me

into a private room where he wanted as complete a medical and emotional history of Jon that I could give him. In that year, they were still searching desperately for some clue to the cause of polio and how it was contagious. Some of the questions asked seemed totally irrelevant to me, but I knew they were groping for any little thing that might help, so I did my best to give as complete an answer as I could. After the doctor was satisfied with my answers, he

then talked to me about what they did know about polio,

and bulbar polio in particular. He wanted me to know that three out of four bulbar polio patients lived, and most children recovered completely if only the bulbar area was affected. The critical period was the first four or five

days and Jon had those ahead of him. Only time would tell whether the polio would spread to other parts of the body, but they would begin immediately to wrap him in hot towels because there was that real possibility.
He also asked that we not visit Jon while he was in the

hospital.

He said they asked all parents to not visit.

We

could call every day and check on how our child was; we

could send gifts and cards and letters, but they had so many children that if all the parents trooped in every day,
they would interfere with the constant care the children

needed. He promised that if Jon became critical, they would call us in time to arrive at the hospital before death,

if it came to that,

I accepted that promise knowing, of

course, that sometimes circumstances would not always allow such a promise to be kept, I did understand that frantic parents could interfere with the care of the chil

dren, so I promised we wouldn't insist on visiting without

being called.

42

A FAMILY AFFAIR

When I returned to Jon, I found him sitting up in bed

slowly eating ice cream and crackers. The nurse was

sitting beside him and she grinned and said, "The first thing he said to me was, 'I'm hungry!' He's doing pretty
well with the ice cream."

Jon grinned at me and I grinned back. I wasn't sur prised since it was now past three o'clock in the afternoon
and he hadn't had anything to eat since the glass of milk at home. The nurse gave me Jon's pajamas, robe and slippers

in a paper sack and told me to wash them separately or boil

them before adding them to the family wash. She said Jon's
father could come see him in the evening and have him bring Jon's toothbrush and whatever toys he might like, realizing that whatever we brought or sent him would have to stay at

the hospital. He couldn't take them home with him later. I explained to Jon about not visiting him and why; promised
we'd call every day and send him things. Then with the

promise of his daddy coming that evening, an admonition to do everything the doctors and nurses said so he could get well and come home fast, I kissed him and left. As I got into the car to leave, I looked up at the floor of the hospital where I thought approximately Jon was and
then at the paper sack in my hand; my mind refused to con sider what might be ahead. I felt detached from myself; as if I were standing off watching myself do the automatic

things of starting the car and driving off toward home. This feeling came again and again in the days ahead. I stopped at the doctors office on my way home. She
had been in contact with the hospital and the doctor who would care for Jon there. She told me what the count had

been in his spinal fluid and interpreted it for me. She said Jon had a good hard case but not necessarily a fatal case. She mentioned a count nvimber that is usually fatal. She said she would go into the hospital and see Jon three or
four times a week, and I knew that would comfort and en

courage Jon. I was so thankful she would do that. She

didn't have to at all. She said she would report to us each time she did and that comforted me. When I left her I was feeling quite a bit encouraged. It wasn't until I drove into the yard at home that I even

thought about what Harrold and Dorothy must have been thinking all this time without one word from me. I have to
admit I did not once think about calling them. All my thought

Fear vs Faith 19S2

43

and emotional energy was directed at Jon.

ed.

By the time I

arrived home, of course, they knew what must have happen

I explained everything that had been told me and I tried
The other children to reassure them as much as I could.

were subdued especially when I told them the doctor at the hospital said they should stay home from school for one week as a precaution and I was to take their temperature both morning and evening. The doctor had told me that at the slightest rise in temperature, I was immediately to bring that child to the hospital for examination because
the sooner the treatment was started, the more chance of recovery. Evidence up to that time showed that other

children in the same family often came down with the ill ness, too. Some families in the epidemic had lost more than one child. I did not want to frighten the children, but

at the same time I had to take the precautions.

the next week.

So my atti

tude was all important in setting the mood of the home in My next task that day was to call my father and mother

and tell them about Jon.

That was harder than coming

home and facing the family. My mother and I talked some time during every day, so I knew she had called the house and sensed that something was not right. She had (and still

has) a sixth sense about when things are "not right. " The
news of Jon was a shock to both of them and I tried to re

assure them as much as I could. They were both strong Christians and I knew the Lord would sustain them just as
He was sustaining us.

So began the days of waiting.

I jumped each time the

phone rang, afraid it might be the hospital. Each morning

and evening I took each child's temperature with prayer on my lips and my heart in suspension. Every morning I
would call the hospital and ask about Jon. The answer

would come, "He's weak but he's holding his own, no

change. I'll tell him you called. "

Each day we would send him a small package of some little thing he could play with: puzzles, rubber bands,
magnet with a long string of paper clips, balloons. We

tried to think of all kinds of things that might be different.

Friends sent him cards and letters; friends in the church, friends in the neighborhood and school. We saw to it that not a day went by that he didn't receive something in the mail all the time he was in the hospital.

A FAMILY AFFAIR

Also a lot of prayer and love came our way for Jon, for us, for the whole family. It came from near and far, from all over the country, and all over the world, as the news some

how spread to missionaries, friends and loved ones. We literally felt wrapped in it and it was one of two main things that brought us through the experience whole. I also think
it was one of the early experiences that made our children know that children of God are a part of a larger family where everyone cares about each other.

There was a lot of prayer at our house, too.

The girls

took turns praying at the table which was our custom, and they each always prayed for Jon, for the doctors and nurses
who cared for him. I saw other evidence of that also in their

private prayers; Jon was at the forefront of their minds.

Harrold and I each had our own private sessions with the

Lord. I prayed long into the night before I slept.

and not allow him to die.

Because

I was mother and because I couldn't bear to think of losing

him, I fervently prayed that God would help make Jon well
At the same time, I wondered

if I had any right to ask that when so many other children

had not survived the disease and surely their parents had

prayed the same thing. So I just told the Lord all my feelings; asked Him to forgive me if I was praying wrongly,
told Him I was sure He understood and that I trusted Jon in

His hands, then I had to end "not my will but Thine be done. " I have no doubt but that I prayed the same way every night.

I prayed for the girls, too. I thought of each one of them individually and prayed, "Oh, no. Lord, please don't
let that terrible disease touch my beautiful girls, too. " For some reason I never once thought about Harrold or

I getting the disease. We did think of Dorothy. We sug gested she might want to move out for a while, but she
elected to stay figuring she was already exposed. Gradually the week passed. The girls' temperatures stayed normal. Not even a cold^or cough came along to scare us. Then came the morning when I made the call

to the hospital to see how Jon was, and a joyful voice said,
"He is out of intensive care and we have moved him into

the ward with the rest of the recuperating children. He is weak but he has the biggest grin of any child in the ward! " Then she told me Jon never did completely lose his abil

ity to swallow. Even on his worst days, he had been able

to very slowly sip liquid. The polio had not extended to

Fear vs Faith 1952

45

any other area of his body as far as they could tell, but they were going to be alert to any weakness anywhere else. It was mainly now a matter of recuperation. What a day of rejoicing and thankfulness to God! Our relief was enormous; as much physical as emotional. We

had been going through the motions of daily life and work
a little like robots, with our emotions in suspension, but

now a normalcy returned to our days which included re

newed interest in our work. The girls returned to school

and the neighbors stopped avoiding us. The week before Thanksgiving the hospital called on a

Friday and said we could come and get Jon after lunch that very day. I remember I was cleaning the house and was in
the downstairs bathroom when the call came. It was close

to 11 o'clock then.

I remember sitting on the edge of the

bathtub weeping my heart out. It was all over, Jon was well enough to come home! I covild cry for the first time since it all began. Poor Harrold didn't know what to do with me so he left me alone to get it out of my system. As usual,
he was in the middle of meeting a deadline, but we both

dropped everything, changed our clothes and were on our way to the hospital by noon. I don't think we even stopped
to eat lunch.

We had brought clothes for Jon with us, so we had to wait a bit after we arrived at the hospital. In the hall sat

a couple who had just brought in a second child who had

come down with polio. The strain on their faces was so evident. My heart went out to them. All I could do was tell them not to give up hope and God bless.
When Jon came out, he was grinning from ear to ear.

I gathered him in my arms and I never wanted to let him go. Oh, he was so pale and thin. But he was well, and he was coming home. We were given some instructions for
his care then we left. All the nurses and doctors came to

the elevators to tell him good-by.

We had been told he

was quite a favorite. They had even taken pictures of him. Our first stop on the way home was at my mother's so
she could see for herself he was all right and could give

him a hug and kiss. We arrived home and were able to

get Jon settled on the davenport before the girls came home.
His being home was a surprise to them, so there was lots of excitement and questions. Jon still had some difficulty

46

A FAMILY AFFAIR

in speaking and swallowing, but we were assured that that

would gradually disappear completely. Jon's story of his stay in the hospital came out bit by
bit in the weeks ahead, so we didn't learn the whole story

for a long time. He had both good and bad to say. The most of what I got out of his story and what the nurses and
doctors told me, was that Jon's good attitude kept it from being a harmful experience for him and that he was a big help in getting other frightened children to adjust and ac cept treatment. I praise God for the witness of even a
seven-year-old.

Thanksgiving that year was the most meaningful we had

ever experienced for the whole extended family, including all of Harrold's family who all lived in California. The church family gave thanks with us also, and all our friends and loved ones around the world. Jon was deluged with gifts and cards to help him in his convalescence. Mrs. Lois Bare sent him enough multiple vitamin-mineral tab
lets to last him six months.

For the first two weeks he was to be very quiet, spend his days on the couch. He was to take three 20-minute warm baths a day to keep his muscles relaxed. Polio leaves it's victims extremely nervous and we were to avoid upsetting Jon as much as possible. I discovered

that was not an easy thing to accomplish in our house hold. All the activity that went on in our crowded space was not the most restful, but when I suggested Jon go up to his room where it was more quiet, he objected. He had been gone from the family long enough. Claudia was a problem, too. At two-and-a-half, she was too young to understand why Jon was getting all that attention and all those presents. She didn't like it one bit. She did understand that Jon wasn't supposed to leave the couch, so she would run up and grab some toy of his and run away out of his reach, knowing he couldn't follow. Jon would yell and dissolve in tears and I would have to stop and try to soothe Jon and try to get Claudia to understand the situation. Even when I persuaded Jon to share with Claudia what she could play with without hurting it, when
my back was turned, she would take it out of Jon's reach

to tease. There were times when I was almost ready to put Jon back in the hospital so he could get the peace and
quiet which he needed.

Fear vs Faith 1952

In time, as all things do, the situation changed and Jon became more calm and Claudia less jealous, plus Jon was
able to be more active. He didn't return to school until

eifter the new year. It was a difficult time for him. By the time school was out in the spring, he had not regained what
he had lost in those two months out of school. In fact that

was the beginning of five years of struggle for him in school before he finally got caught up to where he was doing grade
level work.

When one child in the family is desperately ill, it has an eiffect on other children in the family in ways we sometimes don't always recognize. So much depends on the nature of each child. In the directness of a young child like Claudia,
it is easy to recognize jealousy and deal with it. But older children often hide or bury their feelings, and if it comes out at all, it comes out in unexpected ways.

Before Jon had become ill, Ann had developed scaly patches on her knees and down the shin bone of her legs. They were itchy and not pretty. I recognized them as a
possible allergy and took her to the doctor. The doctor gave us some salve to use which didn't help, so we went back again and she tried something else. Since Ann was old enough that I did not supervise her bath or dressing, apparently her problem went out of my mind during Jon's illness and all the other things I was coping with at the time. One day after things had calmed down after Jon's return home, I chanced to look at her legs and was appalled at what had developed. The affected areas were thick, heavy, elephant-like skin. I had never seen anything like it. I got her to the doctor as quickly as I could, and the doctor took one look and from her office made an appoint ment for us with a specialist in St. Paul. The specialist examined Ann and said he had never seen that kind of thing in one so young before. He said it would

take X-ray treatments, several of them, to clear it up.

tant for the first treatment. He took me into his office to talk to me. He asked if

He

talked to her privately and then turned her over to his assis

Ann had been going through any problems or upset at school or with the family. He said emotion and stress has a lot to do with allergies, I told him about Jon and what we all had been experiencing in recent weeks. I don't know what Ann had said to him or if she had said anything. This discern-

ing man very gently told me that Ann loved her brother very
much and was as concerned about him as any of us, but that she had felt our neglect of her problem during our concern

for Jon, Since her problem was not as great as Jon's, she felt guilty for feeling neglected. That was a big emotional burden for an 11-year-old. I remember sitting there thinking, "He's right! Ann did not call our attention to
what was happening to her legs; she waited until I noticed
it on my own. "
The doctor reassured Ann that he could cure her and

it would leave no scars.

better.

He sent us both home feeling

The

The next treatment Ann had was a week later. were at home. Then he made the observation,

doctor again took me into his office and asked how things
"You are

a lot more relaxed than you were before. You were ter ribly tense the last time you were here. " I had not been aware of being so tense or of being more relaxed later. However, I accepted his evaluation and it made me feel that we finally had turned the corner
and the road ahead was clearer than it had been before.

EVERYBODY HELPED! Jon, Ann, Judi and

Claudia folding Pentecost Seals to insert in envelopes

CHAPTER 8

CROWDED OUT: MOVED AWAY

1953

Back when Claudia was born, we had tentatively made

a decision that there should be another child. It wasn't

fair to leave Claudia out on the end all by herself. Well,

Claudia was two-and-a-half and it was about that time.

So, it was that January 1953 started out with my becoming

aware that our sixth and last child was on his/her way. Harrold was delighted. My parents were aghast. Dorothy looked as if she wondered about us, but wisely said nothing. Our five children were not sure what to think. Only one
comment do I remember. Jon said very loudly, "If it isn't
a boy, I'm going to leave home!"

Sometime later he came to me privately and said, "I know why God is giving us another baby; so I can have a
brother!"

That scared me worse than his threat to run away be

cause it involved his faith in God. I asked him if he wouldn't

love a little sister just as much. He said he supposed so,

but he was sure it would be a boy so he would have a brother.

He never deterred from that opinion. It really had me con

cerned and I did a lot of praying about it.

About the beginning of the year, we began to print a

separate listing of missionaries and their addresses. Previously we listed them, as names were added or ad

dresses changed, in Horizons. Now we printed A Directory of Missions. This later became the Missionary Prayer List to take away any "official" stamp to the list. Spring of 1953 was the first year we promoted Pente

cost Sunday by printing and sending out Pentecost stamps. Harrold asked Gladys Dudley to design the stamps and they
were sent out on Horizons mailing list. This promoted the birthday of the church and Mission Services. We continued
it for about 10 years.

As winter reluctantly gave way to spring, another deci

sion loomed ahead of us. We had to move out of our crowded

quarters into something that would house the family, more workers, and give lots of room for the development of effici
ent ways to conduct the work. The situation was ridiculous !

Most of the family's furniture was out in the garage and we

still were in each other's way when we had crews of five or

50

A FAMILY AFFAIR

more from the college to help put out the big mailings. For the sake of the work and our sanity, we couldn't put off the
move any longer.

We began to look around White Bear Lake city. We

looked at two or three large older houses that were for

sale, deciding how they could be used, etc. But the more we thought about it and talked about it, the more we began
to feel that we needed to be more centrally located in the

country itself. Minnesota is far enough north that mis

sionaries home on furlough crisscrossing the country had

to make a special trip to visit the churches and college in

Minnesota. A lot of them did, but a big majority, who did

not have supporting churches in Minnesota did not, and we

wanted to be available for visits by as many missionaries

as possible. In addition, most of our purchasing for the

missionaries came from Chicago, It would save time,

effort, and money if we were within driving distance of

Chicago. We didn't want in Chicago proper because of the high living costs, but we felt close by would be good.
So we sent the word out to friends and interested people

that we hoped to move more centrally in the United States,

what our needs were, and what we thought we wanted.
We had friends looking in several areas.

Then, a speaking trip in May took Harrold through

Joliet, Illinois. Bob Graham was the minister of the
church there. He and the leaders of the church had

shown great interest in Mission Services and talked about the possibility of our moving to Joliet. Harrold had
a three-hour layover between trains. Bob Graham met him at the station and armed with suggestions from the oldest real estate agency in town, they went looking at

property. The first place they looked at was the last place they stopped. It was exactly what we had in mind,
in the right area, with plenty of land to expand, large

enough for all our needs, and at the right price. Before
he had to catch his train, Harrold had made arrangements

to buy the house in the name of the Mission. He was to arrive back from that trip, going directly to Minnesota Bible College from the train, where he was

to speak to the student body that evening. I was to meet him at the college and we'd go home together after the meeting. So, it was from the platform in front of the
student body that I first heard where my new home was

Crowded Out; Moved Away 195 3

52

to be.

At the conclusion of presenting the work of Mission

Services, Harrold said, "My wife doesn't know this yet,

but I just arranged to buy a house in Joliet, Illinois and we will probably be moving before school starts in the fall. " Students turned around and grinned at me as I was sit ting near the back. I grinned weakly back at them. I had
never heard of Joliet, Illinois. I had no idea where Joliet,

Illinois was except it was probably near Chicago. After wards one of the students asked how I liked receiving such information in that way. All I could think of to say was, "Well, I guess it is as good a way as any. " The first thing Harrold did was call a meeting of the Mission board. They officially voted to purchase the pro

perty; $1, 000 was paid down and the remaining $14, 000
was to be paid by September 1. The board approved a plan for raising the money including additional funds for redec orating and some remodeling. The request was to be for
gifts and for loaned money at a nominal interest. The total

investment was to be about $18,000.

The property was to

be bought in the name of the Mission. The family had some exciting conferences. Harrold drew floor plans of the ten-room plus house. We all sat around the dining room table deciding how the rooms would

be used, who would be where and what colors to put on the

walls. The interested people in the church at Joliet had agreed they would be willing to paint, paper, clean and

otherwise prepare the house for our coming. We were thrilled and deeply gratefxil to these people who as yet did
not know us, but were willing to give time, effort, and
talent for our benefit because of the work for the Lord we

were trying to accomplish.

met them.

We loved them before we ever

The children did not object to moving to an unfamiliar place. They seemed to be caught up in the excitement of

change, the feeling that it was for the growth of the work,
that anything would be better than the crowded conditions

that were present at the time. It was my parents who had feelings of regret and some doubt. This was natural. They hated to see us move so far away, after being close by for
eight years. Also, my father still had doubts of the finan

cial soundness of our venture.

for the move.

However, they said very

little and both did everything they could to help us prepare

A FAMILY AFFAIR

Church women helping

Bonnie

child is Claudia

HORIZONS bagged ready to go to the

Post Office

Crowded Out: Moved Away 19^3

We added two more people to our permanent staff that spring. Bonnie Newman and Ira McDaniel were graduating from Minnesota Bible College that June, and had decided to join us permanently. Also, Jackie White agreed to

work with us just for the summer. We felt especially blessed at this time to have this additional help. The logistics of moving 500 miles was going to occupy a lot of
our thinking and time, but the printing schedule had to be adhered to regardless of anything else. My parents owned a cottage on White Bear lake that my brother's family and our family shared the use of

each summer. We would use it in July, and they in August or vice versa. This summer of 1953. we arranged
to use it in July. The family and the girls, Jackie White, Bonnie Newman, Dorothy Adams, moved into the cottage. All meals were prepared and eaten there. Ira McDaniel stayed at the house and all the work of the

Mission was done there, plus the washing and drying. Carol again did the washing and ironing and cleaning, with the help of Ann. I did the cooking and Judi and Jon took care of Claudia. I gradually turned over my mission responsibilities to Dorothy and Bonnie, and began to get into the business of packing. When August came and my brother took over the
cottage, Bonnie, Jackie and Ira moved to rooms in the

college dorms, going back and forth each day but eating
all meals with us. The rest of us existed in the chaos

of the house in Willernie. We had the house up for sale, but it was not in good showing condition. We hoped to get enough out of the house to pay back my parents for the money they had put in it and a little something to put into the property in Joliet. As it turned out, we had some money to apply on the new property in Joliet, but not to pay back my folks. They wrote their money off as a
contribution to the work.

In the meantime, the money to purchase the Joliet property was coming in regularly and building up. We were greatly encouraged and going ahead on faith with all preparations for the move. My feeling from the very beginning was that if this move would allow for the growth of the Mission that God was pointing us toward, the money would come in. My prayers were not so much for the money to come in, but that we would be adequate to the work in whatever way or place we were challenged.

54

A FAMILY AFFAIR

As the summer drew to a close, we could see that the

move was going to be made just barely in time to get the

older children in school. That made it only two weeks before the new baby was to be born. It was decided that I, with Claudia, would stay with my parents until the baby
was born, since it did not seem wise to change doctors

and hospitals so late in the game.

they could enter school on time.

The older children would

move with the household goods and Mission personnel, so

The move was made on two weekends. My father loaned us one of the trucks from his business plus it's driver. Since the truck was free only on weekends, we moved then. The truck was not large enough to get everything in on one

trip, so it took two weekends. Guess what went in the first

load! Of course, the office equipment and supplies. The office was the first thing unpacked and set up. Within two

days it was operative.

Everything else was attended to

They were going into new experiences: new school, new friends,
new church, and I felt they would need me as a touch point for security. I knew Harrold woxild be so occupied in setting up the operation of the Mission that unless one of them were ill, he might not be aware of any emotional needs. But I kissed them good-by and put them into the hands of their
father and the Lord. I also knew Bonnie and Dorothy would look out for them as much as they could. For myself,

only as people had time. I hated to see the older children go without me.

I was physically and emotionally exhausted and looked

forward to the few weeks ahead to rest and recoup my
inner resources for the birth.

I recuperated faster than I thought in the quiet of my parents' home and soon time began to drag. I did the sewing I had kept back to do during that time. I tied a quilt top that had been laying in a drawer for years. To add to my boredom, I became more and more uncomfortable in any position: sitting, standing, or lying. The month of September dragged on. Then, just when I thought there would be no baby in September, I had to wake my father at midnight to take me to the hospital, and Timothy Spencer was born at 5:30 a. m. on September 30. The first thing I said when the doctor said it was a boy, was "Good, now Jon won't have to run away. " Then,

Crowded Out; MovotI Away 195 3

of course, I had to explain to the surprised doctor and nurses what that was all about. They had never had a
reaction like that before.

I had sent my father home and back to bed after he had delivered me to the hospital, so 1 had been alone. Now, I asked the nurse if someone would call my parents and tell them the baby was here and all was well. The nurse said I was perfectly capable of calling myself, so she wheeled me to the telphone. My folks didn't answer their phone; I guess they were sleeping pretty soundly. So I called my sister-in-law. She was shocked to hear

my voice and what I had to tell her at 6:30 in the morning. As I was being wheeled out of the delivery suite, the obstetrical nurse offered me a cherry licorice. I happily accepted; so there I was being wheeled to my room chewing on a piece of candy with the doctor and nurse shaking their heads at me as I went, I was too excited to sleep. I felt inordinately proud of myself. For the first time I had had a baby in less than 12 hours and everything had gone without a hitch, and it was a boy! If I had had complete control over the whole thing, it couldn't have gone any better. About nine
o'clock the doctor came in with about four interns in tow.

With all of them standing around my bed gazing at me, he

told them that here was a woman who had just had her

sixth baby without so much as an aspirin. proud of me, too.

I felt a little

like a lab animal, but I grinned at them because I was

With Claudia, I had taken natural child

birth classes, and a refresher course with Tim, so I had

given birth to both of them with none of the usual medication given to women in labor. I highly recommend it; that is,
if everything is normal.

I left the hospital in five days. My brother took me to my parents' home. Claudia was so eager to see her baby
brother and hold him. She hardly let him out of her sight. She was always checking to be sure that he was still in that
basket; that no one had taken him away from us. Tim had been an impatient baby with a loud cry in the hospital, but now at home he was good as gold, sleeping and eating with

very little crying except at bath time. Claudia couldn't understand why he didn't like his bath. She always enjoyed
h'jr bath very much.

56

A FAMILY AFFAIR

The plan was for Harrold to come for us in two weeks, and on the way home to stop at a missionary rally in La Crosse,
Wisconsin. So it was a matter of gaining strength and esta

blishing my breast milk for the baby during those two weeks. I thought I had an idea of what I might be facing when I
arrived in Joliet.

The women of the White Bear church gave me a surprise

going away party. My mother was co-conspirator, of

course, so one evening I dressed up a little at my mother's

suggestion because "your aunt had said something about coming over. " The large group of women who came I had
learned to love very much. I had been president of their

group one year, and had worked closely with all of them during the three years we had been members at White Bear. Pheraba
Hoskins, who had been the minister when we came, had left after we had been there a year, and Lawrence and Eunice
Sunkler had been there since. The Sunklers were music

teachers at the college and were beloved people we had known for years, so our association with them had been most
precious.

It was a lovely evening I will never forget because they showed their love for me in a very simple, direct way. They presented with a thumb-indexed Bible with many teaching

helps.

That Bible is now threadbare and coming apart from

much use; it has had to be replaced and now rests in my bookcase where I still occasionally go to use some of it's helps. Harrold came as planned, and within a day everything was packed into the car and we were on our way. It wasn't easy saying good-by to my parents. We owed them so much and were so grateful for their love and support. Without them there might have been an entirely different story. With a promise to be back for Christmas, we waved good-by and left. With the stop in Wisconsin and another in Illinois, it was three days before we pulled up into the driveway alongside the big house in Joliet. Jon was sitting on the doorstep waiting, but before I wo\ild get out of the car, everyone was out on the porch welcoming us. The girls wanted to get their hands on Tim and Claudia, but I had my arms full of Jon hugging me as hard as he could. It was such a wonderfully complete feeling to be back with everyone together again. Sitting around the supper table and looking at everyone, I was so grateful to God

Crowded Out; Moved Away 1953

for His many wonderous blessings, more than I ever could count. One of the elders' wives brought over a cake for
our dessert as a welcome gesture and that made it even more

warm and loving.

were, was home.

I was with my family and wherever they

The euphoria left, though, the next morning as I looked around the house. Unpacked boxes were stacked everywhere. There was not one curtain to any window. There was sys
tematic order of the offices and work rooms of the Mission,

but everywhere else was utter chaos. In the kitchen, only

those things absolutely necessary for some measure of cooking were in evidence. Everything else was still boxed. I was appalled! I wanted to run away and hide. I didn't

yet have the strength to face what looked like an overpowering

task that needed to be done all at the same time.
everything myself as if I were in perfect health.

In addition,
I don't

I had the feeling that I was expected to jump right in and do mean that anyone said that or even indicated that, but just
that 1 felt that. I am sure that if I had used a more rational approach, as opposed to emotional, I would have realized

that I really couldn't have expected things to be any different.

Another emotion that descended on me like a cloud those

first weeks was totally unexpected.

I was overcome with

loneliness ! It is a feeling I have rarely had and it over

whelmed me. Everyone else had been in Joliet long enough that they felt very much at home. They knew where they were
going all over town; they knew everyone at church; they were
familiar with the shops and prices. Carol made the remark

one evening at the table, shortly after I arrived, "I've only

been here a little over six weeks, but I feel like I've lived

here all my life. " The others agreed to having the same
feelings.

Not me ! ! I felt all alone; I didn't know anyone or anything. I felt alien and out of step with everyone and everything. In a
house full of people, I felt all alone. Then, to add to that feeling, Harrold had a speaking engagement somewhere that

first weekend I was in Joliet, so he wovild be gone.

Now, of

course, I was going to church with the whole bunch and in no

sense was I facing meeting new people alone, but in the state of mind I was in, I felt alone. I look back on that time now

and I don't recognize myself. I don't usually have trouble

meeting new peopleever. I suppose it was the circumstances coupled with my physical condition at the time.

58

A FAMILY AFFAIR

Of course, that mood didn't last.

I plunged into first

getting curtains up at the windows so the house looked

lived in. Then, I put the kitchen in order and progressed
As my strength to the rest of the house room by room.
returned and the house took on some order and liveability,

my spirits rose and life again was an adventure.

Even before I arrived home, work was in progress on the

Missionary Prayer Calendar for 1954. Unless a person has done something like this, it is next to impossible to under
stand how much work is involved in getting all the pictures

and birthdays of all the missionaries and the members of

their families. It took months of gathering information even

before the actual work of putting the calendar together for

printing began. Even with carrying over the information of many of the missionaries from the previous two years, the
number of missionaries was growing so rapidly during those

years, and changing so much, that the task was formidable. Actually, we were only able to continue the calendars two more years. By 1956, the number of missionaries had
become so large that the idea of picturing all the missionaries and their families on their birthdays had become impractical and impossible. We tried to replace it with a Missionary Picture Book, but there wasn't enough response from the missionaries or in orders from people in the churches, so
that the idea had to be scrapped. The work was growing. More missionary papers were

coming in for us to print. Their mailing lists had to be put on address plates and cards made for the master list. More slide programs were being added to the film library. Scripts had to be duplicated as well as the slides. More and more
business was coming in for the bookstore.
an excuse to loaf.

No one ever had I

I was not so directly involved in the work by this time,

helped Bonnie at times to number new slide sets and type scripts. I always helped in getting out the big mailings of Horizons and Salute, In fact, everyone was involved in that including most of the children. When the magazine came from the printers, we would set to work after the regular days' work was done, after supper. We would continue until it was
all done and in the mail sacks ready to be taken to the post office the next morning. Usually it was two or three o'clock in the morning by the time we had finished, and someone would go out to an all night place and bring in pizzas, and

Crowded Out; Moved Away 1933

we would finish the night off with pizza and cokes or milk. We were exhausted and acting silly by then but we had such a good feeling of family and oneness in those days. As there were more and more mailings like that to do, we couldn't continue that kind of schedule and keep our health. So, we began to use the volunteer help of some of the women of the church. On the days of the big mailings, a crew of eight to ten women would come in the morning. Two long tables were set down the length of the living room and one group worked there. Another group worked around the stretched-out dining room table. We had a hand-addressing machine in those days, and the women took turns operating it while the others counted and tied up and put the bundles into

the proper mail bags. The old-fashioned chandelier in the dining room made a good place to string the tying cord over to keep it from tangling, and floors and chairs were piled high with separated magazines. By the day's end, they usually
had the job done,

I started out feeding them lunch on those days. However, they soon decided that feeding them was too much for the Mission to do, so they began bringing pot-luck enough to feed the Mission family as well as themselves. Where could you get a better set-up than that? Women who would come and work all day for no pay and bring food to feed everyone in the bargain! Those women kept that up for many years, and frankly, without them we could not have met
any mailing dates at all.

My main job was homemaking; keeping the everyday func

tions of the home going smoothly so the children had a

reasonably normal home, and the Mission staff had a good atmosphfere in which to work efficiently, I did the cooking and

the laundry for everyone, Carol, Ann, and Judi helped me prepare meals and they cleaned up the dishes eifter supper. They took turns and I had a regular schedule set up and posted so there would be no arguments as to whose turn it was to do what. One girl would help me prepare supper, the other two
would do the dishes; and that changed every day.
one other dish out to the kitchen.

Everyone

would help clear the table by each taking his own dishes and On Saturdays, the place was a beehive of activity. Each
woman staff member and my three older girls and myself were responsible for cleaning our own rooms plus one other room in the house. Each girl was also responsible for her own

ironing. So on Saturdays everyone was cleaning, ironing, doing her own personal laundry, washing hair, etc. The men were responsible for the outside yardwork, etc. I did my cleaning and ironing on other days of the week so I would be
out of their way; also, so I could bake on Saturdays and run errands and take my girls to their piano lessons. They all understood their responsibilities and did their part. It worked very well, but someone who tried to do business with anyone in the house on Saturdays found it most difficult to do. The only problem I remember was one Bonnie had trying to keep people off the floor of the upstairs hallway long enough to let
the wax dry.

We all had a part in the work of the local church. Bonnie, Dorothy and Carol sang in the choir, and Ann Louise and Judi

also joined later as they became high school age. Some of us taught in the Bible School, and others worked with the youth. Shortly after the first of the year, Harrold and I were asked
to co-teach the Kum Dubl class, a rather large adult class

of couples around our own age. "With Harrold traveling for the Mission so much, I ended up teaching exclusively, and this
continued for all the years we lived in Joliet. spiritual growth. It was a

tremendously rich experience for me and the occasion of great

||l- 'Z 5 Pwfl

First Church men raised the roof

of Mission Manor

CHAPTER 9

RAISING THE ROOF; SETTLING IN 1954

The mission staff was trying to work in one large room with spillover into the rest of the house whenever necessary.
Plans had been to clean up and fix up thebasement for the

circulation department but nothing could be done during the winter. There was a lot of talk about doing something to the
attic also. I had been hanging clothes to dry in the attic all that winter; climbing the two flights of stairs with baskets of wet clothes from the kitchen where the washing machine was. With ten people to wash for, including a baby in diapers, I was
getting a lot of exercise.

In the spring, men from the church raised dormers on the

third floor and built us two large rooms with closets and storage
places under the eaves.
tractor.

One of the men was a building con

These men gave their time and before the summer

was out, one of the rooms became the bedroom for Carol

and Ann, each with her own closet, and the other became the

composing room/office of Harrold and his new secretary

and assistant, Ann Dudas.

Ann Dudas graduated from Minnesota Bible College in

June of 1954 and came to Mission Services as a permanent addition to the staff. Margaret Edith Myers came to work
during the summer, and continued to write letters for Harrold using our dictating machines when she returned to Lincoln Bible Institute to finish her schooling. Ira McDaniels had left us during the winter to work with Warren Humphreys in
Rochester, New York.

In addition to building the rooms on the third floor, other men from the church changed the heating system from coal to oil, and rewired the house to accommodate the heavy load of electricity needed for the Mission's equipment. Work was begun on the basement to make it usable for work space. There was an old dry cistern under the kitchen, that, with many hours of hard work by Jim Maddux and Chuck Woodhouse, was finally broken down and outfitted to house the first printing press, and paper storage, and folding machine.
The first room, at the bottom of the basement stairs, was

made livable and in time housed the circulation department with its addressing machine, tying machine, cabinets of

A FAMILY AFFAIR

McFarland Family in 1954

Judi Carol Ann Adele Harrold Tim Claudia Jon

RaisinR the Roof; Settling In 1954

addressing stencils, and desks. Several years later, the old furnace room was paneled and held two printing presses and the folding machine. But that all took years to bring about and even then was only a stepping stone to larger quarters. That year of 1954 the Mission still farmed out it's printing and we were feeling our way as to equipment. The Christian service camp that served the churches of that area was Lake Region Christian Assembly, just over the state line at Cedar Lake, Indiana. That spring, the Mission was invited to have a Christian bookstore on the camp grounds for all the weeks of the whole summer camping program.
It seemed like a good idea to us, so it was decided that Carol,

our eldest, who was then going into her junior year in high school, would be the manager and would spend her whole summer at the camp. Arrangements were made for her to work in the dining room of the camp for her board and room, so the cost to the Mission was nothing. The decision was made to pay her a set salary a week rather than a percentage of the sales, because we had no idea how successful something like this would be since it was a first for both us and the camp. It was such a big success that the bookstore became a

regular part of the camp setup.

Carol managed the bookstore ^

each year up to the summer after her first year in college.

After she married, Ann took over. When Ann entered college, and then also was married, Jon took over the store.

Jon spent his summers managing the bookstore, but his work

for the camp was mowing the lawns and serving as lifeguard.
When it came Jon's turn to leave, Rachel McGilvrey took over the job, and the McGilvrey family carried on from there until the practice stopped. I thank God for this opportunity the children had. It was an excellent training ground for all of them. They had the chance to be a part of all the camp programs throughout the
summer. They learned to work for someone else besides

their father.

They had to responsibly handle money, keeping

accurate records, answering for every penny passing through their hands. They had to learn to deal with people both older and younger than themselves courteously and with Christian sweetness. I could not have asked for a better way to help them in the maturing process. This also gave them their own money to save or spend as they chose, and we pretty well left

that up to them with just a slight touch of supervision.

If they

made mistakes, we felt fhey would learn faster from them than

64

A FAMILY AFFAIR

if we told them how they should spend the money they had made themselves. I guess they learned well, because as

adults, responsible for themselves and a family, they are all

using their money wisely. The summer of 1954 saw family and staff scattered.

The

work went on, with staff members alternating vacations, and

Harrold being gone a good deal of the time in camps, DVBS's, meetings, weekends, etc. Carol was gone all summer at
Cedar Lake, and I took the rest of the children, and visited

my parents in Minnesota during the month of July. When September came and school opened, we were all back
from our wanderings, and settling into a comfortable routine

again. I especially remember one early evening during that

time. I was upstairs in our bedroom rocking Tim to sleep. The quiet sounds of the house, as activities wound down for the day, were around me. Claudia and Jon were each getting ready for bed in their slow meandering way. Judi
was either reading or doing homework with one eye on Claudia's progress. Radios were playing softly in the rooms

of Dorothy, Bonnie and Ann Dudas, and I could hear the

murmur of their voices. Carol and Ann Louise were talking

and giggling up on the third floor in their new room, supposedly doing homework, and across the hall the electric typewriter was going furiously as Harrold was setting type for some
publication.

Such a feeling of peace and contentment like I had never felt before descended on me and filled my very being. All of my family (including the Mission family) were back again under one roof, safe and well, busy and happy. My world was complete. I covildn't ask for anything more. My heart swelled with thanksgiving and praise to God for being so good to me. I rocked Tim much longer than necessary just savoring the feeling, clinging to it and receiving from it as long as I could. Then I gently laid Tim in his crib and went to read to Claudia and Jon before tucking them in and making the rounds of goodnight to the others. I never again quite captured that same overwhelming feeling, though there were other similar times. I think that time was special and God-given.

CHAPTER 10

WEEKLY HORIZONS; FIRST TRIP TO CALIFORNIA

As the year drew to a close, although we were having financial problems, the decision was made to begin the weekly publication of Horizons. The reason was NEED! The Christian Standard was no longer printing any missionary news or promotion, including the column "World Wide Evangelism" that Harrold had been writing for them. There was no other vehicle for getting the news of missions before the people like Horizons. Plus the fact that there were more and more missionaries entering the ranks every year. We felt that if we met the need, the money would come. So 1955 began with printing and mailing a four-page Horizons two weeks of the month, and an eight-page issue, including missionary and youth lesson materials the other two weeks. The goal was to publish eight pages every week. We offered a special price for new subscriptions, and that brought a large encouraging response. We felt that the weekly publication was assured, although the eight-page goal
was still in the future.

In August 1955, Horizons announced that the youth lessons, The Christian Youth Hour, edited by Ralph McLean, would

become separate from Horizons by the end of the year. The youth lessons would be printed and distributed by Ralph in an entirely separate service to the churches. Ralph's work had grown enough to warrant this, and, of course, there would now be more space in Horizons for the growing news of missions. To make the change-over as smooth as possible for everyone
concerned, the lesson matei'ial would continue until the end

of the year, Ralph would continue to contribute to Horizons news about youth groups around the world.
The National Missionary Convention was to be held in

San Jose, California in 1955 and Harrold had been assigned a place on the program. Harrold's parents, Herbert and Blanche McFarland, lived just outside of San Jose in

Campbell, and it had been more than ten years since any of our family had seen or visited them. Harrold's brother, Donald also lived nearby with his family. We talked it over and decided
that we should take the time and money and make the trip.

We really had meant that the whole family would go, but as
we talked it over in family conference, the two ordfer girls

6b

A FAMILY AFFAIR

decided that they could not be gone from school for the three to four weeks the trip would take driving. The time of the convention was September 20-23 so that meant those
in school would miss the first whole month of the new school

year. Carol was entering her senior year and Ann was starting her freshman year, and neither of them felt that they could afford to miss those first crucial weeks. We felt that the decision was their's to make and respected it. Judi was in junior high and didn't care what problems being gone might create; she wanted to go with us. Her teachers agreed that it would be good for her. I was dubious about Jon missing school, especially those first weeks, because he was still having real problems in keeping up with his work. However, his teacher felt that it would be wise for him to go with us, that traveling was educational, too, and that she would help him catch up when he got back. So, we made plans for the six of us to make the trip. We bought a new 14-foot travel trailer. It had a
double bed in one end and the table and seats at the other

end folded down into a three-quarter bed. Over the double bed, Harrold built a hammock sturdy enough to hold both Jon and Tim sleeping head to toe. The three-quarter bed slept Judi and Claudia head to toe. This way we could travel without suitcases, sleep without imposing on friends along the way or without paying moiiey out for motel space for six, and eat without the expense of restaurant food for six three times a day. Of course, we could not make a trip of that distance (or

any distance for that matter) without taking the ^portunity

to present Mission Services and the cause of missions to whatever churches would have us along the way. So, my well-organized husband wrote all the churches along our route and arranged an itinerary that would give us very little leisure time along the way. He also put together a program of slides, music and narration depicting the growth of direct-support missions up to that time, the challenge of what yet needed to be done, and the support needed to do it.

My job was to get the family ready for the trip and stock the
trailer for any contingency. Most of that trip is pretty vague in my mind as to the places we visited or the people we met. I do remember visiting the Bob Lillies in Colorado, some of the glorious scenery in Utah, and the divine smell of the pine trees at

Weekly HORIZONS; First Trip to California

Lake Tahoe.

One experience I do remember was before we

It was after we left Salt Lake City and

reached Lake Tahoe.

were on our way to Ely, Nevada. It was late afternoon when we passed the last place where we could get gas, and ahead
of us stretched a road of nothing to Ely. The car alone could have made it, but pulling the trailer we weren't sure we could make it on the one full tank of gas we had. We did not carry extra gas cans because it was dangerous, and anyway

we had no thought of ever having to need them. We had no choice but to go on, and hope that when we ran out, there
would be someone come along to help, although we were
afraid that it would be two or three o'clock in the morning.

I remember riding along, with the children asleep in the back seat, watching the gas gauge in the light of the dash board slowly sink toward empty. Then I would look out at the blackness of the night where no light but the stars shone

anywhere. The later it got, the fewer cars passed us on the

road, until finally, I got the feeling that we were the only moving object in the whole world.
It was about two o'clock in the morning. The gas gauge

read empty! One of us (I don't remember which) tried to make a joke about "now we would know just how much gas was left in the tank after the gauge read empty. " I figured that it wouldn't be long before we knew the answer to that question. We started up a long rise to the top of a hill, height unknown in the blackness, and I began to pray that we could make it to the top, at least, knowing how much

more gas it takes to pull up hill, and what problems we might

have if we ran out of gas this side of the top. It was a steep

grade, and the closer we got to the top, the slower the car pulled. All of a sudden I realized that I was holding my
breath and that I needed to breathe.

We pulled up over the top, and. Praise God! He had more than answered my prayer. Below us in the distance we could

see the lights of Ely! Just as we started down the grade, the last of the gas ran out, and we began to coast. With the added weight of the trailer pushing us, we coasted right down into that town, and right into the only station open in that part of
town. I couldn't believe it! Harrold and I laughed with relief, and the older children awoke to ask what waS gding

on.

Why is it that we are so surprised when God answers

our prayers?

68

A FAMILY AFFAIR

Arriving on the West Coast, we parked the trailer in the drive-way of the folk's home and moved into the house for the days of our visit. Harrold's parents had not yet seen Claudia or Tim, so they were delighted with the company of the grandchildren. Besides attending the convention, we
found time to visit other relatives and friends whom we

had not seen for many years.

The convention, itself, was

a great time of fellowship, listening, learning, promoting and returning each night exhausted. The evening Harrold spoke, his parents and the children attended so everyone
had a taste of what the convention was like. Harrold's

birthday was on the 24th so we celebrated that with his

parents before reloading the trailer and pointing the car

toward the Midwest.

On the way back, we took the opportunity of showing the

children the Grand Canyon, probably because we had a speaking date in that direction. The price of gas was so very high around the Grand Canyon area that Harrold decided we

had enough gas to get to Flagsteiff when we left the Canyon

area at the close of the day. We 1111, we didn't! This time

we ran out of gas with nothing to do but get as far off the road as we could and wait for help. It was around ten o'clock at night, about the time we hoped to get to Flagstaff, when Harrold did manage to
catch a ride into town for gas. I locked all the car doors and stayed with the children, car and trailer. The children

were asleep and covered in the back seat,

I huddled in my

sweater and tried to keep warm in the front seat. The car grew colder and colder as we sat waiting, and every time

a car would whiz past on the highway, our car would rock in
the wind of its wake. By the time Harrold returned with

gas, and drove into the city of Flagstaff, it was well past midnight. Wa didn't try to bother anyone, but located the
church building, pulled up next to it and found a door
unlocked. We used the rest rooms and electric connection

and bedded down in our trailer. The next morning we left a thank you note in the building and went on our way. Tim's birthday was September 30, and he was two years old. The other children would not let the day go by without some kind of celebration so we bought a pretty little birthday Ccike, put candles on it, and during the day stopped at a picnic park and celebrated Tim's second birthday! candles,
cake, presents, the whole bit.
but the rest of us do.

He doesn't remember it,

Weekly HORIZONS; First Trip to California

69

Ws were a weary bunch when we arrived back in Joliet! We were so glad to be home, but at the same time, glad
that we had made the trip. Judi and Jon were soon settled back in school, neither one suffering much from being gone. It took me just a few days of washing clothes

and cleaning the trailer to get caught up that way, but it

took me a little bit longer to get caught up with things at
the Mission.

The trailer was the beginning of a fleet of four trailers bought by Mission Services and offered to missionaries on furlough. There were two other small ones the size of the first one, and a larger 27-foot one that would accommodate a larger family for travel. They proved to be a help for easier, less expensive travel for missionaries with children as they crisscrossed the country presenting their work in
the churches, at conventions and rallies. Mission Services

maintained the trailers and kept them insured. missionaries rented them by the month.

The

CHAPTER 11

VISITING MISSIONARIES A BLESSING

One of the greatest blessings and joys we had through

the years was the visits from the missionaries, I can't begin to name them all. I have mentioned a few of those who visited us in Minnesota. Now, in Illinois, we had them on a pretty regular basis and welcomed each one with open arms. Their presence at our table and in our home

blessed us over and over, more than any of them really

know. We feel that their influence on our children is as

much responsible for the stability of our children's faith

as anything we ever did or said.

Through the growing-up

years of all six of our children, missionaries sat at our

table and talked of their work: the accomplishments, the hopes and plans, the hardships and disappointments, the

joys and satisfactions, and even the excitement and funny

things that happened. Above all else, every missionary conveyed such faith and trust in God, praise to God and joy in the Lord's service, that it was impossible to ignore the positive knowledge that there is no goal in life more wonderful

than complete service to God in winning souls to Christ. The children learned by listening that missionary work is
not all glamour or excitement nor is it all sacrifice and

rough going. I think they received a very realistic picture of what is involved in leaving familiar, comfortable surroundings and going to strange lands and strange
customs and trying to adjust to different and difficult
situations.

In the late fall of 1954, Joan Getter stayed with us while she kept several speaking dates in our area. One day she
decided she was going to cook a real Indian meal for all
of us at Mission Services. We furnished her with the ingredients she needed and turned the kitchen over to her.

When it came close to the time to serve the meal, she had us clear the dining room and put newspapers on the floor to act as an eating area. It was to be large enough for all
of us to sit around on the floor.

Joan dressed Carol and Ann and herself in true saris for

the occasion.

The food was served in large bowls, and we

all sat down on the floor to the best of our individual abilities.

72

A FAMILY AFFAIR

Not a utensil for our use was in sight. We each one dipped out of the bowls with our fingers, and ate with our fingers.
Joan had seen to it that we had all washed our hands

thoroughly. Some of us had a hard time getting anything to

eat. We all made a mess, except Joan.

The younger children had a hilarious time, and all of us thought everyone else was as funny as we were, Tim, who was only about 14 months old, toddled around among us
and acted as if he thought we had all lost our minds. Most
of the time I ate with one hand, with the other one holding

Tim back from walking on the "table. " It was an interesting

fun experience for all of us, but it also made us more acutely
aware of the cultural shock one would face in going to India
as a missionary.

In the late spring of 1955, I became ill with what we

considered the flu. After a week of being in bed, I seemed

to be getting better; then suddenly my temperature shot way up

and it became necessary for me to have the doctor and to

get medication to halt the onset of bronchial pnexmionia. It was during this time that we were expecting a several days'
visit from Frank and Marie Rempel, on furlough from

Kulpahar, India. I had thought I would be up and around by the time they arrived. I knew that the house was probably
a mess, I knew that the Mission staff had been able to do

only the minimum in keeping food on the table during the day. My girls cooked at night and did the washing after they came
home from school, cleaning. I knew no one had thought to do any

At the height of my fever, Frank and Marie arrived, I was feeling so miserable that I scarcely knew what was going on. My eyes hurt and burned so that I rarely attempted to open them. At that point, I really didn't care what was
going on downstairs.

After a time, through my feverish haze, I became aware that the vacuvun cleaner was running industriously, first in one room and then another. Then I began to smell good,

savory odors coming up from the kitchen. When one of my girls came up to replenish my liquid supply, I asked what
was going on. I was told, "Oh, Marie Rempel is busy

cleaning and cooking supper, and seems to be having a good

time doing it. " She was, too. Later on Marie, herself, came to my door to inquire if there was anything I wanted to eat that she could get me.

CHAPTER 12

MAKING ROOM TO EXPAND; McGILVREYS COME 1956

In March of 1956, Harrold came home from a trip to some

of the southern states to report that a new family was coming to join Mission Services on a permanent basis. The man was William McGilvrey, minister of the High Point, North Carolina
Christian Church. Around Christmas time in 1954, he had

contracted polio which left him paralyzed from the waist

down.

After being released from the hospital, he tried to

In a few months. Bill decided

return to his pulpit ministry.

that he could be better used in a different sort of ministry,

and it would be fairer to the church.

Tennessee, jtold Harrold about Bill during this recent trip,

and they visited Bill. The result of that visit and the talks
that followed was the definite decision that Bill McGilvrey

Joseph Dampier, then ministering at Johnson City,

woxald resign his ministry in High Point effective the end of

June, and that the family wovild prepare to move to Joliet in July, The McGilvrey family had five children from ages one year to 16 years so moving would take much preparation, particularly since they had been in High Point almost 10 years.
We at Mission Services were thrilled and excited with what

the possibilities of another family added to our Mission family meant for the expansion of the work. No thought was given at all as to whether we would get along with this new family. There was no doubt that we would all get along working to gether to publish the Good News of the spread of the Gospel
around the world.

We immediately began to think of what needed to be done.

Because Joliet does have some pretty severe winters, and

because Bill would have difficulty in getting around in said bad weather, we felt that the McGilvrey family should live in the building where the work was carried on. That meant that the McFarlands had to find another place to live, I remember thinking at the time that it was really too bad to have to have them get used to living amidst that confusion with the work and the workers. We were used to living in all that hubbub. I hated to have them inherit it, so to speak. But that seemed the best in the overall picture. We hadn't anymore than decided that the McFarlands were going to have to find a place in which to move, when Judi came

A FAMILY AFFAIR

McFarlands moved to

Oneida Street Property

Making Room to Exoand: McGilvrevs Come 1956

A FAMILY AFFAIR

home from school and reported from a girl friend of her's, who lived right behind us in a house facing the other street, that they were selling their house and moving to another part of town. It would be the perfect place for us. The back yards ran together and we would have access straight through
the block. Harrold immediately went over to talk to the owner, but he had already put it up for sale with a realtor. However,

he had an agreement that if it were not sold in a month, he

could take it from them. He told Harrold that he would wait

the month out, and then sell the house to us directly, saving

us and himself some money. That gave us time to raise the down payment, but there was also always the chance that the
owner would get such a good offer that he would sell it anyway, in spite of his oral statement to us.
I was thrilled with the house. It had four rooms downstairs,

four bedrooms and bath on the second floor, and a fully-floored attic with windows where we could easily finish off a room for Jon. It also had a full basement, warm and dry with lots of possibilities for use by the Mission, I could see the house from the kitchen window over the sink in the big house. I used to stand at the sink washing dishes or preparing food, look at that house and pray that nothing would go wrong to prevent our getting it. It seemed so perfectly right. Yet, I tried not to think too much about it, to kind of keep my feelings in limbo, so that I would not be too badly disappointed if something did happen to spoil it. Nothing did! The month passed. The agreement with the owner was made. When the time came, we had the money for the down payment. The sale went through and by the end of
April, the house belonged to Mission Services,

We moved in the early part of May, Since the move was so short, we did it piece-meal with help from lots of our friends and a borrowed truck. When Carol graduated from high school the middle of June, I still hadn't gotten my good
dishes over to the new house, so when we tried to have a nice

reception after the graduation ceremony I had to go trotting through the ravine to bring the needed dishes to our house, I was somewhat surprised at the reactions of the children
the first few weeks we were in the new house, Carol and Ann

would come home from high school, look around the house, and say, "Oh, it's so nice to come home to a quiet, orderly house, " The little ones woxold ask, "Can we ask our friends over now,
mother?"

Making Room to Expand; McGilvrevs Come I9S6

79

I don't remember that they ever complained about the situation that they had grown accustomed to for ten years. I

was not aware that they felt like maybe they should not bring
their friends over very often, but now that it was just our

family in a house "like normal families, " they felt the

difference and I actually saw them relax.

When Carol graduated, Harrold's mother flew from Cali

fornia for the occasion and my parents drove down from Minnesota, It was a first graduation for a grandchild on both sides and they were pleased to share in the celebration.

My parents returned the next day, but Harrold's mother

stayed for two weeks. She enjoyed working with the crew
of church women who were still coming each week to put

out Horizons, Now that the big house was fairly free of furniture, it was easier to spread out in the downstair's rooms. Moving around in the process of getting the

mailing's out was not so much of an obstacle course as it

had been before.

It was not to remain that way long.

There was much work

to be done to get the big house ready for the coming of the McGilvrey family. Because Bill's activities needed to be all
on one floor, some remodeling had to be done to the first

floor. The living room was already partially divided by oldfashioned sliding doors which we had left always open. We made that a permanent wall and built a closet all along that
side. The front room became the main front office of the Mission and the back room became the bedroom for Claudia
and BiU.

The pantry, which was good size, was torn out to the
bare walls and made into a first floor bathroom. There was

a disadvantage here because the pantry was between the kitchen and dining room, which meant that now anyone going from
kitchen to dining room, or vice versa, had to go through a
corner of the bathroom. Anyone using the bathroom,

temporarily cut off access to the kitchen and/or dining

room, whichever room you happened to be caught in. There
were two recourses, however; one could go outdoors and

around, or one could go up the back stairs which went to the

second floor from the kitchen, along the hallway, and down the front stairs. There was a problem there, though, also, because the back stairs led up to the back bedroom and that
could be both inconvenient and embarrassing.

80

A FAMILY AFFAIR

However, this downstairs bathroom was a big blessing in

spite of the problems involved because, believe it or not, up

to that time we had had only one bathroom for all that big house and all those people. The only thing that saved us
was that the bathtub was all by itself in a separate room,

so that anyone taking a bath didn't usurp the whole facility.

Looking back, I still wonder how we got along. The remodeling and plumbing and other major work

was done by volunteers from the church family; otherwise

we would have had a hard time paying for it.
staff could handle.

All the other

redecorating and rejuvenating were things the rest of the

The last two weeks in June and the first two weeks in

July were spent painting rooms, cleaning, waxing, doing everything we could to make the place as pleasant and inviting and livable as possible. We didn't want the McGilvreys to wish they could turn around and leave after they saw where they were going to live. The change and adjustment to a new
ministry was going to be difficult enough. Everyone worked at it. All the girls of the staff helped

after they had completed their day's work for the Mission.
Since I had the most time, I was able to do the biggest

majority of the painting. I got a great deal of satisfaction from seeing clean, fresh walls and ceilings emerge from under my paint roller and brush. I remember being mildly surprised that I was not more tired at the end of a day.
The McGilvreys planned to visit friends and relatives on their drive north, so their furniture would be arriving before

them.

They sent us detailed instructions as to where they

The day the truck arrived was a big

wanted what furniture.

day for all of us. We did no work in the office and everyone pitched in to get things in the right places. We only made
one mistake, as I remember it. We got the wrong sofa in the

upstairs living room. They had two sofas, one a hide-a-bed.

One was to go in the dining room and one upstairs.
them mixed.

We got

The upstairs living room didn't last very long. Before another year we got the basement room at the foot of the stairs fixed up enough that we could move the circulation department down there, so that left room for the McGilvreys to have a living room on the first floor. That was so much
better for them and for visitors and friends, and gave their life a little more normalcy to it. We also cotild more,

comfortably have staff meetings there.

Making Room to Expand; McCilvreys Come 1956

We had two summer workers that year; Joyce Madison and Myma Sue Dever. Joyce was a teacher at Mountain Mission School, Grundy, Virginia, and Sue was a student at

Milligan College, Tennessee.

We enjoyed both girls very

much that summer and were very thankful for the work which they accomplished. The day the McGilvrey family arrived, we were all there

to greet them.
the children.

I think they were a little overwhelmed, especially

At first everyone had to eat at our house because

their new stove had not been hooked up yet. Before long Bill was busy at his work and Claudia was getting her house in order.

Her biggest problem at first, she told me, was learning to cook
enough food for everyone. It took her a few days to adjust to
how much food all those people ate.

Carol had been at Cedar Lake again that summer running the bookstore, but in the middle of August Ann took over for
the rest of the camping season so that Carol could home and get ready for college. She was enrolled in Lincoln Bible Institute (now Lincoln Christian College) and orientation for

freshmen began the last weekend in August, just before

Labor Day.

I remember very well my feelings that day when I drove Carol to Lincoln from Joliet, and helped move her into her dormitory room, finally kissed her good-by and left her.

Such mixed feelings that I would have over and over again in the years ahead as we watched each child progress from one step of development to another. We were so proud of each
one to see them handling the maturing process so well, yet

there was a sadness that they were growing up and away from
us so fast. Where had the years gone? As each one went off

to college, I would spend that night sleepless, going back over the years, remembering each little thing about that child from his birth, relishing each memory and praying to God for them
and their future.

Each child was and is such a blessing to us and so precious.

I never could pick out a favorite. When I would hear about

other parents having favorites among their children, I would

think about mine, of course. Then I'd think, "Nope, impossible,

each one is so precious and personable in his own way; they

are all my favorites. "

In addition, I had other feelings that day with Carol that

I think are associated only with the first child leaving home.
They were feelings about myself. I thought, "How can I be

82

A FAMILY AFFAIR

old enough to have a child going to college ! " I didn't feel

that old. I didn't think I looked that old. Then I had a

happy thought. "I'm really not that old! Why, I have a child just starting first grade this year and one that won't go to kindergarten for two years yet! I won't be old for a long time, " Then I felt better. I went home, and in less
than two weeks put Claudia in first grade. Joliet didn't have a kindergarten at that time, but did when it came time
for Tim to go.

All of our children worked their way through college.

We

were only able to pay an increased "allowance" which amounted to only pin money for them. They all had worked through their

high school years and had money saved for the first semester's
tuition and room and board. They knew that they had to find work in order to continue in college, and they all did. They

knew they could count on lots of moral support from home but very little financial support. There were additional times of help, of course, but nothing they could depend on
for tuition or board and room.

In other ways the children prepared for college during their high school days. The girls all made their own clothing, and in that last year before college, would make or purchase clothes with an eye toward college ahead, so
their choices were not faddish or cheap. They were looking

for long wear. With their example, the boys did the same except that they purchased their clothes,
Harrold and I planned for the children to go to college even though we knew we couldn't finance it. Of course, each child had the choice of not going if he or she chose not to, but
we planned anyway. Through the high school years in our

gift-giving at birthdays or Christmas, we gave pieces of luggage to take with them so that when it came time for college each one had a complete set. For graduation from high school, each was given a portable typewriter for obvious
reasons. We had one exception, Tim received a scholarship at attend computer school after he graduated from high school. He lived at home during that time, so his expenses were only his clothes. Instead of a typewriter, Tim asked for a ten-speed bike so he would have transportation while he was
saving to buy a car.

The missionary convention that year of 1956 was to be held in Joplin, Missouri, I had been asked to speak on a panel of missionary wives. It was decided that this year the

Making Room to Expand; McGilvreys Come 1956

McGilvreys and I would attend, while the others carried on

the work. Bill and Claudia took their two preschoolers,

Martha and Mary, and I took Tim with me.

We stopped in

Iowa to visit Bill's sister and leave Martha and Mary with

her. I had expected to keep Tim with me, even though it meant some problems at the convention. I didn't think
Bill's sister would want a third little one and I didn't think

Tim would consent to stay.

He had just the week before

been put into glasses (he was just three) and I thought that
adjustment was enough for him to cope with, I was wrong. Bill's sister and family lived on a farm. As soon as Tim saw the animals and the wide open spaces and how Martha and Mary were so happy to stay there, he wanted to stay, too.

He happily waved good-by to me as we drove out the yard

headed for Joplin.

In Joplin, the McGilvreys were housed in a private home, and I was one of several who stayed in the home of Don Earl Boatman, president of Ozark Bible College. Don
Earl and Gail were old frieiids from Minnesota days so I

thoroughly enjoyed spending time with them again. The convention was satisfying and filling. Meeting and

talking with old friends and meeting people,, who up to then had only been names, is the thrilling pax't of all conventions and this time in Joplin was no exception. The panel of missionary wives was well-received and I felt that we had
made a contribution to the success of the convention as a
whole.

Going home, we reached Bill's sister's home by the weekend, so we stayed over Sunday and visited Bill's home church for worship and Bible school. After dinner
we drove on home to Joliet, arriving late enough that I

carried a dead-weight Tim upstairs and dumped him into bed without undressing him. The next morning we were all
back to work in our accustomed places.

I was grateful for that trip with Bill and Claudia. It gave me a chance to really get acquainted with them, and to
achieve a close brother-and-sister feeling with them that I

might not have reached for a long time in the business of day-to-day living. Mission Services at that time, with all of us living so close together, was a family feeling. We belonged
to each other and to the Lord, and the work of publishing glad

tidings was the main goal of each one of us. We didn't ignore personal needs or make unreasonable demands, but we were

84

A FAMILY AFFAIR

all there for a reason and the main thrust of our energies
was the work of Mission Services.

We lost Bonnie Newman as a regular member of our staff that fall. She met and fell in love with a local boy, Archie Bloemker, and they were married on October 28. Harrold conducted the ceremony, Ann Oudas was one of the bridesmaids and Tim was the ring bearer. We hated to lose her at the Mission but were so pleased to see her so happy. She continued to work as one of the volunteer crew
that mailed Horizons each week.

I went back to work as a regular member of the staff in September. 1 took over Bonnie's work of managing the Slide Library and answering requests for other material for teaching missions in the local congregation. That work took on much larger proportions as we approached 1957. With the increasing number of missionaries and new work starting,
it had become more and more difficvdt to cover the news

of their work in what we felt was an adequate way in Horizons and also print monthly missionary study material. After a lot of discussion and planning, it was decided to tcike the missionary study and devotional material out of Horizons and put it into packet form. The plan was for each pnissionary to have his or her own packet giving information of their work, themselves, their plans and their needs. Each packet would also have a suggested meeting plan and a devotional. The missionary would furnish the material for the packets and it woiild be printed free to the missionary, but

the packets would sell for 50^ each.

This way space in the

magazine woiild be made for more current news of the mission aries and the people in the churches would be freer to plan their own programs. Also, the packets would be more versatile in missionary education of youth and children. To implement the plan, it was necessary to write to all the missionaries, explain the plan and ask for the material. We hoped that enough missionaries woxild answer quickly so that we could have a list of at least 10 packets to offer the users before the beginning of 1957. Lessons in Horizons would
continue until the end of the year.

All the preparation for this and the handling and preparing of the material for printing became my work. We developed
a department called the Committee On Missionary Education, shortened to C. O. M. E. Department, which was to handle all educational materials; both the development and the sale, with

Making Room to Expand; McGilvreys Come 1956

85

the exception of Horizons.

assistant.

In time, I had a regular

When we launched the new study material plan, we had

only five packets to offer, but others were in preparation and

promised. We were disappointed and I am sure the smallness

of what was available was partially responsible for some of the criticism we received. Some people liked the idea and accepted the freedom of planning their own meetings quickly. Others did not like the change at all, and told us so in no
uncertain terms. They also objected to paying extra for the meeting material. What they wanted, they said, was all the missionary news and study and devotional material in one magazine and only once or twice a month because every week was too much to read; and they thought the cost would be less. This left us very frustrated because it was obvious that people who felt that way were not aware of the fast growing number of missionaries we were trying to tell about, nor

were they knowledgeable about the cost of printing. We realized that we couldn't please everyone, so we set about to do the very best job we knew how to do with what money
and talent we had.

For several years we had been printing small booklets called The Missionary Program Guide. These were designed for the individual members of women's groups to carry in their purses. The booklets contained the dates of meeting, hostesses, areas of study and devotional Scriptures. For 1957, we left blank the area of study and devotional Scripture. This caused some comment, too, until everyone became aware of the change and adjusted to it. As the list of available packets grew and they began to be used, people liked them more and more and could see how useful they were in other departments of the church as well. There was another change that fall, and a disappointment. For months we had been working on a Missionary Picture Book. In a way it was to replace the Missionary Prayer Calendar which was no longer feasible since there were now just too many missionaries to picture on their birth dates,
or even around each month's calendar. The book was to be

a real nice, hard-bound volume that every family or church library would be proud to add to their library. It wfis to contain recent pictures of families or individuals and informa tion about each. We hoped to receive enough money on prepublication orders to finance the first printing and interest in
the book seemed to indicate that that would be true. However,

86

A FAMILY AFFAIR

the money did not come in, and the response by the mission
aries was not as complete as we had hoped. After making a

good effort, advertising, etc. , we finally and sadly gave up the idea. The money that did come in was reftinded, and the
material the missionaries sent in was printed from time to

time in Horizons.

We never fully gave up on the idea and

took it out and looked at it from time to time, but not until

1975 did the Mission finally get a Missionary Picture Book published.

CHAPTER 13

SETBACK; FAMILY TRIP; FIRST WEDDING 1957

I always enjoyed the fairy tales that ended, "and they

lived happily ever after. " Or the stories that tell of some

one's great struggle to get something going or to be

financially successful in some endeavor, and when the

struggle is over and everything is going along smoothly, the story ends with the impression that everything went on
more and more successfully forever and ever. Well, it doesn't work that way in real life, it seems. It is a constant struggle to keep on being successfvil. In the spring of 1957, Mission Services suffered a

setback in publishing Horizons that we fought hard to prevent. Yet, when it happened, and we settled for printing
in the manner that we could afford, it turned out to be a blessing.

Up to that time. Mission Services had been sending out

the actual printing of Horizons to a commercial firm because we did not have a press large enough to handle it. We had

only a small press on which we did most of the printing for

missionaries, for packets, etc. , Admittedly we had been trying to compete with denominational publications. We had

been trying to put out as nice and attractive a publication as one would see anywhere. However, we had been going further and further in debt each month. In 1956, we tried
an all-out drive for subscriptions to Horizons rather than than asking churches and individuals to underwrite the magazine to such a great extent. For whatever reason one might want to name, the effort failed, and we had come to

the point where we had to admit it, and change our

expectations.

So, in the May 18, 1957 issue, the editor announced that that would be the last issue of Horizons in that form. From

then on we would be printing it on our own press, and it's

appearance would be greatly simplified. That would continue

\mtil we were financially able to do better. We cut out all

special departments, editorials, letters and most pictures. Horizons became a news sheet of short, easily read items of
current news of missionaries and mission endeavors around
the world.

88

A FAMILY AFFAIR

We got some interesting reactions. Some wrote that they were sorry to see the nice big magazine have to stop.

One person wrote in irritation that we reminded him of "off again, on again, flinigan, flanagan" and stated he
wished we'd make up our minds and stay there. But the

greatest reaction we received was delight in a paper small enough to be read quickly in one sitting as soon as it was
received and with news that was current. We began to

receive money from individuals and groups to help pay off

the debt, and eventually were able to do just that.

In July it was decided to suspend publishing of Horizons until September, so from Jxily 27 until September 7, there
were no issues at all.
more quickly.

This enabled us to pay off the debt

When we resumed publication in September, we did so

under a new policy.

Horizons was no longer a subscription

but was sent to anyone who contributed to Mission Services. It had been decided by the executive committee that Horizons was not a money-making venture, but an educational
service to the church as a whole. Churches who gave

regularly as much as $30 a month could put their entire membership on the mailing list. Our goal was, and it's
the goal of Mission Services today, to put Horizons into every Christian home in the United States. People who
wanted a friend or relative to receive Horizons could send

at least $1 per name and have them put on the mailing list.
The decision also was made to publish the newssheet every

Saturday ONLY if fvinds were on hand to do so. We would no longer go in debt to publish. On that basis we went ahead.
Most of the time we printed it every week, sometimes we missed, but we kept to that decision not to go into debt. There were other changes, too, in this year of 1957; this

time in personnel.

At the beginning of the year, Dorothy

Adams left after being with us since 1952. Betty Enabnit joined us and took over the work which Bonnie Newman Bloemker had been doing in circulation. She also worked as

bookkeeper for a while. Then in July, Walter and Ardis Leeper from nearby Tinley Park joined us on a part-time
basis. Walter ran the press, and Ardis worked in type

setting and editorial departments. In December of 1957, Ann Dudas resigned to accept the job of church secretary of
North Tacoma Christian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Shortly after that, in early 1958, Charles and Margaret

Stitback; l-'amily Trip; First Wedding 1957

89

Sprenger and children joined the work. They bought a house and blessedly settled down as a permanent part of our staff. Charles very capably took over the running of the
printing department. Margaret became bookkeeper, and she and Claudia McGilvrey began to manage and expand the

book store. Claudia later became the official manager of the store as both their responsibilities grew.
On November 12, 1957, Mission Services was re-incor-

porated in the state of Illinois as a non-profit organization. We had previously been incorporated in Minnesota, the date of that being February 1, 1949. Each year in the month of July, I took the younger, non-working children and visited my parents in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. It was the only rest or change I ever got. We never took vacations as other people took vacations. Harrold was usually off most of the summer in camps or D. V.B.S. 's across the country. His comings and goings seemed to afford him enough variety of activity that he never seemed to need to get away from everything for a while. I was the one who needed complete freedom from the pressure and responsibility of meeting deadlines for a time. So, this time each summer with my parents was a real recharging of my batteries both physically and emotionally. I got a lot of reading and lying in the sun done. But, I also took projects along. I always did some knitting and often took my sewing
machine with me and sewed for the children for the' next

school year.

It was all in a very relaxed atmosphere, with

no pressure that I had to do anything.

This summer of 1957, while in Minnesota, I received a

letter from Carol who was back working at Cedar Lcike. Enclosed in her letter was another letter written by Chuck
Kelley, Carol and Chuck had met at Cedar Lake when they were both sophomores in high school. They had been going together ever since, mostly by letter during the winter months and seeing each other infrequently even in the summer because they both worked. Now for a year they had been together every day at college. The letter enclosed in Carol's

letter was his declaration of love for Carol and a request that her father and I give permission for them to be married. As
usual, Harrold was off somewhere so the letter was sent to me.

I can't say that it was unexpected, but my first thought was, "Oh, they are both so young!" We had no objection to Chuck; we loved him as a son. We knew his parents and his sisters.

90

A FAMILY AFFAIR

No, the objection and unexpectedness was due to the fact that they wanted to be married that October already! I began to read Carol's letter and found that she had anticipated every one of my objections and answered them
all. She knew me very well. She knew that I would suggest

that they wait until the following June to be married. She pointed out that it was very unlikely we would have any more money for a wedding the next June than we would have
that fall in October. She was right about that! She also asked what difference eight months would make as far as

their age was concerned. She knew I was thinking that they
would have one more year of college under their belts by the next June. She said they believed the school years would

go more smoothly, the studying easier, if they were

married.

Who was I to say they were wrong? They were both more mature than most young people their age; they had both been working and spending their own money (and saving) for three years; they knew the value of money and were not kidding
themselves as to how much it takes to live.
were directed toward service to God.

They were sure

of their feelings about each other; their goals and future

I knew that they would respect our wishes if we insisted that they wait until June, but I also felt that it would hurt our relationship. We had such a good relationship with both
Carol and Chuck, I could not see hurting it. The question was, "Did we have confidence and trust in them and in their

judgment?" The answer was, "Yes. " So, I went back to

Joliet to plan an October wedding.
I said that we didn't take vacations as other families take vacations. That was true, but several times over the

years we have gone on long trips that Harrold called vaca tions. This year was to be one of those times, which was one of the things that complicated an October wedding. The year
before Harrold had attended missions' week at Wi-Ne-Ma

Camp in Oregon. He was so impressed and thrilled with it

that he determined to bring the family the next year. Along
with that was the realization that we would have very few

years left to do things like that as a family.

Now, with

Carol's wedding so close, that was brought out more clearly. Harrold wrote and put together with music a missionary

pageant called "Pattern For Peace. " It was evangelistic,

patriotic, and missionary challenging. Each member of the

Setback; Family Trip; First Wedding 1957

9_1

family dressed in a costume to represent a different country. The narration portion of the pageant was taped with organ
background provided by the organist of the Joliet church, and

included accompaniment for the congregational singing and background for the slide presenta'tion. Slides and pictures told the story, and at the times in the program when Carol,
or Ann or Judi would sing, I would accompany them.

The 27-foot trailer was not in use that summer by a

missionary family, so we prepared it for our use. It had a

double bed in a back bedroom, and a couch in the living room that made down into a double bed. We put the two oldest girls, Carol and Ann, on the sofa-bed and bought inflatable mattresses for Judi and Claudia to sleep on, on
the floor. Wi had a two-person pup tent for Jon and Tim to

sleep in. We stocked the refrigerator and filled the cupboards so we could eat out of the trailer when we were not being fed
by a church.

The way out to the West Coast took us through the

northern states of Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana and

Idaho, and a corner of Washington. At first I was very

uneasy about pulling that big thing behind us. Not that I

didn't trust Harrold's ability to handle it, but my imaginative mind could conjure up all possible accidents. As the days
passed with no problems, I became more comfortable, and
my fears subsided.

Big as that trailer looked following behind our car, it

became very small when we all tried to go to bed at night or had to eat inside because of bad weather. Crazy things were bound to happen. Somehow, Judi's mattress sprung a leak so tiny that we could never find it to fix it. Each night
Judi went to bed on a soft, fairly comfortable bed, but woke
up each morning lying on the hard floor.

Each morning I would get up second (Harrold was always first) and begin to quietly (?) put together some kind of
breakfast, stepping over and around Claudia and Judi still

either to get warm or to get something to eat. Almost every

morning, Ann would sit up in bed, survey the general

asleep on the floor. Soon the boys would come tumbling in,

disarray, and proclaim, "This is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous ! !" Very often she would get a sharp retort from one of the others, who also woke up not feeling very happy, but usually there was someone who saw the funny side of it
all and start laughing. That would lighten or override the

92

A FAMILY AFFAIR

grumbling and somehow each day we would get things straightened up, put away, and we would pile in the car
and be on our way again.

We were just two days away from our destination Wi-Ne-Ma Camp, when it happened. It had all the possibil ities of being a tragedy, except for the watch-care of God.
We had been traveling all day and into the evening and now

it was getting late. There was a city ahead where we planned to spend the night. The towns were few and far between, and
there wasn't much traffic on the road. Harrold had fought

stiff winds during the day, but now it seemed to be dying down. The road was not good at all; there were bumps and holes and hilly terrain and very little shoulder. Afterwards, we could
not decide whether it was the wind or the road.

Suddenly, the trailer began to sway alarmingly, and then we were swinging in a circle, helplessly propelled by our tail. Carol and Ann were sitting in the front seat with their
father. Judi, Jon and I were in the back with Claudia

asleep across our laps.

back window.

Tim was asleep on the shelf of the

No one

I was terribly proud of our children that night.

screamed; there was not a sound as Harrold fought to keep the vehicles on the road. When we stopped moving finally, the car was facing the opposite direction and the trailer was across the road completely blocking it from either direction.
The second that motion ended, the older children were out

of the car. Carol ran one direction to stop any oncoming traffic,
and Ann ran the other direction. Judi went with one of them,

I don't remember which. Jon stayed with the two little ones in the car. I made a beeline for the other flashlight we kept inside the trailer. Stumbling in the dark over everything that had fallen out of the cupboards, I found the flashlight still hanging

miraculously on it's hook and dashed outside with it to the girl who was trying to stop traffic without any light.
Harrold examined the hitch and chain connectors to the

car closely in the light of his flashlight and couldn't see any breaks. So, he cautiously began to maneuver the car
and trailer. When both were back on the same side of the

road, and headed in the right direction, we all piled back into the car, and we were on our way again.

Needless to say, we stopped at the first trailer park we came to, to collect ourselves and get some rest. The inside of the trailer was the biggest mess you ever saw ! Food and

Setback; Family Trip; First Wedding 1957

93

clothing minyled in the middle of the floor. Only what was in the refrigerator didn't get dumped. It took us some time to get everything picked up, cleaned up and sorted out. By the time we were able to go to bed, everyone was physically and emotionally exhausted. We didn't put up the tent for the boys; they slept in the car. The next morning Harrold examined the hitch more closely in daylight. Except for being twisted out of line, there seemed to be no weakness or break, so it was straightened, and after breakfast we were on our way again. Our stay at Wi-Ne-Ma for missions' week was a welcome rest and a time of joyous fellowship with old and new friends.

We all participated in the activities of the week, and put on our program one evening. The only problem w'e had was keeping the tent up over Jon and Tim. The sandy soil was too lose to hold the tent stakes and the tent kept collapsing around the boys as they slept. Our trip back to Illinois was enjoyable with the churches we visited and uneventful as far as our equipment was
concerned. We arrived back home safe and sound. I was one

grateful mother: grateful to God for His care and grateful to Harrold and the children for their attitude and cooperation. For the Mission, the trip had not been designed to be a
money-raising trip, but for educational purposes, but

offerings did pay expenses and a little more. For the family,
we had seen country not seen before and made other memories

(what kind only the children could say) for a lifetime. We arrived home in time to get Carol back to college and give us a little time to get the other children ready for another school year. After they were all settled into,their routines,

and I had caught up on my work at the Mission and gotten back into my groove, I turned my attention toward plans for the
wedding.

Before we had left on the trip, we had bought Carol's

wedding dress, but we had decided I would make the brides maid's dresses, and Carol's veil. On one of the weekends

that Carol came home from college, we bought the material and patterns and decided on the shape of the veil, headdress,
etc. What remained for me was to do the work. Ann and

Judi were to be the bridesmaids, so they were available for fittings as I progressed. I decided to get the dresses finished and everything else done as early as was possible. I don't

like leaving things to the last minute, whatever I am doing,

94

A FAMILY AFFAIR

it was a good thing 1 had done so this time, as it proved. Asian flu was sweeping the country that fall, and Joliet was no exception. Everyone in the family came down with

it, including Harrold, some more ill thanothers. I had breezed through, taking care of everyone, doing my work, and making final wedding plans. I really didn't think it
would touch me; somehow I figured I was moving too fast for it to catch me. . I was too cock-sure, I guess.

Wouldn't you know; the Simday before the wedding on Friday, I began to run a temperature while at church Sunday night. By Monday morning my fever was 104, and I
was out of touch with the world. Harrold's mother came in

from California on Monday, and took over the household. Jon's birthday was the Zlst and Mother Blanche had to make

his birthday ceike. They celebrated that evening with me upstairs not caring whether "school kept or not. " By Wednesday my temperature had come down almost
to normal, but I was weak as water. I did manage to make

some last-minute phone calls from my bed; one to the

florist to be sure all was understood as to the flowers which

had been ordered previously, the other to the bakery about the delivery of the cake. Fortunately, I had turned the whole reception over to the ladies of the church and I did not have to worry about one detail in that connection. Thursday noon I got up and dressed. Carol was due in
from Lincoln, and my folks were due in from Minnesota.
did not want either of them to know I had been ill. But the minute Carol walked in the door and took one look at me,

she said, "Mother, you've been sick, haven't you? " So I guess 1 was fooling myself that 1 looked normal. The wedding went off without a hitch. Harrold performed the ceremony, apd also gave the bride away. It was lovely without being so elaborate that it detracted from the beauty of the bride and groom. The church was filled with friends and loved ones. The reception was full of joy and love. The bridal couple took the time to open all the gifts in front of the whole company and a great time was had by all.
Carol and Chuck went off for a weekend honey-moon, and

were back in Lincoln getting settled in their mobile home on the campus by the time classes opened on Tuesday. The rest of us recuperated over the weekend and on Monday things were pretty much back on schedule.

Setback; Family Trip; First Wedding 1957

95

The missionary convention had been in Minneapolis,

Minnesota in 1957. The McGilvreys attended from Mission

Services. Since we had been gone in August, we stayed home and held the fort. The rest of the year of 1957 was spent in the usual schedtile of work and preparing specific
study materials for 1958.

H
^

ft
V

CHAPTER

14

JOY, SORROW, REUNION 1958

About this time, the men of Mission Services were given the opportunity to use their training and abilities outside the

offices of the Mission.

In the spring of 1957, a group of

O '

Christians, who lived in the suburban town of La Grange,

between Joliet and Chicago, approached Bill McGilvrey about

helping them start a Christian church in their town. Bill,

who had been missing the preaching ministry, was happy to be able to help with the organizing and leading of such a venture. The first service began on May 5, 1957. By May
of 1958, the congregation was ready to call a fulltime minister, with the help of the Chicago District Evangelistic
Association, and May 11, 1958 was the first service with
their new minister.

Bill rested through the summer, then in September, he

began to work with a group in Ottawa, Illinois, and helped

to establish a new congregation there.

In the city of Harvey, Illinois (also between Chicago and

Joliet), there was a group of Christians who were members

of the Disciples church but believed in the direct-support method of missionary support. For several years, they had been meeting as a separate missionary group within the
congregation studying the missions and supporting the mis sionaries that they chose. Harrold and I had, more than once, attended their meetings and presented the work of
Mission Services.

They finally reached a point where they felt they had to leave the Disciples fellowship and establish a congregation that was free of denominationalism and working according
to the New Testament pattern. They came to Harrold, and

asked him if he would lead them in their endeavor. He agreed to preach for them and lead them in the organization if they would do the pastoring and evangelistic calling; he would show
them how. They agreed.

The first service was held on February 9, 1958 in the Odd

Fellows* Hall. By the fourth Sunday, 95 people were attending.

And it kept growing, Harrold taught the elders, and others,

how they covild teach in the homes. The men agreed to teach one hour a week, at least. The results were thrilling. There
was no stopping the congregation. Their enthusiams and

98

A FAMILY AFFAIR

and energy was catching. In a few months they had bought

a Free Methodist church building that was for sale, fixed it up, and moved into it.

Our relationship with that church was the most satisfying, joyous experience we have ever had. Because Harrold was to be with them only in the formative stage and only until they were ready to hire a fulltime man, I did not take the family
and move our church responsibilities to Harvey. I felt that
the children needed a continuity and strong ties in their church relationship, and shuttling back and forth was not a

good idea. So, we split our time between the churches.

Sunday mornings we continued our fellowship and responsi
bilities at Joliet, and most Sunday evenings and Wednesday

nights we were in Harvey, Very often we would leave after

Sunday morning service at Joliet, and drive to Harvey, meeting Harrold at someone's home for dinner, and stay through the evening,. So the children and I grew to have a

close, loving fellowship with the people at Harvey without breaking up our fellowship with the church at Joliet, The
church at Harvey accepted me on that basis and used my talents always with respect to what my work was with the Joliet. church. I felt richly blest, like I had the best of
both situations.

Publication of Horizons limped along that spring and summer. Faithful to our promise not to publish if there

was no money, some weeks were skipped on a hit-and-miss

basis. There was always so much news we would like to have published, and to decide what to leave out was agonizing, still we were determined not to go into any more

debt. We got some criticism, of course, asking when we were going to settle down to publishing regularly. But most people appreciated our problem and responded with money and/or prayers. In time, we did settle down to publishing twice a month, increasing the number of pages when we had the money, rather than publishing every week on an off-andon schedule.

In April, Harrold and I flew to California to participate in the first annual Alumni Homecoming at Pacific Bible Seminary (now Pacific Christian College). Harrold had been asked to be

one of the speakers.

I went along "for the ride" and we took

Without him, the rest of

Tim with us because he was not yet in school, and leaving

him with someone was too difficult.

the children could get along fine with just one of the girls from the Mission staying nights with them.

Joy, Sorrow, Rpunion 19'>fl

99

Charles Davis, a preacher in one of the Los Angeles churches at that time, met our plane and Harrold spoke in
his church that evening. The next day Charles drove us to Long Beach in time for the picnic that began the homecoming festivities. We had many personal friends among the faculty and alumni of the college and had a great time renewing friendships and learning what everyone was doing. We enjoyed the whole thing, but soon it was time to get back to our own
work. We were gone less than a week, but it refreshed us and put our own work in a better perspective. In 1958, the Missionary convention was in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Betty Enabnit and I were the ones who were designated from Mission Services to attend. I had been given the Friday morning address on the "Women in Missions'

Day" so that was why I was going. Betty had never been able to attend before, so it was decided that we would go together.
We drove. The first night we visited Ann Dudas in Indiana polis and stayed with her, driving on early the next morning. Neither Betty nor I had ever been in the section of the country we were driving through, but we followed the map, and had no problems along the way, even to finding our way
after we arrived in Winston-Salem.

The attendance was the smallest of any convention for several years and some of the missionaries were quite disappointed. They questioned the wisdom of the plan that had been used up until then as to where the conventions were
to be held. The idea had been to hold the conventions near Bible

colleges and in areas were missionary education was needed. The convention was regarded also as a recruiting tool, as well as an inspirational vehicle for missionaries, preachers and church members. The subject was discussed at length during the planning meetings, but at the end, the same philosophy prevailed. In the years since then, the convention has become so

very large that a whole different way of planning has evolved. I felt that my "address" had gone well, and that listeners
had shown interest. One of the missionaries asked me if my husband had written it. I could proudly say that Harrold had done me the honor of not even asking to read or edit it, Betty's and my trip home was uneventful and we reported
to the staff of Mission Services as much of the convention as

we could. We tried to carry our enthusiasm and inspiration back to those who couldn't attend, but I suppose we never did it justice: it always "loses something in the translation. "

100

A FAMILY AFFAIR

That fall, Nancy Berg had moved from Chicago to Joliet to work in the editorial office. Nancy was an old friend of

ours from the years when Harrold was a student preacher

in her home church in Forest Lake, Minnesota. This was

before Harrold and I were married, but I spent a lot of weekends with Harrold at Forest Lake, playing the piano,

teaching, helping him call, doing whatever I could do that

was needed.

Nancy had moved to Chicago and become the secretary to

Dr. C. G. Kindred when he ministered to the Englewood Christian Church, and remained his secretary after his retirement until his death. Her main purpose for coming to

Mission Services was to set the type for Dr. Kindred's book, "The Autobiography of God. " It was to be the first major book published by the Mission.

Nancy added a new spirit to our forces. She not only

added Swedish meatballs to our pot-lucks, but an enthusiasm
to our activities. It was her idea for Mission Services to

have a float in the annual city Christmas Santa Claus

parade in early December. We all thought it was a fun

idea and let her organize and plan the whole thing. She

got all the children involved to ride on the float; she did all the putting together of the supplies needed and she
directed the decorating of the float. The day of the parade
turned out to be very cold and the time of the parade was

early evening. Those on the float got pretty cold but

everyone had a good time, and at least one float had the
true Christian message of Christmas. Nancy was gone from us by the next Christmas, and no one else had her same

energy, so we never got around to entering another float.

As the holidays approached, our family began to make

plans for a McFarland family reunion at Christmas-time

in California. Harrold has two sisters and a brother, all

living on the West Coast. They had never had a family

reunion and it was felt that this year was to be the time for
one. Harrold's father had sxiffered a series of strokes and
his health was deteriorating.

Another reason that made this year so propitious was

that there was money. A great aunt had died a,nd left shares
of her estate to Harrold's father and to each of the children. The estate had been settled and the money distributed. It wasn't a huge amount for any of them, but more than they had seeii before in one chunk. Because our family lived the

Joy. Sorrow, Reunion 1958

101

farthest away and was the largest, the others had offered to chip in and help us finance the trip of all nine of us out there for Christmas. So we made arrangements for seven of us to go by train, arriving on the 24th. Ann and Judi had school through the 23rd (the younger ones did, too, but it didn't matter with them), and they didn't want to leave early because the school was leveling double cuts on students who did. So we m.ide arrangements for them to fly to California on the 24th. They would arrive at about the same time we would after two nights and three days on the train. Nancy Berg agreed to see that the girls got to the train. There was a lot of eager preparation for the trip. The
younger children had never ridden on a train before. The

two girls had never had a trip on a plane before.

There

was a lot of discussion as to what to take or wear; what was the weather in northern California, and need we dress

any differently? etc. There was sewing to do, and questions about what to do about Christmas gifts that had to be taken on the train. We did a lot of preparation in November even before Thanksgiving. It was a good thing for me that we did. On December 7, a Monday night, the girls were doing

the dishes and 1 was getting ready to go shopping to finish up my Christmas list. The telephone rang and I heard my
brother's voice at the other end of the wire. yesterday. He said, "I've

gat bad news, Adele, Dad suffered a cerebral hemorrhage

He has gone into a coma and the doctor thinks

he may not last out the night.

as possible? "

Can you get here as quickly

I just answered his question. "Yes, I'll get there as

soon as possible" I would call him back as soon as I knew
how or ^hen.

After I had told the girls what had happened, I just sat there numbly. The girls took over. While Ann finished the dishes, Judi called the train station for the time of leaving
and arrival in St. Paul, and the cost; then she made a reservation for me. She called my brother back and told him what time I would be arriving, and on what train. I called Harrold at the Mission office and told him what had

happened, and asked if there was enough cash at the Missior to cover my train ticket. No banks open that time of night.
There was, and he, of course, would take me to the train.

W e had to go to the next town to catch the train that had a

line to St. Paul.

102

A FAMILY AFFAIR

The train didn't leave until midnight and it was only

7:30.

I still had shopping to do and I had better get it done

Besides, 1 was better off keeping busy than

before I left.

sitting around waiting for time to go the train station. So I took my shopping list and went down town, and did what I
had originally planned to do. The only change was that I stopped into a hat shop and bought a black hat. I never
wore hats, even in the cold weather, but in Minnesota one

still wore a hat to a funeral, especially the family. And I had a feeling I might need a hat. When I reached home, the girls had my bag packed;

amazing what they knew I needed.

two.

I only added a dress or

I tried to tell the children not to worry; I would call

them in the morning when I arrived. As we were leaving for the train, Claudia came home from a friend's birthday

party. When she learned where I was going and why, she was very upset. She felt very badly that she had been out having a good time while her beloved grandfather perhaps lay dying. We tried to reassure her and left her to the
comfort of the older girls. We had to be on our way. We
Harrold's silences can be rode in silence to the station.

very comforting. He seems to always know when I don't feel like talking. As he put me on the train, he said there would be a lot of prayer for all of us. A hug and a kiss and I was on my way alone. I was glad to be alone with my
thoughts.

My father had always been a strong influence in my life. Like most people, I suppose, I had never given much thought
to the time when I would be without either of my parents.

Now I could not imagine my life without the enveloping love of my father. He was not an overly demonstrative man,
but we knew he loved us with a fierce, gentle love. Secause

I insisted on attending a high school in downtown St. Paul, with it's ethnic groups rather than the nearer, snobbish

high school, every school morning Dad drove me and four of my friends all the way downtown to school before he went
to his own office. This continued all my high school years.

Many, many times he would come home from a tiring day as president of his company, then get up from the supper
table and drive me over to Minneapolis to some activity of

the church or college that I was involved in. I didn't drive a car, or own a car, and in those depression days, had only

one boyfriend who had access to a car. We were members

Joy. Sorrow. KLunion 19'^8

103

of the University Place Church of Christ which met in the auditorium of Minnesota Bible College, and we lived in St.

Paul.

That meant that if I participated in anything at all, I

had to be toted back and forth. Many a night he couldn't go to bed until he had brought me home. He never complained,
at least never to me.

Dad was walking proof that one can be a successful Christian

businessman. He never would have anything to do with business deals that were legal but shady or borderline in their ethics. He conducted business in his office during the day, never over a cocktail or dinner in some supper club. People or com
panies that wanted to do business with Dad soon learned that

dealing with him was friendly, but strictly business; no

wining or dining preliminaries to contracts. Dad's business was a woodworking business; he furnished restaurants, and department stores, and made church furniture. His work was high quality; and he felt either his customers wanted his product or not; there was no need to wine or dine them.

One of Dad's co-workers tells this story about Dad and

his Christian witness. He had a customer in his office who

had a proposition for him, and, after listening for a while, Dad began to see that what this man was proposing was not all above board. As soon as he could interrupt, Dad protested and said he didn't want to have anything to do with it. He explained why and said if the idea could be made completely
straight-forward, he would do business with him, but not

under what the man was proposing. The man argued with Dad, and tried to persuade him that it was all legal, and
there were no risks. But Dad would have none of it and

finally asked him to leave. The man got angry and stalked to the door. He turned from the doorway and said, "Mr. Stone, you are a Christian, aren't you? "
My father looked startled and said, "Yes, I am. " The man replied, "I thought so!" and slammed out the
door.

Dad would probably have broken a leg before he would get up before a group of people and make any kind of a
testimony, but on a one-to-one basis. Dad lived his Christian beliefs, and it was evident to all. Another incident that illustrates this happened one time when Dad and Mother were in Florida on a vacation. They were there for almost a

month so they got to know some of the personnel in the motel where they stayed. They were quite friendly with the little

104

A FAMILY AFFAIR

black maid who cleaned their room every day, and would show an interest in her family and her life. On the night
stand between their twin beds. Dad and Mother had their

Bible and devotional book.

They usually had devotions

together before going to sleep. One day they were leaving their room as the maid came to take care of the room. She stopped them on their way
out and asked, "Mr. Stone, is you a preacher-man?" As Mother tells it, Dad looked a little embarrassed and said, "No, I have a son-in-law who is a preacher, but I'm

not a preacher.

But I am a Christian!"

With rather excited satisfaction, the maid replied, "I

just knowed you was a Jesus man; I just knowed it!" I think that pretty much sums up the Christian witness impact of my father's life on all those who met him or
knew him.

What a grandfather my father was! ! How he loved his grandchildren! Not one was his favorite; he loved them all equally and with such joy. My mother had no favorites, either. Maybe that's the reason there were no such problems in our family. I can remember family dinners when Dad
would sit at the head of the table with my brother and his

family on one side and me and my family on the other side

and around one end; Dad woxild look at Mother and around at

all of us and say, "Did we start all this? " There was such pride on his face; he really enjoyed the family dinners. On several occasions in my hearing, I have seen him watching the children of my brother and me playing together, and he wovild turn to me and say, "I am constantly thankful to God for such beautiful grandchildren. There is not one unpretty one in the whole bunch. " He dearly loved the little babies. Most men don't show much interest in tiny babies, not until they get big enough to

respond, smile and jabber. The tinier they were, the more
Dad loved them. He walked with them; he walked all the

babies until they got too big or until a new one came along. He carried the babies with their little backs against his ample stomach so they could look outwards. He claimed that even the tiny ones liked to see where they were going. And how they loved it! There was no one like their grandpa and he could soothe the fussiest baby. Strangely enough, this did not spoil them. They didn't expect this kind of treatment from anyone except their grandpa, and the minute they saw
him, he had to take them.

Joy, Sorrow, Reunion 1958

105

Dad and Mother were always thinking of others besides themselves. They both helped care for their parents. They
shared their lives and sustenance with others including us.

They bought bicycles for all our children and then worried
that if one of them had an accident and was hurt or perhaps killed, they would feel responsible because they had

provided the bike. They tried to share their vacations with us by bring back gifts and mementos of where they had been to all the grandchildren and to us, too. It was like a
second Christmas when Grandma and Grandpa came home from vacation. Yes, they loved us. Yes, Dad loved us. The summer before, while we were sitting around the table one day. Dad rather haltingly put his love into words, and told me, "You know, Adele, I pray for you and Harrold and the children every day. " Now we were in grave danger of losing him. As the train

sped through the night, all of these things and a lot more kept pouring through my mind. Over and Over I prayed to God that if living for my father meant severe physical handicaps or being a vegetable in a nursing home somewhere, he be allowed to die. Above all, I prayed God's will to
be done.

The train pulled into the St. Paul station at 6:30 in the morning. As I walked into that huge concourse and saw both
my Mother and my brother waiting for me, I knew my prayers
had been answered. Mother's stricken face greeted me. "We lost him, Adele, he died less than an hour ago. "

I wrapped my Mother in my arms and my tall brother put his arms around both of us. Oblivious to everyone

else coming and going, we wept together, a small island of

grief and loss.

When we arrived back at my Mother's house, I telephoned

home and gave them the news. Harrold would come for the
funeral as soon as we arranged when it was to be. The

general thought among the family was that no one else would make the trip. It took too long to drive; the children needed
to be in school, besides most of them said they would rather

remember Grandpa as he was the last time they saw him, not
in a coffin. Harrold would come overnight by train. I was grateful. I would need his support. That sifternoon, the three of us had the sad duty of

arranging the funeral and selecting a burial spot. Mother was holding up well. It was good to feel the strength of

106

A FAMILY AFFAIR

my brother. We planned for a time of visitation on Wednes day night and the funeral was to be Thursday afternoon. During the visitation period on Wednesday night, and at the funeral the next day, it was impressed on me again and again what a great influence one Christian life can have. The people that came and expressed to me, my Mother and my brother, all the ways in which Dad had been an influence for good in their lives by his words and conduct, left me

open-mouthed most of those two days.

All the people who

worked for my Dad in his factory were not timid in their

praise of him.
from him.

I learned things about my Dad and what he

had done for others that I never knew, or would have known
Distant relatives were all there and each one

had a story of some unselfish thing Dad had done for them

sometime in the past. Even his competitors expressed to us how much they respected him and liked him for the way
he conducted his business. His customers and business

associates were there, too, with their sincere regrets that someone of Dad's caliber was gone. Harrold came overnight as I had to St. Paul the morning of the funeral and returned that night to Joliet. I stayed on with my mother until after her birthday which was the next week. I helped her go through all the cards and write thank you notes and a few other things. We talked a lot
about things that troubled each other and Mother asked

advice on a few things.

Then it was time for me to get back

home and get ready for our trip to California. I hated to leave my mother, yet I knew she needed to be alone to grieve by herself, and then begin to adjust to her life
ahead.

The excitement and preparation for the trip occupied

the next few days and soon we were on the train speeding
westward. Now I would have a chance to put my head back and rest. I had brought reading along but couldn't keep my mind on it. The younger children were kept busy with

things we'd brought along to occupy them and with watching

the country go by their window. Having never been on a
train before, many things interested them. Harrold soon became restless and walked up and down the aisles and into the other cars, but I was content just to sit and do nothing.

It always surprises me when something will happen

or something be said that will trigger memories and then

Joy, Sorrow, Reunion 1958

107

Strong emotions will surge to the surface. One of the evenings on the train, after the lights had been dimmed,
a woman with two children boarded the train at one

stop. They were trying to settled into their seats as quietly as possible, and the porter was helping them put their luggage underneath and overhead. As the porter picked up one package and reached up to put it on the rack over their heads, the little girl said, "Be careful, that's a Christmas present for my grandpa!" That struck a heart-string very close to the surface and 1 sat weeping quietly. Harrold came down the aisle about that time. He saw the tears on my cheeks, smiled at me and touched my shoulder. I was grateful for his love. We arrived at the folk's home in Campbell, California Christmas Eve, just in time for supper. Everyone else had already arrived, including our two girls who had flown. The women were in the kitchen getting the food together; the children were everywhere in the house, and the men were trying to carry on talk above all that hubbub. It was so very good to see everyone, some we hadn't seen since they were babies and now they were as grown as ours. By the time the meal was over, everyone seemed to feel at home with everyone else. The cousins

soon got acquainted.

The little ones played together; the

older ones talked and compared notes. We had four days there, mostly spent in talking and eating. The men took all the children bowling, and other similar activities to get them out from under foot and keep them active. After Sunday, when most of us attended church in Los Gatos, the families began to leave, and by Monday, only we were left and we were preparing the catch the train home. We had become very much aware that Herb, Harrold's father, was not well. We all were very grateful that we had been able to get everyone together for this time. Herb had seemed to enjoy all of us around him even though he wasn't very active. He would sit and listen at the table to all the talk. I knew he was proud of his children and their families and what they had become as adults. 1 was sitting on the arm of his chair one day, and he told me how proud he was of his family. He held my hand and smiled at me. He especially enjoyed watching the small children play down on the floor. Like my father, he was proud of his beautiful grandchildren.

108

A FAMILY AFFAIR

All of us went back to Illinois on the train, including the two girls who had flown out. We occupied about half a car, it seemed. 1 think the other passengers who rode
in our car felt like outsiders.

Of course, we couldn't get home without a mishap of some kind. About a half hour out of Albuquerque, Tim was climbing over the legs of his brother, with whom he was sitting, just as the train gave a lurch. Tim flew across the aisle head first into the armrest of my seat, and split his forehead wide open on the metal lid of the ashtray built into it. The second I heard the "thunk" of his head hitting, I grabbed for a bunch of tissues that were in my traincase at my feet. Blood poured from the cut, and he was screaming as only hurt little boys can
scream. His father tried to take him from me and calm

him.

Finally between the two of us we got him to lie

The train had a

flat so we could stem the flow of blood.

stewardess who came immediately. She was a practical nurse and had in her supplies everything we needed to
care for Tim. She took over and cleansed the wound and

further reassured Tim. Because the wound really needed stitches and because insurance required it, train
personnel wired ahead for a doctor to meet the train when

it arrived in Albuquerque.

Well, Albuquerque was in the grip of a crippling

snowstorm when we arrived. standstill. Trsiffic was close to a The doctor had not arrived and no one knew

how long it would take before he could get there. So

the train sat in the station and we all waited, and waited!

Three hours we waited

struggling into the train.

Finally the poor man came

I was almost embarrassed that

so little was wrong with Tim. I felt like he shoxild have at least a broken arm, leg or shoulder to warrant so
much trouble and concern.

The doctor said that putting stitches in would require taking Tim off the train and taking him to a hospital. If
we wanted to continue, he thought he could put on a butterfly bandage that would be adequate, provided that we
saw our own doctor when we got home. There would still

be time to put stitches in then if our doctor thought it

would be necessary.
That was what we decided to do, so after the doctor applied the bandage and instructed the stewardess on

Joy, Sorrow. Reunion 1958

IO9

changing the outer bandage, and giving us added instructions,

he had us sign papers agreeing with what he'd done, and

absolving the company from blame. He bundled himself up and left the train. In about ten minutes the train slowly pulled out of the station to continue on it's way. For a long
time we kidded Tim about "holding up" a train for three
hours.

We arrived home in time to celebrate New Year's and watch the Rose Parade on TV, There we sat in our frozen world of Illinois and watched all that sunshine and flowers. It was hard to believe that just a week before we had all

been in California enjoying it in person.

A FAMILY AFFAIR

Mission Mail Trucks

CHAPTER

15

FROM EDITOR TO TRUCK DRIVER 1959

In the beginning of 1959, the Mission settled on a definite

policy of publishing Horizons twice monthly, on the first and

third Saturdays. To us it seemed like a step backwards to have to concede to that schedule. But Harrold hoped by a new format, type style and a few refinements, to produce
a more readable and interesting paper. When money

allowed, more pages would be printed each issue. The goal

was to provided up-to-date news of missions to the people.

The year 1959 marked a change in the missionary study material I was preparing for the Committee on Missionary
Education (C. O. M. E. ). In addition to the individual mission

ary study packets, we offered to the churches packets

prepared monthly to give a birdseye view of all the mis sionaries working in one particular area of the world. Our purpose was to give a picture of world-wide missions, and

its growth in the course of a year. In the little Missionary Program Guides, we now printed the theme for the year based on a Scripture verse or passage, and a little explanation
of how the mfssionaries would apply the theme to the material.
We printed on each month's page the area to be studied and

listed the slides and other material that was available, in addition to the packet material. This plan became almost

immediately popular and widely accepted by women's groups studying in the churches. They liked the year's
study planned for them. We asked them to order for the

whole year but we mailed the packets monthly. For me it meant being on a pretty strict monthly schedule to meet the monthly printing deadlines. Of course,
we worked more than a month ahead. I wrote letters to the

missionaries requesting material many months ahead to give them time and make allowances for bad overseas mail

deliveries, and sometimes that was not enough time. The

first year or two was difficult. Often the missionaries'

materials were late to meet our printing deadline to get the

material to the churches when we had promised it. I would at the last minute have to work long days into the wee hours of the morning, ignoring everything else until the material
was completed and ready to be printed. Sometimes I

would not hear from a missionary at all, and because I did

112

A FAMILY AFFAIR

not want him left out, I would prepare material gleaned from his newsletters or other printed materials from him.
It would not include recent pictures, or even current news,
but at least he was not left out.

After the first years, the missionaries began to anticipate

my letters and the material from them came more consistently

on time. This made my work so much easier. There were times when I was trying frantically to meet a deadline that

I would think hard thoughts about missionaries who didn't answer their mail, especially when I was giving them free

publicity. Yet, I couldn't really be angry because I knew very well that the demands made on them in their day-to-day
labors often left correspondence ignored for days and even
weeks at a time. When material arrived too late for that

month's packet, we printed it anway, and included it in the

next month's with a note to put it with the proper material.

My specific work in this connection was to plan the whole year's program, pick the theme and the Scripture. I wrote the letters requesting the material. When the
material arrived, I edited it, arranged in the packet form

and typeset it all on an electric typewriter. I learned to justify the right-hand side and prepared the material in
two columns rather than straight across the page. In later

years, to cut down on the costs, I typed the material on paper plates and then didn't try to justify the right hand margin. We also added children's stories and material
to be used in Sunday school and youth programs to teach
interest in missions to children. In fact, we urged the churches to use the material in other places of teaching,

such as youth meetings and men's meetings, as well as

the women's gatherings. We felt that the material was

adaptable to wherever the church wanted to use it to further

missionary knowledge and interest. As the number of missionaries and places of missionary

endeavor multiplied, it eventually became impossible to

cover the whole mission picture in one year, so we went to

a three-year cycle. When that happened, more and more

of the church women's groups began to go back to the

study of one individual missionary's work, or the work

back to the invididual missionary study served them better. That meant then that Mission Services had the

of one particular field. All of what was going on was too much to grasp, remember or get interested in, so going

of providing adequate material for both preferences.

From Editor to Truck Driver 1959

113

The church with which we were working in Harvey, Illinois was progressing nicely. In February, when they were a year old, they dedicated the redecorated, remodeled church building in which they had been meeting since November. It was an adequate building (except for having no baptistery) and the congregation was so happy to be in a place of their own. Roger Gibson, a student from Lincoln Christian College (then Bible Institute), was coming on weekends and serving as Minister of Music and Youth. He was an eager, enthusiastic person with a likeable personality and a good singing voice with much potential. He added a great deal of vim, vigor and vitality to the ministry of the church. He

sang in a quartet from the college, and they were much in

demand in the area churches. He tells about himself that

when he started to Bible college, he only went to play basketball, but he attended classes and began to really study the Bible, and became filled with the desire to preach. By the time he graduated, that was what he wanted to do more than anything else in the world. Roger had met and become interested in our Ann the year before. Even though she was still in high school, he
had on several occasions asked her to come as his date to

activities at the college.

He had visited her and our home

and the church in Joliet on weekends when he was free from

college commitments.

They saw each other a little more

during the siimmer as she managed the bookstore at camp. Now they were together every weekend. We liked Roger very much. We watched the development of their relationship
with interest.

In mid-April, Flora Maye Guernsey joined Mission

Services in the editorial department. She had spent one year

in Korea as a missionary. We invited her to serve with us
It turned out while she decided what her future would hold.

that she was with us for four years and went to the editorial

department of Christian Standard from us. She was a great asset. She was extremely capable and dependable in her work and had a beautiful personality to be around. Since all

the single personnel lived in a family atmosphere in the big

house with the McGilvreys, being nice to be around was a
real blessing.

In June, Harrold announced that except for our regular

monthly payments on real estate and $500 on our back 1958

114

A FANULV AFKAIK

salary Mission Services was free of debt.

This made all

of us breathe a lot easier, especially since we were increasing our personnel. Since we were entering the summer period when all missionary giving always falls low, this announcement was also accompanied by an urging that
our contributors remember that our expenses continue as usual during the summer months. I mention it here because
this is the first time we had been able to make such an

announcement, considering the financial problems which we

had in getting Horizons on a stable footing.

feeling.
so!

It was a good

By fall, however, we were again in debt and had

to make a special plea for funds.

the funds were in hand.

Seems it would always be

We never could have planned ahead if we waited until

Ann graduated from high school in June and again spent

the summer at the Cedar Lake bookstore. Her plans were to enter Lincoln Christian Institute in the fall. One day, during the summer, Roger brought Ann home for a brief stay (so we thought), but mainly to announce their engage ment. On Ann's finger sparkled a very beautiful diamond.
They had decided to commit their lives to each other in

their service to God. Harrold and I were very pleased and the rest of the family approved. Perhaps it seemed a little early for this with Ann just entering college. 1 think that was Roger's idea, to make sure he had her before exposing her to anyone else at the college. I knew they loved each other so 1 felt that, with the Lord's help, the
future would work out well for them.

Ann left for college soon after that, the second to leave the nest. I knew it my heart that this was the first big step away from us and out on her own, that she would never
really come "home" again. Judi and I drove her and her belongings to Lincoln and helped to move her into the dorm. It wasn't any easier leaving her than it was leaving Carol three years before. One thing that helped was knowing that Carol was there on campus if either of them needed someone
close to them to talk to.

As with Carol, I didn't sleep much that night after getting home. I thought back through Ann's infant days: how glad I was that she was a girl, to begin with, what a tiny, curlyheaded petite doll she was, how she was such a funny, sober-faced clown as a toddler. In my mind, I carefully thought back over her childhood and growth and development

From Editor to Truck Driver 1959

115

into a beautiful young woman: times when I worried and prayed over her, times when I rejoiced over her, and times when I was very proud of her. Where had the years gone? How could they grow up so fast? I prayed for her over and over again that night, and for myself. The exodus was continuing and I knew that ahead of me were many more nights like this of mixed joy and sadness.
That fall Jon and I embarked on an adventure that was

to build muscles and a bank account for Jon, and a close

relationship between Mother and son that might not have come about otherwise. When the Sprenger family joined the Mission, there was really not enough money to sustain another family, so Harrold bid in a star mail route out of Joliet. This was early morning and late afternoon, leaving the day hours for Charles Sprenger to manage and work in the printing department.
Now there was another route open to bid. Harrold again

bid and got it. We had no one in the regular Mission personnel to drive the route at the time. Jon was in high school and could use a good job. The Mission would pay Jon a salary and the rest of the money earned would go into the Mission. Jon was too young to drive the vehicle; the law required 18 years of age, at least. So I took the job of driving the trucks, and Jon handled the mail bags. He and I were up at 5:30 every morning except Sunday to be at the post office by six a.m. Rain or shine, snow
and 24-below zero weather, sleet and ice storms, wind and

blizzard, it didn't matter. No reason was ever acceptable for being late or slow. Even mechanical breakdowns got us into trouble. Many times we were the first tire tracks made on the road sifter a night's snow storm. If I hadn't gotten to know the road so well, I could have been in the ditch once a week during the winter. During severe cold spells, X can remember being upstairs praying as I was dressing warmly while Jon went out to try and start the truck. Hearing that motor roar was the sweetest sound in the world those bitterly cold mornings. At first I drove a Jeep. Then, as the mail volume grew (inevitably), the Mission bought a used Jewel Tea truck,

reconditioned and painted it.

That is what I drove most of

the time. Eventually that had to be replaced because it became too small, but that was after I quit driving. It was heavily loaded with mail most of the time. At Christmas

116

A FAMILY AFFAIR

and catalog mailing times, it was overloaded. We had mail bags up in front, all around us and Jon sat on them
at those times.

Jon and I drove 58 miles before breakfast, taking

mail to and receiving mail from three small towns which were served out of the main Joliet post office. We would arrive home with just 20 minutes before Jon needed to be in school. While he dashed upstairs to change into school

clothes, I put his breLkfast on the table. He would pratically

inhale his breakfast and we would drive to school, getting

there usually with three or four minutes to spare.

We lived on the west side of town, and the high school was on the east side. Between the two was a canal which

accommodated large boat travel.

Across the canal were

several bridges that opened and closed. One usually

allowed for time to get held up at an open bridge since

there was no regularity to the comings and goings of the

boats. So our morning dashes to school were a little like roulette. We could so easily have gotten caught, but

there was nothing we could do to change that. Fortvinately,

boats were rare that early in the morning, and I can't remember ever being caught at that time.
There were times when we had other delays so that we

had to stop at home for Jon to eat and get ready for school before dropping the return mail at the post office. On these morning I would take Jon to school in the truck, and then go on to the post office. Jon always hated that. For one reason, climbing out of the truck before the school
in front of the other kids made him uncomfortable. I

couldn't help being amused, but I shouldn't have been.

Teenagers are naturally sensitive at that age. For another thing, that meant I had to handle the mail bags at the post
office. He didn't like that.

We handled that route for two years.

I look back on that

X remem

time with amazement that we had so little trouble.

ber a few frustrating times keeping the truck going on cold, winter mornings when water developed in the gas lines. I
remember one flat tire, and one time when the truck just

quit. Cach time Jon hitch-hiked for help while I stayed with the government property. Somehow we got through each experience without too much trauma. We had a reputation
for being responsible and on time.

From Editor to Truck Driver 1959

117

The times I had real trouble were when I substituted

for the other route when Charles Sprenger was on vacation or too busy with printing to take the route. A Volkswagen van was used on that route and sometimes it was seriouslyoverloaded. A number of times when I drove, the load was

so heavy the wheels bowed outward, and I would drive very slowly and carefully to the first post office where a large portion of the mail would be removed to lighten the load. Knowing how the wheels are set on a Volkswagen, I could just see the wheels pulling right off and leaving me sitting there flat on the ground. Charles happened to be driving the day it actually happened. Though it never happened to me, I did have breakdowns on that route. It got beyond the meaning of
ridiculous.

Three different times after the van was supposed to have been fixed, it just quit on me half-way through the route. That particular postmaster began to think I was doing it on purpose to harrass him. I sat for hours waiting for help. After that, they replaced the van with a heavier vehicle, but by then I wasn't driving the route any more. Jon and I grew very close in those years. We saw each other at our worst and at our best. Early mornings are not my best times, and he saw me in displays of utter frustration. He also saw me handle split-second emergencies, and approved. I saw him mature and rise to take care of situations that would have been next to impossible for me if I had been alone. It was a growing and maturing experience for both of us. When the Michael family, joined the Mission, and Ralph
took over the route, Jon and I looked back on it with

nostalgia.

We also looked back on it and wondered how we

ever did it! !

Our work with the Harvey church ceased that fall. The congregation had reached the place of needing and being able to have a full-time minister and Robert Sloniger came in September to fill that need. The church gave us a farewell service and presented Harrold with a beautiful watch, suitably engraved. After the Slonigers came, we also had a big church family picnic as a combination welcome and farewell affair. We visited the church often because we missed them all very much. But we praised God for the thurch's growth and strength, and for the good leadership of elders and deacons that was guiding them into greater things for God in the future. They have lived up to our expectations.

A FAMILY AFFAIR

Mission Services closed the year 1959 with the report

that all the Mission bills were paid up to date. We were so

grateful to God and His people that we could say that. Bill McGilvrey suggested using Acts 28:15 as our end of the decade
theme: "We thanked God, and took courage. "
forward to the '60's with faith and courage.

We looked

Apartment
House

in 1960

Remodeled,

Repainted
Mission Manor

Paid for in I960

CHAPTER 16

NEW PRESS; SECOND WEDDING; FIRST GRANDCHILD;

SORROW RENEWED

The number of missionaries continued to grow.

At the

beginning of I960, there were 588 missionaries in 271 fields

in 26 countries, and 41 recruits actively preparing to enter their fields of choice. This was the report in the Missionary Prayer List, No. 12, corrected to December 1959^ This
number was in sharp contrast to the 90 missionaries in 1945 at the end of World War II. Some people are bored with statistics, but they become very interesting and important to those vitally concerned with what is taking place. Horizons Magazine kept printing this information throughout the years because we believed that people who are helping to send
the Gospel around the world want to know, and would find it interesting and vital to their continued zeal and faith. My work in the C. O. M. E. Department had increased to

the point that I needed help, especially in the tasks of booking and maintaining the slide library. Leone Pytel joined me in the fall of 1959, first on a part time-basis, later to become pretty much fulltime. Our work also needed more room. SoHarrold and I moved the washing machine and dryer and rearranged the basement of our house and moved the C. O. M. E. Department into it. It made us somewhat separated from the rest of the staff, but a phone and intercom was installed so communication was no problem. It did give Leone and I more quiet place to work, and it was especially beneficial to me when I had to work late at night to get some
publication out on time.

It also meant that no matter what I was doing for

Mission Services, I was at home, available to the needs of

the children.

Tim would barely get in the back door from

school before he would yell, "Mom! !" Usually hearing my

voice answer was all he needed, and he would go change out of his school clothes and go out to play. But sometimes, he had a great need to talk to tell me something, and then I was
there to listen. This was true of the older children, too.

Sometimes they would come home so full of either something great that had happened, or something so frustrating that they
were in despair. I often wondered what they would have done

if I had not been there to receive their outpourings.

My

J20

A FAMILY AFFAIR

experience has been that older children need to find Mother

home when they come from school just as much as small
children do.

In April I960 Mission Services was able to announce that

Mission Manor was all paid for! This was the big house, the

original property bought in 1953 when we moved to Joliet. It

was three stories now with full basement. It now housed the

editorial offices and the printing and mailing facilities, plus the McGilvrey family of seven, Betty Enabnit and Flora Maye

Guernsey, and the bookstore on the second floor. In the seven years, we had added the two third-floor rooms, redecorated the outside, improved and decorated the basement to hold the circulation and printing departments, and added combination
storm windows. That was all paid for. The only property

payments now were on the house we were living in. Harrold

said, "Now we can turn our funds more directly to the work
itself. We do not aak for less, but challenge our supporters

with the need for more so that we can do a better job with the

great task of missionary education still ahead of us. " We finally had bought a larger press for the Mission, but technically it did not belong to the Mission, That came about this way. Harrold had wanted to put money into a larger press for a long time. He could do the printing for missionaries
so much more economically for them if we were not sending out

the large page printing. We were quite limited by the little press. Of course, what stood in our way was the initial cost of buying and installing the larger press. Finally, Harrold pressed it in staff meetings and executive committee meetings. Everyone agreed that that was the next step in our growth, but
most were leary of the financial burden. So, Harrold said,

alright iie would see if he could buy a press himself and then any failure or burden would be his and not the Mission's, The rest of our group reluctantly agreed that if it did not financially
endanger the Mission, he could go ahead. With the evidence of all the printing we were already doing
and commissioned to do, and the additional printing we could do for ourselves with a larger press, Harrold had no difficulty in

getting a loan from the bank which we had been doing business with all the years we had been in Joliet. The press was bought
and installed and was immediately successful.
fed back into the Mission.

Never once was

the press a danger to the Mission. It always made money which

New Press; Second Wedding; First Grandchild; Sorrow Renewed

In April of I960, Harrold and I made another trip to

California. He had been asked to give a series of lectures at Pacific Bible Seminary (now Pacific Christian College) , and

to speak at the alumni-sponsored Spring Gospel and Missionary Conference. I also had been asked to speak at a morning
session in a woman's forum. This was a good opportunity for us to get away together. My mother came to stay with the children and we left Joliet by train on the afternoon of
Easter Sunday.

I thoroughly enjoyed the train trip across the coxintry. Sitting and reading or talking uninterruptedly to Harrold was a

wonderful blessing of rest and relaxation with no pressing obligations staring me in the face, waiting to be taken care
of. Harrold soon grew restless, though. He has a terrible
time sitting and "doing nothing, " which is how he describes traveling any way but driving a car. So by the time we reached

California, he was eager to leave the train and get on with

what we had come to do.

As -usual, there were many other speaking dates planned besides the two special dates at the college. So in the two weeks we were on the Coast, we were in many churches, and had the chance to see old friends from college years and to
get acquainted with new friends for Mission Services. It was

a very enjoyable time and we were encouraged and stimulated

by the visit. However, by the time we arrived back in Joliet,

we were very glad to be there, and to return to our usual

routine of work and family life.

I was immediately caught up in wedding preparations. Ann

and Roger had set their wedding date for June 3, one week after he was to graduate from Lincoln Bible Institute. Most of the planning had been done before, of course, but now in the

month of May, the final arrangements had to be completed.

Her attendants were to be roommates and friends from college

and they were buying their dresses. Ann had purchased her
dress and veil, also. The only thing I made was the little dress for the flower girl, who was a little girl from the Harvey church whom Ann had gotten very close to and loved.

Carol also graduated from Lincoln that spring. We were made very proud as she graduated Summa Cum Laude, and
was taken into two honor societies.

Carol was also pregnant; the baby was due in September. They had it figured out just right. Chuck still had schooling
ahead of him, but she was going to get her degree before she
became a mother.

j22

A FAMILY AFFAIR

So, in the wedding plans, Carol was going to serve in

the reception. Judi had been asked to take care of the nieces

of Roger during the ceremony because their mother, Roger's sister, was to play the organ. Having learned from Carol's wedding, I again had turned the reception over to the church
women under the direction of one of the women who was a

particular friend of Ann's. I had no worries on that score.

Everything went beautifully.

Ann and Roger sang to each other in a duet after speaking

their vows. It was beautiful and affected every person there. I don't know how they did it. I remember sobs escaping from
Claudia seated behind me as Ann came down the aisle on her father's arm and red eyes on Judi which I noticed in the
reception line.

I didn't shed any tears; I was just full of joy and thankful ness for Ann and Roger, and full of hope and prayer for their

happiness and future. Their plans were to live on campus in

a mobile home for a year so Ann could continue in college, and Roger could take graduate work.

Right here I need to back-track a little, and mention what was happening in the Lord's work in Joliet. Ann and Roger
were not married in the same church building as Carol and
Chuck.

Almost two years before, the First Christian Church of

Joliet had decided there needed to be another church in this

fast-growing city, especially on the expanding west side. So, led by the elders, the congregation purchased a site on
the west side and built the first building consisting of Bible school rooms and a fellowship hall that would double as a

worship room until a sanctuary woxild be built later on.

Everyone in the congregation worked on that building. Most

of the work was contracted out, of course, but we had big

work parties when we cleaned the building and prepared it for the day when the church charter would be opened. On that day, those who wished to become a member of the new work signed the charter. Until then most of us did not
know who had decided to become a part of the new congregation.

The split could not have been more equal if it had been care

fully planned. It was interesting to note that while most of the people who signed the charter lived on the west side, there
were some from the east side who signed, and there were

some who lived on the west side who stayed with the church on

the east side. It was a happy and thrilling experience. The

New Press; Sccond Wedding; First Grandchild; Sorrow Renewed

123

minister, Robert Graham, had decided to go with the new congregation believing they would need the continuity of the same leader to help them in their organization. The people who stayed in the east side building already had a working organization, and would be better able to look for and get a
new minister.

Our family considered for a long time which way we would go. Although we talked about it again and again, our inclination from the very beginning was to stay on the east side. We lived right in the middle so could go either way as
far as distance was concerned. When the time came, we stayed put. It was interesting to watch what happened. The adult class I had taught had numbered about 75; after the formation

of the new congregation, my class was about 35. But I watched people who had sat in my class doing very little, suddenly begin to work and take responsibility in the similar class formed in the new congregation. This same thing

happened in other areas of the church work. It was happening also in the east side congregation. People who before had done very little but sit in the pew, were eagerly, even enthusiastically going to work. Both congregations thrived from the very onset of the venture. The east side church remained First Christian Church, The west side group
became Maple Lawn Christian Church, named after the area in which the building was located. Ann and Roger were married in the Maple Lawn church building because most of their friends were members there.

Harrold left the day after the wedding for a week of

meetings for which he was scheduled.
put out with him.

In fact, I was rather

It seemed to me that he was more

occupied with getting ready to make his trip than he was in

being host at his daughter's wedding. I think I was the only one who felt that way. Everyone else accepted it as a
natural course of events.
of that summer and fall.

I guess it was.

He traveled most

We saw little of him until after the

missionary convention in September.

Jon left soon cifterward to run the bookstore at Cedar

Lake camp.

Now it was his turn to take it over.

One of our

part-time workers at the Mission would help me with the

mail route,

Judi, who normally wovild step into the job at

camp, had decided she would finish high school six months

early and was going to svtmmer school to graduate in August.

124

A FAMILY AFFAIR

Then she planned to enter Lincoln Bible Institute in the

fall. For the siunmer, she would work part-time at
Mission Services.

So, for a third time I drove a daughter from Joliet to Lincoln with all of her paraphernalia that she needed to move into the girl's dorm. Actually, I didn't drive, A boy friend
of Judi's wanted to take her down, so he drove us. The

Kelleys and Gibsons had a picnic supper for us before we drove back to Joliet. Once again I was in the throes of remembering the birth and growing years of one who was part of myself.
When Judi was born, some of our friends hinted that it was too bad our third baby was another girl. We were shocked! We were thrilled with a third girl; now we had a trio. It never entered my head to be sorry; nor did it

enter my head to ask Harrold if he were sorry.

We just

thanked God for another healthy baby to raise with His

help. With her sisters, she grew to delight us and bring us joy. She didn't have much hair, and it was very blonde.
When she was about three, and still had that thin, straight,

baby fine hair, through which her scalp could be seen, her
Aunt Doris said, "Judi doesn't need curly hair. With those big, blue eyes of hers, she'll get anything she wants!" Aunt Doris proved to be right.

My nest was emptying too fast. I could hardly believe half were already gone. I knew from experience that once they head for college, they wouldn't be home again. Suddenly I was back to where I had been ten years before, as far as baby sitters were concerned. Claudia was not quite old enough to stay alone with her brother even for an evening. Jon, with his dating and extracurricular choir activities in high school, could not be expected to baby sit except on rare, special occasions. There were times when
I drafted him, and he never objected, but I could not

depend on him always being available.

having a second family!

That's what I got for

On September 21, Carol gave birth to a baby boy: Charles Carson Kelley III. Since his grandfather was
called Charles, and his father was Chuck, they decided to call him Carson. He was a beautiful baby from the very

beginning, our first grandchild. Strangely, it didn't make me feel any older. I was just thankful and joyful, and with all the succeeding grandchildren that have come along (and are still coming), that feeling has never changed, just become

New Press; Sccond WcddinK; First Clrandchild; Sorrow Renewed

125

more intense.

I arranged to go to Lincoln when Carol

came home from the hospital, and I stayed about ten days and took care of mother and baby. 1 have never been happier than when I am taking care of a new baby and it's mommy (I've been as happy, but never happier). I have contrived to be with each of my daughters when their babies have been born, except for the two of Carol's who were born in Rhodesia. I would have gone there
too, if I'd had the money !! There is no feeling on earth more indescribable than that of holding the tiny, warm

body of a new human being against my heart, and knowing

that this is my grandchild, my posterity, the future. It was

the same feeling of awe of God, of life, and the potentiality

wrapped up in that little body that I had each time my own were born and laid in my arms. As I said, there are no words in our language to describe the feeling, but everyone

who has experienced it knows what I am talking about.

In October, Harrold's father died. It was not

unexpected.

He had suffered another crippling stroke and

Then a final massive cerebral

was in a nursing home.

hemorrhage took him, I was so grateful that we had been able to go up to northern California to see them when we
were out there in April. Harrold immediately flew out to California to be with the family.
It was kind of a double dose to me. An uncle of mine

had died in Minnesota.

He had expended his life ministering

to churches in Minnesota, and, with my aunt, had been very close to me all my life. I had gone to Minnesota to attend

his funeral and came home to Joliet to find Harrold pre

paring to go to his father's funeral. His greeting kiss was also a good-by kiss. I was left with a very hollow feeling

for several days.

Death had left empty chairs in the family

circle too close together. During this year of I960, Mission Services acquired the three-story, brick apartment house next door to the Manor. The elderly couple who owned it and lived in the downstairs apartment had been vitally interested in what we were doing from the time we had moved in in 1953. They said they had never known anyone like us. When they decided that they were no longer able to care

for so much property, the man approached Harrold and offered to sell Mission Services the tri-plex for whatever he would have to pay for a small bungalow for them. This

126

A FAMILY AFFAIR

turned out to be an unbelievably small s\im compared to

what the building was worth. With Mission Manor paid for,
the Mission board thought this was a fantastic opportunity,
so the transaction was made.

The top two apartments remained rented to the current

renters and that made the monthly payments. The Ralph Michaels lived in the first floor apartment, and we remodeled

the basement and moved the printing department into it, which included the two presses and the huge copy camera. Also,

part of the C. O. M. E. Department worked there, and one end of the large room housed the big gathering machine called
the saddle-stitcher. This was used for assembling and

stapling our large publications with many pages. It was quite a monster. There was room for four

persons to sit down at it as they fed the right sequence of pages on to the moving belt. At the end the machine made
it's own staples, stapled the magazine, folded it and
trimmed the ends as it spit it out ready to be trimmed on the leading edge and tciken to the circulation department to be addressed. It saved hours of gathering and stapling time, but it required a special rhythm to it or the moving belt would move along without some of the sections. So, the volunteer women working at it began to sing together; as long as they sang, the rhythm was perfect, but if they stopped singing, somebody would get fouled up, and they would have to shut down the machine and regroup to begin again. Of course, in time they got used to it and no longer

had to sing.

But I missed the singing.

It was most cheerful

to hear four or five women singing, "I've been working on the railroad, ' and laughing at each other in the process of doing
an important ministry.

Horizons Magazine reported in its December 3 issue:

605 missionaries in 27 countries, with 22 recruits actively

preparing to enter their chosen fields. This was in con trast to the number announced at the beginning of the year (and at the beginning of this chapter). It was challenging
to us, and encouraging to our readers.

CHAPTER 17

"SINGING VICTORY" 1961

In January of 1961, we stopped sending bundles of Horizons

to churches. Too often they were never distributed right away and so the news value was lost. Also we knew that a publica
tion received in one's own mail box is better read by more
people in the family than free literature received in the the church house. So Mission Services increased it's efforts

to get individual names and addresses on the mailing list.

The goal then, as now, was to get Horizons into every

Christian home.

We had some changes in personnel that spring.

Nancy

Corbell came from Inglewood, California to serve as typesetter in the editorial department. We were so glad to welcome her because she was greatly needed. Then,

Betty Enabnit resigned in May. She had managed our mailing

department since 1956. She had a desire to do a more direct

missionary work and after spending some time with her

mother, she went to Barbados to work with young people

and children.

1961 was the first year that the C. O. M. E. Department offered to the churches a "package deal" of missionary
materials. For one price the package included a world map, full-color, showing the locations of missions and

missionaries around the world; 12 study packets one for each month of the year, a Missionary Program Guide, 24
issues of Horizons, six lists of missionaries and their

addresses on furlough, and two Missionary Prayer Lists

which listed all the missionaries and their forwarding

agents with addresses. This offer was widely accepted and
seemed to be exactly what a lot of churches needed.

Also, early in 1961, Mission Services bought a small neighborhood grocery store building around the corner from Mission Manor. It had a small apartment in the rear. The Joe Pytel family moved into the apartment; Leone Pytel was my assistant in the C. O. M. E. Department. The
store front was remodeled to hold Christian Bible House. Except for a Roman Catholic bookstore, there was no

religious bookstore at that time west of Chicago. We were reasonably sure that we cotdd serve the needs of the large
area and that, in time, it would not only pay for itself but

t3o

A FAMILY AFFAIR

feed some income back into the Mission.

Claudia McGilvrey

and Margaret Sprenger took over the larger responsibility. The supplies they were already handling for missionaries
had run over the one room in the big house that had been used as a bookstore. It took a few years, but the book
store did become a success and still is.

In June Harrold traveled to Washington, D. C. to settle our tax situation with the Internal Revenue Service. Because Christian churches/churches of Christ have no denomina

tional organization, it was difficult to make our status or

relationship understood by letter. Lawyer Keith Misegades

took much, much time to carefully look into and understand our churches and the Restoration Movement. He and Harrold worked many hours together. He was able to present our case very favorably to the I. R. S. and won the exempt status

we sought. It was a very interesting experience for Harrold and a very enlightening one for Mr, Misegades, so he said.
For almost a year Harrold had been talking about making another family tour to present the missionary story in churches across the country. With two sons-in-law, and a

grandson, that would be 11 of us. With all the musical ability in the family, presenting an interesting and pleasing
program would be no problem. Back in the fall of I960 when we took Judi to Lincoln

to enter college and we were sitting around the picnic table

with the Gibsons and the Kelleys, Roger Gibson asked me if "Mr. Mac" was really serious about making such a trip in
the summer of 1961. I told him, "Yes, I think Harrold is

very serious about it. " I expected objections from Roger and Chuck, but they surprised me by being enthusiastic
about the idea.

He didn't forget it. He worked on it all winter. And I

dragged my feet, I really did, I kept thinking of all the problems we had encountered in 1957 when there were just eight of us. Now we would have a caravan of two cars, each pulling a 14-foot trailer, and.Kelleys would drive their Volkswagen van which would carry their baby

paraphernalia and a tent that would be put up each night for

them. We would also be carrying lighting and sound

equipment. Frankly I wondered whether the trip was worth

all the work of preparation.

Harrold did all the work of writing letters and setting

up dates. We were to be gone all of July and August, and

"Singing Victory" 1961

Ul

would go the northern route to northern California, down

the coast to Southern California and back to Illinois by the

southern route.

After Harrold had worked out the tentative program of what we wanted to portray, we all sat down and worked out the musical selections and how they would be correlated with the story, and who would sing what. My place was at

the piano. I was to accompany the singing and play back ground music behind all the speaking, modulating from one
key to another as necessary.
so I did.

At first, I wasn't sure I coxild

do all they expected of me, but everyone else thought I could,

This was to be a musical pageant called "Singing Victory. " Xo enhance the pageantry of it, we all planned to wear typical
dress of the countries where we have missionaries. We had

several authentic costumes in the display material at Mission Services, which we borrowed for the trip. For the rest we made our own, carefully copying as best we could
authentic national dress. 10-months-old Carson. We even had a costume for

During the pageant, there was to be a parade of flags,

dividing the group into those countries where we have
missionaries, and those countries where we do not. Our plan was to use the children from the local churches where we presented the program. We briefed them ahead of time

by letter, and then had a practice time before each program.

It really worked out very well. The children were thrilled to

be a part of it and to help, and that helped us to have a larger

audience each place than we might have had otherwise.

To make it real special for the children, we provided

costumes for them, too. The women of the Kum Dubl Bible

school class of First Christian Church of Joliet spent several months making the children's costumes. They made capes
and Nehru-type service caps that both boys and girls could
wear. They were made of all colors so we could mix or

match the capes and caps to give a very colorful look to the

children's parade. The parade never failed to be impressive

and it was a great addition to the whole program.

Of course, in addition to the concentration on the program, it was my responsibility to see about the practical logistics
of feeding the whole bunch on the trip, the amount of linens needed, medical supplies for any contingency, etc. We did sit down, all of us, and work out responsibilities so that

132

A FAMILY AFFAIR

everyone knew what was expected of him or her, and all of the jobs were apportioned out. It was inevitable that some
details would be overlooked and we discovered after we

were on our way that if we hadn't assigned a certain task,

it didn't get done. There were several adjustments to be

made the first week out, but I really was surprised there
was so little.

'

The Kelleys had arranged to work for Mission Services

that summer before and after the trip, doing secretarial

work, in the press department, and maintenance work, mainly to relieve vacationing regulars. They received some support from his home church in Gary, Indiana. They
moved in with us right after school was out.

In Jime Roger received his ministerial degree from Lincoln Bible Institute. The year before he had received his degree

in music, ^ger and Ann planned to go into song evangelism

fulltime for the next few years, and we thought this trip might help them also, serving to introduce them to churches who might otherwise not hear of them. The younger children and I visited my mother in Minnesota in June that year instead of the usual July. Our last minute sewing of costumes was completed there. The last week in June we all converged on, and filled up our house. We diligently set to practicing and smoothing out

the rough passages and shaky transitions. We were deter mined to make our presentation as professional as we knew how to make it to the praise and glory of God, Before we left, we gave our first program to the First
Christian Church in Joliet. Their reaction was a clue to

>

<

how we might be accepted elsewhere.

They gave us a good

send-off. Our next date was July nine at Clinton, Iowa. Aftei? a feverish last few days of packing trailers, checking

lists, practicing putting up and taking down the tent, and

last minute laundry, we were on our way for better or
for worse.

The program was received very well everywhere we went. We just prayed that along with enjoying the presentationgs, the people were also getting the message of the call for increasing missionary work and support around the
whole world.

The adverse things I don't remember too well. I guess that's the way it should be. Most of them were niggling

things that caused frustration.

I remember times of heat.

"Singing Victory" 1961

I33

especially being so hot trying to get lunch in a trailer that

had been closed up as we traveled. I don't take heat very

well, and my tennper flares nnore easily when I am too hot
than at any other time.

I remember tempers flaring up among all of us> and misunderstandings and harsh words everyone was sorry for afterwards. At the end of the second week, we all sat down,
got things out in the open, thrashed them out, and after that
everything was much better.

Sometimes I didn't prepare enough food to satisfy hungry men, and I heard about it. Sometimes picnic lunches along
the way got monotonous, and they told me about that.

We had a problem a couple of nights running when, during the duet that Claudia and Tim sang, for some reason Tim got to giggling and couldn't stop and Claudia wept from embarrassment. It took quite a little bit of
doing to get that stopped, believe me.

Most of the things that happened were fun things.

We

had the most fun with Roger. He had never been west of the Mississippi, and as we left the plains of Kansas, and moved into the beauty of Colorado, Roger could hardly drive for ogling. When we would stop at vista points to view the valleys below us, Roger wanted to how how much farther up we would go before we started down again. He wasn't sure he wanted to go all the way. In Colorado Springs, we took off a few days and toured

the sights. We decided to drive up Pike's Peak! Anyone

familiar with it's narrow road, with it's tight curves and switchbacks, will understand why Roger stopped half-way up, and had to be persuaded to go the rest of the way. Once we were on top, he was glad he did, and after driving down, the rest of the trip held no more terrors for him. He
viewed every new thing with awe and wonderment.
his eyes.

It was a

special joy for us to view all the sights afresh through We spent one week in a Christian service camp in Montana in an area that was almost virgin territory. It had not been touched by commercialism and no summer homes were built around its edges. Moose came right down to the water's edge to drink, and other wildlife, unusual to us, were everywhere. We ate bear and deer and antelope meat but didn't know it until after we had digested it. It was time of relaxation and rest for us.

^34

A FAMILY AFFAIR

We visited the Children's Home in Boise, Idaho and then went

on to give our program at Caldwell. I mention Caldwell because

it was to become a familiar town to us, and would be called

home for several years by Judi. But that is farther along in the story, and at this time in 1961, it was just another friendly town with a body of God's people who were willing to
listen to our story of missions. We went on into California and spent some time visiting Harrold's mother in Campbell, and we put on our program
at her church in Los Gatos. Los Gatos is another town to remember because it, too, would become more familiar,

and be home for the Kelleys for two years. When we reached Southern California, we parked our

trailers and pitched our tent in the church yard at Huntington

Beach. From there we made all our dates in the south. We also had time to visit friends, go to Disneyland, and spend a

day at the beach.

Chuck and Carol went to a Dodger's game

while the rest of us scattered to whatever interested us.

We had our first bad experience on the Sunday night when we presented the program at First Christian Church in Long
Beach. We had a theft. We had changed into our costumes in the downstairs restrooms. We five girls had brought hangars with which to hang up our dresses during the

program and they were hanging all over the room. After the program we went down to change back into our dresses, and every dress was there, except Ann's. It was not anywhere.
The church leaders were very upset, but we were told that this was not the first time that something similar had happened. Apparently, with the building open, someone slipped in from the outside during the program to use the restrooms, and was tempted by the hanging clothes. They
either took the dress that fit them or the one that was most

attractive to them.

I felt sorry for Ann,

It was an

especially pretty dress and it was new. We had given it to her for her recent birthday which we had celebrated on the trip. This was only the second time she had worn it. At the end of the trip, we replaced it with a fall suit that she could make good use of in the evangelistic work which they were entering. But the incident left a bitter taste in our
mouths.

Up to this point, we had not had much of a heat problem. None of our vehicles were air conditioned, so we hoped for the best but knew quite well that we faced some uncomfortable

"Singing Victory" 1961

135

days as we left California and turned toward home. The day we left California for Yuma, Arizona was overcast,
so it wasn't too bad, but when we reached Yuma, the heat

hit us like a physical blow, Carson was cutting teeth and had not been sleeping well, and on this day was running a
temperature. One of the families in the Yuma church

offered their air-conditioned home to the Kelleys so they could get a good night's sleep and possibly correct whatever was bothering the baby. The rest of us endured a pretty hot night in our trailers. If the Kelley's had had to stay in the tent, I don't think they could have stood it. We were very grateful
to such kind, thoughtfiil Christians, to realize their need. The next day was a very hot drive to Phoenix where we arrived in time to do some laundry. We also suffered our second theft here, and this time it hit me. We had parked outside the church building to set up our equipment before going to the minister's house for supper. When we came out to leave, my knitting bag was gone from the car. I had been knitting a sweater for Claudia along the way and was on the last sleeve. I had begun it before we left Joliet
and the finished back I had left at home. I don't think I

would have felt so badly if the whole sweater had been in the stolen bag. Then whoever got it would have had a whole garment to put together and use or sell, but as it was, all they could do with what they stole was unravel it and make something else, and 1 had one small part at home that was not of much use. The few times that something like this has happened to me, I feel more hurt than angry, as if it were
some personal act against me. From Phoenix we drove north to blissfully cool Grand

Canyon. There we spent two or three days enjoying the sights and camping. We enjoyed singing around the fire at night and telling "ghost stories. " Harrold promised me we woxild come back some day and ride the donkeys downinto the canyon, but we haven't managed it yet. After the Grand Canyon, we visited the petrified forest
and then started across New Mexico. We had a date at

Grants, and then were to go on to Albuquerque. The day was hot on the plains, but in the mountains there were black clouds, lightening and thunder and rain and gusty winds. There was a bad stretch of Highway 66 from Grants to Albuquerque: narrow, two lanes, one each way, with no shoulders, just ditches straight down on each side. It had

136

A FAMILY AFFAIR

a bad reputation for accidents, we learned later. There was quite a bit of traffic on the road that day. There had
been an Indian festival back in Gallup, and truckloads of Indians were returning to their homes. This, plus the usual
summer traffic on the road. We were traveling with the

Kelleys leading in their van, next was the Gibson car and
trailer with Ann at the wheel, taking her turn at driving,
with Claudia and Jon in the back seat. We were the rear

guard with our trailer. Tim and Judi were riding with us. we were not in a hurry; there was no feeling of pressure of
not getting somewhere on time. All of a sudden, we saw the right back wheel of the trailer ahead of us go off the road into the sand. "Hold it, Ann, "
Harrold exclaimed. For a second it looked like she would;

then, mesmerized, we watched the trailer slide sideways down into the ditch, pulling the car after it. It rolled over

on it's side, bounced upright and came apart as if it were a cracker box. Thank God, the car was heavy enough not
to be pulled over with it. Beside me Harrold had cried, "There it all goes! !"

At that point, fortunately, there was a wide though deep ditch, and Harrold guided our car and trailer into it
behind them. We dashed over to those in the car. Ann was

weeping in the arms of Roger, and he was trying to reassure her that nothing terrible had happened. Claudia was near hysteria and Judi gathered her up to comfort her. Jon just got out and stared at the things spilling out of the crumbled trailer. The sporadic wind was already blowing
articles away. After we determined that no one was hurt, we began to assess what needed to be done. Some people stopped to

help, but it was so dangerous to stop that we just asked them to notify the police and a wrecker. There were enough
of us to handle the situation.

After a little bit, the Kelleys realized that we were not behind them, and finding a place to turn around, soon were back to discover what had happened. Chuck always carried tools for every emergency, so while we gathered clothes and other possessions and piled them into our trailer. Chuck was taking apart and loosening the ruined trailer and salvaging anything that might be usable later. He saved the mattresses, the table, mirrors, lights, the stove and the heater. When he was through, there was only the crushed shell.

"Singing Victory" 1961

1^

So when the wrecker came, all he did was finish

smashing the shell down on the bed, tie it down and he was

ready to leave.

He was willing to take the still sturdy

trailer bed with its' four good wheels and tires in exchange for the towing charges. He really got the better of that deal, but at that point we didn't care. We also didn't worry
then about how the insurance company would take that little transaction. It was a strange feeling to see that poor little squashed trailer being towed away. What a sad ending. By the time we got all our belongings either into our
trailer or into Kelley's van, and the formalities with the

police were taken care of, we knew we were going to be late at Albuquerque, not for the program perhaps, but certainly for the supper they had planned for us. The police stopped traffic while we got back on the highway, and as soon as we could we called the church in Albuquerque, told them what had happened and about how long it might be before
we arrived.

The wonderful people in Albuquerque sent men from the church to stand on a street corner to intercept us and direct us to the church. They didn't want us wasting more time getting lost in their city. They allowed us to dump our
jumbled mess out of the trailer and van into a corner of

the church basement for sorting later. We found bur costumes, music, etc., and dressed and presented our program to a full church house and a waiting people. They were very receptive and especially sympathetic to Ann, who had difficulty singing after her experience of the afternoon. We were fed, taken into loving homes, and given a chance to rest. Then, we had a family conference to decide how to proceed. The accident had happened on a Sunday afternoon, and our date on Monday night was in Booker, Texas. We knew that there was no way we all could make that date. So,

it was decided that the Kelleys and Jon would go on to Booker and present a modified program. We had a set of slides of the work of Mission Services which they could show. Carol and Judi could sing, and Chuck could present some of the informational material in the pageant. So they left Monday morning to keep the date in Booker, planning to meet
us the next day in Oklahoma City.

Ann and I sorted and washed our clothes, packed every thing in boxes and loaded both cards and remaining trailer. It took the better part of the day. I've forgotten whether

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A FAMILY AFFAIR

we started out that night or got an early start in the morning,

but in any event we rejoined the Kelley's Tuesday evening in

Oklahoma City at the home of Harry Poll, and were not late
for that program.

The rest of the trip

included meeting old friends in

Joplin, Missouri; spending another week in a camp near Kansas City; being in Mexico, Missouri; and Springfield, Illinois, and ending with a program in Harvey, Illinois. That night, as we prepared to put on the program for the last time, everyone felt a little sad. In spite of, or maybe because of, all our problems and experiences, we hated to see the last performance and the trip itself end. Once home, unpacked, washed and reassembled, I had
time to realize how very fortunate we were for so many

to be traveling together to have had so little sickness and

to be back safe and sound. I was even more thankful to God as I reflected on the trip than I had been as we

traveled along the way: thankful for His loving watch-care over us, for the family togetherness we had had, for the opportunities we had had for witnessing to His greatness. Before the Kelleys and Judi went back to Lincoln for

the opening of college, and the Gibsons left for their first evangelistic meeting, Harrold called them all together
and shared with them the money from the tour left over

after all expenses were paid. They had given two months
of their summer in which they could have made some money

some other way, so we were grateful to God for the amount

of money we were able to give them. They were surprised

at the amount and thankful, because each of them had .

financial responsibilities to be met in the near future. Roger remarked that he felt almost guilty taking the money because he felt that he had gained so much from the tour in other ways that taking money cheapened it. They
all seemed to feel that way.
be so blessed.

Harrold and 1 were thankful

that they did and that the whole adventure had turned out to
Some weeks later, Roger and Ann came back between

meetings and as they came to the door, Roger called out, "Hey, how about another trip! We're ready to go again!"
I booed him, but I was happy for his sentiments.

The missionary convention was in Indianapolis, Indiana

that year, so it was close enough that we all at Mission

"Singing Victory" 1961

139

Services had the opportunity to attend a little or a lot depending on our work load. We could attend just for a day if that was the way it worked out for us. So, none of us missed out entirely. Some of the workers had
never been able to attend a convention before, so it was

a real learning experience for them. They all came back fired up with enthusiasm and a realization of the value of the work that they were doing.

That fall Harrold was asked again to help in the formation of a new congregation, this time at Wilmington, a neighboring town. Several Christian families lived in Wilmington, but were driving 16 miles to Joliet to church. As they explored the idea of beginning a congregation in Wilmington, they discovered there were more of them than they had thought.
They approached Harrold for direction and the First

Christian Church of Joliet gave them spiritual backing,

several families, and some financial help. Harrold agreed
to serve them in the same manner that he had served the

Harvey church, and a new congregation was quickly formed. By the end of the year, 50 people were worshiping regularly with a full program of Bible school and church Since churches usually don't have evangelistic meetings during December, Ann and Roger were free early in the month so they could come home to rest and visit. We decided

that this was the year for the whole family to make the trip
to Minnesota for Christmas. The Kelleys were willing, and
Judi came home they would make the trip from Lincoln.

when college closed for the holidays, so she could go with

us. Roger and Ann would drive also because they would

go on from Minnesota, and visit his folks in Michigan for

New Year's.

There had been a heavy snow storm the night before we left, and it hadn't completely abated when we started out in the morning. I was full of apprehension because two years before I had driven up in a similar snow storm, and had had a minor accident and ended up in the ditch. No one was hurt and we eventually did get to my mother's home but the memory of that tense trip was still with me. This year the weather got progressively better as we traveled north, and we reached our destination without any

problems at all. Some of us stayed in my mother's apartment in St. Paul; the rest of the family stayed with my brother's

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A FAMILY AFFAIR

family in White Bear Lake in the large home that had been
my parents before my father died.
I look back on that Christmas as being the peak of family

togetherness.

Although we didn't know it at the time, this

was the last time all the members of my brother's family and all the members of my family and my mother were together. In the next 12 months, members of the family began to

scatter so widely over the country that it never happened

again. I think it would take something of a miracle for it to happen again. At this writing, there are 41 members of both my brother's and my family including my mother. They
are widely scattered and of diverse interests. My mother is still alive, but my brother died in 1969.
It was a beautiful Christmas together. The children had a wonderful time playing together and the adults relaxed and

enjoyed the children and each other. We had bought Carson a small, sturdy toy piano and he banged away on it like a

pro. We hoped it might be a prelude to something musical

for him, and it was. It was a noisy, rather crowded time

as family Christmases usually are, but the noise was joyful, and the spirit was love. Time has brought about the
separation, but the family tie is still love.

CHAPTER

18

A HARD DECISION; A SECOND GRANDCHILD 1962

First Christian Church of Joliet had planned an evangelistic

meeting in January of 1962., A bit unusual but that was when they could get the evangelist they wanted, George Stansberry.
Ann and Roger were to be song evangelists. They usually had a youth program going in conjunction with the main meeting, and Roger used the yo-yo, at which he was very proficient, as interest and illustration. It was a two-weeks meeting which we enjoyed very much. Ann and Roger were around for another two weeks much to our pleasure, and I played the organ for the meetings. So, I got to play with Ann, who was at the piano, and I got to accompany their solos and duets. That was fun for me. I can count the times on my fingers that we have heard either one of them sing since then. The meeting ended with a big church fellowship. Each woman was to bring a flat cake, and they were all put

together in a large cross, then frosted, and served at the

closing meeting. I was busy as usual trying to meet a printing deadline at Mission Services, so I quickly put together a box Ccike. Ann very carefully baked her cake from "scratch" and her's was higher, better looking and better tasting than mine. I was amused and a little embarrassed. It was good for her ego and I don't think it hurt mine one bit. Every since then she has been better than I in anything she has set her mind to do. In fact, all my girls are better at the things they do than I was at their age and I couldn't be more proud! Shortly after that Ann and Roger left to begin a busy
schedule and Harrold and I took off for a trip down into

Georgia and Florida. We had both been invited to speak at a missionary rally in Savannah, Georgia, and then we made
dates down into Florida and back through Carrollton Georgia,

Kingsport, Tennessee and on home. It really was an enjoy able trip because I saw country I had never seen before and
met many friends from the past plus many new friends I knew only through correspondence in my work at the
Mission.

I recall very vividly that it rained all the time until we got into Florida and then rained every day until we got back in the freezing winter weather of Indiana and Illinois.

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A FAMILY AFFAIR

In addition, the change in temperature and dampness, I guess, put me in a condition to catch a severe cold. I was

really sick and feverish for a couple of days, and then so

miserable for several more. Somehow I worked the cold

in between the times I was scheduled to speak, so the

purpose of the trip came out well and at the end I could say that I had enjoyed and profited by the trip. After our family "Singing Victory" trip to California the previous summer, I learned something that was to change the course of the rest of our lives. At the time, I
didn't take it seriously, and I didn't think that Harrold did either. I put it out of my mind with all the events of the winter and didn't think about it again until what happened at the annual meeting of Mission Services in February made me wonder what was going on in Harrold's mind. On that summer trip, first, Tom Overton, minister at Huntington Beach and a board member of the Churches of Christ Building and Loan Fund, Inc. , asked Harrold if he would consider directing the Fund in a money-raising campaign; then, Kenneth Stewart, president of Pacific Christian College, asked Harrold if he would consider teaching at the college part-time with the plan to work into a fulltime position and build a full missionary department in the college curriculum. Both offers were a complete surprise to Harrold and I thought he had dismissed them as wild ideas. To me they were impossible, and as I said before, I put them out of my mind. In February at the annual meeting Harrold requested
that he be relieved of the administrative duties as director,

and suggested that Bill McGilvrey be made director. That didn't surprise me. Harrold had been grooming Bill to be director for several years. Bill was pretty much desk
bound; it was difficult for him to travelnot that he didn't

but Harrold traveled so very much of the time. As the work of the Mission became heavier and heavier, it really needed the director on the job all the time. At first Bill seemed reluctant to accept the idea but by now he seemed at least resigned to it.
Harrold's words to the board were that he would have

more time for development of Horizons, and "other"

ministries. It was the other ministries that gave me pause. It could have been such things as his three to five-day lecturing he was doing at the colleges over the country,

A Hard Decision; A Second Grandchild 1962

1^

but there was a niggling at the back of my mind that I didn't altogether shake. However, again I put it out of my mind
as preposterous.

Then Harrold accepted the Loan Fund request to set up and develop a money-raising program that he could administer part-time. Since they could only afford to pay him part-time, they thought this might work. Harrold would spend some part
of each six weeks in California, the rest of the time at Mission

Services, or traveling for the Mission. In April we drove a car out to California so he would have transportation when he was there. We went in time to attend the college Gospel and Missionary Conference. Harrold was also scheduled to give a series of missionary lectures at the college after the conference through the first day of May. In-between he would have time to meet with the building and loan people and work out the details of how they would operate. So the plan was for me to drive to California with him and then after the conference, I would fly home and he would remain for the business and the lectures. I thought that this was not to be any kind of permanent job, just a short thing, perhaps as long as a year or two. However, once in California, Harrold had several personal conferences with Kenneth Stewart unbeknownst to me. Finally, on almost my last day there, we were driving along the street

going back to Long Beach from somewhere when I finally

blurted out, "You are not really seriously considering moving the family from Joliet to California, are you? " Put to him bluntly like that, he answered bluntly, "Yes, I am seriously thinking about it. ! " Alarmed, I reacted rather violently. "Oh no! That's too big and drastic a move to even think about!" He just said, "Well, I haven't reached a decision, yet, just thinking about it. " I didn't say anymore. I got on the plane and went home. I didn't say anything to anyone, I refused to believe that anything serious would

come of it. Again I put it out of my mind. Then one morning shortly before I expected him home, I
received a letter. In it, Harrold wrote that he had decided

to accept the opportunity to develop a missions department

at Pacific Christian College; to gradually turn the. yvork of
Mission Services over to other hands, and to turn to teaching

as his next step in missionary education. "If Mission Services is to live beyond our liftime, it is time to turn it over
to others, " he said.

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A FAMILY AFFAIR

We would move to California a year from this time, he added, when Jon had graduated from high school. Meanwhile
Harrold would shuttle back and forth between jobs. I could not believe what I was reading. It was a good

thing I was alone because I burst into tears really letting out my dismay, fear, anger, and other emotions I couldn't put a label on that I had been pushing down and throttling for
weeks. How could he do such a thing! I was so sure that as

long as there was Mission Services, there was us; and as long as Mission Services was in Joliet, so were we in Joliet.
I didn't want to move to California. I didn't want to leave

Joliet: the church there, my work at the Mission.

I didn't

want anything to change; it was changing enough as far as the

children were concerned already. After the storm of emotion had past and I could think

rationally again, I asked myself why I was so overwhelmingly upset now when in the past I had accepted and adjusted to each change. Two obvious things came to mind first. We
had never lived as long anywhere as we had lived in Joliet, and we had never committed ourselves to any task as

completely and deeply as we had to Mission Services. Plus

the fact that I was older. Some things become easier as

one gets older, but not adjusting to change. However, in in my heart I knew that these two reasons, while valid,
were not the real reason I was having such an emotional upheaval. After prayer and some honest soul-searching, I came to

realize that what was really happening to me was that I felt my basis of security was being pvdled out from under me like a rug. My security had rested in Mission Services, my
home, and First Christian Church of Joliet. It did not rest

in Harrold because he was gone so much of the time. All I did for the Mission, and for the local congregation, I felt was

basically for Christ and His commission to spread the Gospel

around the world. I suddenly realized that my security was not m Christ but in the things I was doing for Christ. In my hurried, busy life, happy as I was, I had gotten all mixed

up and had made the doing more important than the being.
If Christ was really my security, then whatever path serving
Him took, I should feel no fear or reluctance.

I can't say that that revelation immediately changed my attitude. It took prayer and time, but the change dates
from that time when I realized what a mixed up kid I was.

A Hard Decision; A Second Grandchild 1962

1^

I was calm and cheerful by the time the children came

home from school. When I told them the content of their

father's letter, they were a little unbelieving, too.

Jon was

relieved to know that we did not intend to move until after

he graduated from high school. After that he would be going to college and it didn't make too much difference to him where the family lived. He did express chagrin that it was to Long Beach we were moving. Some time ago he had stated that he had no intention of attending Lincoln where his three older sisters were attending and getting such good grades; why, even one of them graduated summa cum laude! No sir, he wasn't going to follow them and have the teachers expect the same from him! After visiting Pacific Christian College the year before on our family trip, he had decided that was where he was going to go. Now, to have his family move there, too, and maybe have his father one of his teachers, was not quite what he had planned. I reminded
him that at least he would not have the records of his sisters

to compete with.

He would have to make his own records.

Claudia and Tim were half excited at the idea and half

apprehensive. Their life in Joliet was the only life they remembered, and they had many friends. Moving in the sxmimer of 1963 would be a good time for Claudia, though, because she would be going into junior high, and would be changing schools and systems, anyway. Tim would be entering fifth grade when we reached California. School to Tim was still a place he went because he had to, so where he went made very little difference. I think the fact that

the actual moving was a year away took the edge off any adverse feelings the children had. We had a year to get used
to the idea.

So, by the time Harrold came home, he found a family fairly well-adjusted to the plan, and willing, even eager, to hear more details and to talk over ways and means. Generally speaking, Harrold would spend two weeks in California and two weeks in Joliet. Some events might
necessitate a longer period one place or the other, but for

the most part it would be that way.

back and forth.

Harrold would fly

We would have a year to hand over our

responsibilities at the Mission and local church to someone

else in as smooth a manner as possible.

The most difficult time I had was when, in July, I spent the usual time with my mother in Minnesota. When I finally

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A FAMILY AFFAIR

got up the courage to tell her, she leaned on the table, and
said, "You mean that this is the last summer you will be coming and visiting like this, and I will be seeing you even less than I do now. " It was a statement rather than a question.

Funny thing about change, it is kind of like a pebble dropped in a pool of water and the ripples get wider and wider. Change had already begun gently with two of our children getting married and beginning to live lives of their own. Now our moving seemed to precipitate other changes. Soon after we did move, my mother had to sell the summer cottage where we all stayed when we visited

those Julys.

Then, because of financial reverses, she had

to move in with my brother for a couple of years. So there would have been no room for us to visit in any July had we stayed on in Joliet and lived as in previous years. Yes, change was the order of that year. Chuck Kelley finished his work at Lincoln and accepted a ministry of
Christian Education in Los Gatos, California. Before I

had even gotten used to the idea, they were packed and on their way. Harrold's mother was overjoyed to have her grandchildren minister in her congregation and so thrilled to have them close by. But, my one and only grandbaby was gone and would be growing up without me watching and without knowing me and his grandpa! I was beginning to feel like my mother; things were happening too fast! Actually, we were happy for Carol and Chuck's opportunity to serve and glad it brought joy to Harrold's mother. There are always mixed feeling in all comings and goings. There were to be more changes. Judi decided that she
would transfer from Lincoln to San Jose Bible College. She

had been talking of transfering for several months. Now, with the Kelleys moving to near San Jose, that solidified
her decision and she sent off her application and arranged
for her transfer from Lincoln. So this was the last summer

I would have Judi home I thought.

Changes thjat spring were not over yet. Ann and Roger informed us that we would be grandparents again around the first of the year. That made us very happy and glad that we
would still be around for the event. Roger and Ann had no

dates for evangelistic meetings during the summer months,

so in June they moved to an apartment in Wilmington, Illinois, and took over the leadership of the church that Harrold had been working with since the past fall. Having

A Hard Decision; A Second Grandchild 1962

147

worked with Harrold in Harvey, Roger had some experience with new church situations and would give concentrated help and direction for three months, with the hope that the church would be ready for fulltime ministry in the fall. This would also give Ann a chance to get established with a doctor, and her body a chance to adjust before they began

traveling again in the fall.

It also gave me a chance to keep

an eye on her. During the summer, as usual, I worked on the monthly

missionary study packets for the coming year. This year we decided to add a junior section, stories especially for
children. It had been suggested by a user who found it difficult to adapt most of the adult material to a child's level. From the later response, it seemed to be a welcome
addition, at least to those who used it. It meant an added

request to the missionaries, of course, and we didn't

always get the response we hoped for, but there was enough
response to make it worth while.

At the end of August, Harrold had been home just a

week this time when he and Judi and Bill White left to

drive to California over the Labor Day weekend. He had arranged to drive a new car to the Coast for sale out

there.

In that way, Judi would be delivered to college in

San Jose, and Harrold to Long Beach as inexpensively as

possible. Bill White, too, would benefit from that means. He was also entering San Jose Bible College, Judi had met

Bill in 1957 at Wi-Ne-Ma Camp in Oregon and had corres ponded with him off an on through the years, including the
time he spent in the army in Germany. At this time, he

had just arrived back from Germany, coming in to Chicago and visiting and staying with us for a few days. They left after supper on Friday night planning to drive straight through, taking turns driving and stopping only for gas and to eat. I wasn't happy about their traveling over Labor Day weekend. They called me once along the way to say that all was well and they had had no problems. Then Harrold called when he had reached Long Beach by Monday night. Unbelievable, but that is what they did. So I was left with three children and myself. I wouldn't see Harrold again until after the Missionary convention in
Denver September 25-28. There was no idle time, however,

because school began for the children, the fall program at

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A FAMILY AFFAIR

the church was in full swing, and the work at the Mission was bigger than ever.

Roger and Ann left Wilmington to begin their fall

schedule of meetings, and the church called Merl Beagle from Washington state as their minister. He had come to

take graduate work at Lincoln Christian Seminary. He stayed with the church five years and guided them in building.
The executive board of the Mission received two jolts

that fall when they met in October.

Flora Maye Guernsey

We were really

resigned to accept a call to serve as Office Editor of

Christian Standard in Cincinnati, Ohio.

happy for her to have this opportunity for advancement and

use of her abilities, but she was such a capable member of our force that she left an almost impossible place to fill. She left to begin at Standard on November 19th.
Then Harrpld's announcement that we would be moving to California in June of 1963 was also a shock. They

accepted it since it was presented as an accomplished fact. The topic discussed was how the work would be managed. Harrold and I would both continue our editorial
work from California, he with Horizons, and I with the

study packets. We would establish a kind of branch of

Mission Services in Long Beach. There were many other
details talked about; there were others that would be

worked out only in the doing. One idea was always there,

though, and that was that eventually someone would be

found, either already trained or one whom Harrold could train, to take over the editorship of Horizons. The problem

was finding someone who had the editorial training, the missionary background and the desire. That was a combin
ation that proved to be very hard to find. We had other changes in Mission personnel that year

also. Ralph Michael and family left to return to a preaching

ministry, and Melvin Piper came as another pressman.
Then, in November, the Dean Smith family moved into the

apartment vacated by the Michaels. Anne Smith joined me in the C. O. M. E. Department and Dean went to work in the

press room and was in charge of maintenance. In December,

Margaret Cook joined the staff to work in the editorial

department, picking up some of the duties of Flora Maye. It didn't happen all at once, so the work moved along smoothly
while all of these changes were taking place. In November, shortly before Thanksgiving, Ann came

A Hard Decision; A Second Grandchild 1962

149

home to us to stay until after the baby was born. The doctor felt that she shouldn't travel after that time. Roger had one
more meeting date to fulfill, and then he too would remain

in Joliet until both mother and baby were able to travel again. Since first babies are especially noted for being
unpredictable, we had made no plans to go to Minnesota for Christmas. We planned to have a nice Christmas at home. In California the Kelleys and Judi would celebrate Christmas with Harrold's mother and his brother's family so we knew that they would have a good time together. My mother was disappointed in not seeing us but understood, and she elected

to' stay in Minnesota with my brother's family,

Harrold came in from California on December 14. On

the way home from the airport, we went shopping together,

and when we arrived home, we took the children out with us

to help select the Christmas tree.

We tried to make a big

thing out of everything we did that Christmas, somehow

feeling that it was the closing of an era. Ann had been saying for several weeks that she was going to have her baby on Christmas day. I kept telling her "No, any day before or after, but not on Christmas day itself. " Her actual due date, according to calculations, was a week later, January 1. But, six o'clock Christmas morning, Roger knocked on our bedroom door and said they were leaving for the hospital having already called the doctor.
Poor Ann was in labor all Christmas day. And Roger

walked the halls of the hospital without a decent meal all day, and we kept anxiously awaiting news all day. The baby finally arrived at six o'clock that evening. Thais Lynnette Gibson was born on Christmas day just as her mother had
predicted, weighing in at just six poimds. She was so tiny compared to my babies, but she was healthy and strong and pretty.
Of course, we had to call California and Minnesota and

let everybody know we had a Christmas baby. She had even been Christmas-wrapped with a big red bow when she was first brought to her mother. A tired Roger came home for something to eat, and we all relaxed. It had been quite a Christmas, 1962.
Ann did not recover from the birth like she should have.

About a week after she came home from the hospital, she began to rim fevers in the evening. Her temperature would be almost normal in the morning and then go up by night.

A FAMILY AFFAIR

After her obstetrician determined there was no problem

from the birth of the baby, we called in a family doctor. He

immediately put her in the hospital, and blood tests showed that she was suffering from infectious hepatitus. Somewhere
in their travels she had come in contact with it, and it had

been incubating since before the baby was born. So Ann

spent a frustrating week in isolation in the hospital while I

cared for the baby.

Little Thais had to be put on the bottle and be given a

gamma globulin shot to protect her against whatever she might have picked up from Ann, Although I cared for the
baby during the day, Roger got up during the night to give her her night feedings. On the one Sunday that Ann was in the hospital, Roger took the baby with him when he went to a neighboring town to church instead of having me take the baby with me. It was his baby and he was going to see to
her care as much as he could.
them to help.

Claudia went along with

When Ann came home from the hospital, bed rest was the doctor's orders. Shte would lie in bed, and watch me bathe Thais, and say, "Baby, that's not your mother; you mother is over here. "

Her frustration and yearning was understandable, and

we kept the baby as much in her presence as possible.

After three weeks, the doctor said that Ann could travel

so Roger gathered his little family together and took them to Michigan to his parents where Ann would finish her
convalescence. As soon as she was able and the doctor

gave his O. K. , she and Thais again joined Roger in his evangelistic meetings. She had to have periodic blood
tests, and more rest than usual, but by the time we were

ready to move to Californis, she was pronounced well.

CHAPTER 19 THE MOVE WEST 1963

At the March, 1963 annual meeting of Mission Services, the whole advisory board was told of our impending move to
California, but no announcement in Horizons was to be made

yet.

Bill McGilvrey was returned as Director of the work,

and Harrold and I were retained as editors of our respective publications. The work of the Mission was in good shape generally, but funds were shorter so far in 1963 than they had been in 1962. The board authorized a second mid-year financial appeal in addition to the October-November appeal for the renewal of subscriptions to Horizons. This was to be an appeal for Mission Services to be put in the missionary budgets of the churches, rather than for one-time gifts,
though these were welcomed also. As spring approached and we had to give more attention to the mechanics of moving, Roger and Ann bought a mobile

home and moved the base of their operations to Springfield, Illinois, We made the announcement in Horizons and gave the address of West Side Christian Church as the place to
contact them for evangelistic meetings. In April, right after Easter, I drove with Harrold to

California. We drove a Volkswagen van which we packed full of the first load of our personal belongings. Harrold was living in one of the college apartments in Long Beach so had this space in which to store things. We packed and took with us as many of the "extra's" as we couldextra
linens, extra dishes, etc. Again we went out in time to attend the alumni-sponsored missionary rally at the college, but I principally went out to help Harrold look for a place to live. During the rally, Harrold was given the "Alumnus of the Year Award"the first Pacific Bible Seminary graduate
to be so honored.

During the two weeks we were in California, we bought a ranch-style house in Stanton, Orange County, a short distance from Long Beach. It would mean a little driving, but was not more than 20 minutes from the college to our house. We called home to tell the family we had found us a house, and the first question that Claudia asked was "Does
it have a nice kitchen? " The kitchen in the house in Joliet

was rather inadequate and she had been learning to cook.

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A FAMILY AFFAIR

We took lots of pictures of the inside and outside of the

house to take back to Joliet for everyone to see. We attended some end-of-the-year college functions, then flew back to Joliet for the monumental job of packing our ten-year accumulation of belongings and moving them clear across the country. We had never lived that long in any one place before, and it was not a job I looked forward to in any way. First, one very important event was to take place before our trek across country began. Jon was to graduate from high school. Harrold's mother came from northern California and my mother came from Minnesota. They really came to see Jon graduate, but they also came to stay a week and help me pack to move. The packing was a three-ring circus! Some of our furniture was given away, some we sold, some we were taking with us. We had been married long enough and had children enough that much of our furniture was not worth the long trip to California. We decided to move only the most recent, most valuable, and most sentimental' of our pieces. So that meant things were going three ways and 1 seemed to spend most of my time telling one mother or the other what items went in which direction. I was busy with Mission work up to the very last minute, so I did very little packing myself. In fact, I was still packing boxes while Jon and Harrold were loading
the truck. The confusion in my mind was beyond description. Graduation was set for Friday night and it had always been
held at the football stadium. A fierce summer storm came

up thunder, lightening, torrential rain, with no sign of let-up, so the whole thing was postponed until Sunday afternoon. Sunday was a beautiful day but very hot. The graduation ceremonies came off smoothly. Harrold was on the program with the closing prayer. The school had a policy of using the ministerial fathers of graduates, so each time one of ours graduated, Harrold was able to be a part of the ceremonies. We had a family graduation party for Jon that evening. Monday noon we said good-by to Harrold's mother as she boarded the train heading west. Later in the afternoon my mother boarded the training heading north. It was hard to say good-by to her because there was no way of knowing when I wovild see her again. I know she had a difficult time with the parting, too.

The Move West 1963

153

We had supper with the Mission family at the big house, but it was after eight o'clock in the evening, with the Mission family standing around to wish us "Godspeed, "
that we finally finished our farewells, and our caravan pulled out of the yard.

We had really been a family at the Mission, even though, as we grew in number, we had spread out into other places and houses. We had Thanksgiving dinners together and Christmas parties every year. We had monthly fellowships and picnics just to enjoy one another. Business was talked over as we prayed together in weekly staff meetings. We even put together a play about one day's activities at the Mission and put it on in nearby churches. I remember one Thanksgiving dinner when I looked up and down the long table where between 25 and 30 people were eating, laughing and talking. 1 turned to Harrold and repeated the words my father had said at one of our family dinners, "Did we
start all this? "

The Mission would go on as a family, we hoped, but now we woxild no longer be close members of the family, but family members who had moved far away. It was not easy to say good-by to everything and everyone that I had
grown to love so dearly in the ten years we had lived in Joliet. For years 1 was to hold up First Christian Church in Joliet as a shining example of how things ought to be: good missionary program, elders who really "eld, " etc. But there was a growing excitement in all of us for the new adventures and new life ahead of us. We expected nothing but good and lots of opportunities to work and serve. I said we were a caravan on a trip, and indeed we were.

Harrold drove the truck which we had bought from one of

the men in the church, and Tim rode most of the time with

him. Jon drove his heavy, 10-year-old Cadillac, and pulled the first 14-foot trailer the Mission had bought. The Mission had signed the ownership slip over to us personally. The poor little trailer had seen many miles of use and would not be road-worthy much longer, but we were going to live out of it on this move. After arriving in California, we pulled the trailer up to the camp grounds of Angeles Crest Christian Camp and retired it for use by us when we were there and by camp personnel at other times. Claudia rode with Jon in the Cadillac. I brought up the rear of the caravan, driving the family car, and Nancy Corbell, who

154

A FAMILY AFFAIR

was going to California to visit her family, rode with me.

The trek Avas vineventful except for one incident.

Somehow we got separated and I got on the part of the highway that took me through a large city while the rest of our entourage took the bypass highway. By the time we got back together, Harrold was pretty worried and upset, but it all came out right and from then on it was just a
matter of covering the miles.

The last night out, we stopped at Needles, California.

It was terribly hot and we were all outdoors trying to get as much cool air as possible before we had to go into the

trailer and go to bed. Jon had wandered off to the top of a nearby hill looking for a breeze, and all of a sudden we heard him singing. It carried out over the night air over all the area. People outdoors stopped still to listen. He sang for perhaps five minutes. It was rather moving. I
never did ask him what was going on in his mind and heart

to prompt it.

Although music like that is shared with

others, what is behind it is usually very private. We arrived in Stanton at our new house by noon

Saturday.

Men from the First Christian Church of

They had

Anaheim were suddenly there to help us unload.

brought all the equipment we needed for that. In an amazingly short time, it was all done and the men had gone
to their homes. The rest of the job was ours. The next

day was Father's Day, and after church we went to Knott's

Berry Farm for a chicken dinner. It was only a mile away. I had a week to get things straightened out before the
North American Christian Convention was to convene in

Long Beach June 26-20.

session.

For once I planned to go to every

We were to put up a

We were expecting the Kelleys to come for the

convention and be with us also.

Mission Services display and Harrold had other responsibilities. We had moved into a neighborhood with lots of children

and young people, and we were very soon a part of it, people dropping in, sharing. Fourth of July block parties, etc. The
children soon had friends all aroxind and it didn't take long
for us to feel at home.

After visiting around that summer, we decided to put our membership in the nearby Westminster First Christian Church. They were small and in need of experienced leadership, and
we felt that we could be better used there. In the three years that we worked with that church, Claudia taught the pre-

The Move West 1963

155

schoolers, I taught the high school class, played the organ

and led the choir. Harrold was an elder and filled in for

an 18-months interim ministry between the ministries of

Fred Niklas and Everett Auger,

Jon led the singing, led the

choir for a while, and brought Bible college students with him to help with the young people. Judi spent the summer with us, working as secretary
to her father. In the fall, Judi went back to San Jose, Jon
entered Pacific Christian College and moved in with two

other students in the college dorm.

really liked his teacher.

Claudia entered junior

high and Tim went into fifth grade, and for the first time
He came home and said, "Oh,

mother, she is so pretty and young. " He really worked for that teacher and made more progress that year than in any
previous year.

Harrold was continuing in his work with The Loan Fund,

and began teaching more classes at the college than last year since he was there all the time. My days were nicely divided with half days at the office working with missionary material and half days being wife and mother, I began
working with the Zelotai (faculty and students' wives'

organization) and enjoying the college fellowship.

I also

found myself in demand as a speaker for women's groups

in the churches. I had been doing quite a bit of that in Illinois since 1954 and I guess my reputation preceded me

or else they automatically though I should be able to speak.

Usually I was asked to speak on missions, but I also was asked to speak for Mother's Day banquets and teas and

other events. Whatever I was asked to do, I always tried to give a missionary flavor or information that would peak
interest in the world-wide mission of the church. The next

year the faculty wives formed a panel and we spoke in a

lot of the churches. My part always had a missionary point to it. So I was having from two to five speaking
engagements a month all year aroxmd, and that continued

until 1970 when I had some health problems, and the doctor
ordered me to slow down.

With all these good things coming our way, all these opportunities to push missions, I felt reassured that moving to California had been the right decision. We foxind that California seemed to be about ten y^ars behind the middle
west in missionary information and zeal, and somehow,

we felt that we were out there to help do something about

that situation.

CHAPTER 20

THE YEARS MARCH ON

In 1965, Harrold began teaching full time, turning the

loan fund work over to Lloyd Cummings. We sold the house in Stanton and bought a lovely old house in Long Beach just five blocks from the college. Harrold bought an off-set printing press, and along with his teaching, began to do printing for the college and for the churches in southern California. Besides teaching mission courses, he was teaching Journalism, and was supervising the school's student paper and yearbook. Back in the fall of 1964, I had taken over managing the bookstore that served the college students. The building that housed Harrold's office, my office, the bookstore and

the printing press belonged to the college. The bookstore was open to the public so I carried many items other than those needed by the Bible college students. However, the majority of my efforts was taken up in ordering textbooks, reminding (sometimes nagging) the professors when it was time to order for each quarter, keeping up with all the needs of each curriculum change. Along with this was the continual work for Mission Services. It was a busy, but happy life. I continued to manage the bookstore until the
summer of 1971.

We moved our membership from the Westminster church to Parkcrest Church of Christ in Long Beach. I planned not to take any responsibilities for at least a year, not to "get involved" since I was so busy elsewhere. However, I found at the end of that year that I felt as much a stranger as I did at the beginning, and I knew that if I was ever going to feel at home in that congregation, I was going to have

to become a part of the working force. Soon afterward, I was teaching an advilt Bible school class, singing in the choir and playing the piano and organ as needed. A few years later, I began teaching a weekday women's Bible study class and sponsoring a young mother's club. Before we left it, 1 was also working with a children's choir.
Harrold served as an elder in the church and one year as chairman of the board. At the end of the year he served as chairman, the church secretary confided that she wished

that there was some way he could continue as chairmctn.

She

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A FAMILY AFFAIR

said that things had never been so well-organized or gone so smoothly. She wished it could continue. Both Harrold and I were on the missionary committee of the church, and worked in promoting the missionary interests of
the congregation.

Early in 1969, Kenneth Stewart resigned from the

presidency of Pacific Christian College because of his

health. A year later he underwent open-heart surgery. By fall when classes began for another year, the school had a new president in residence, Medford Jones. With the change in administration and the leaving of Dean Harold
Ford for Cincinnati Bible Seminary, there was a complete change in curriculxmi and emphasis. The missionary department, along with two or three other departments, was dropped. We were surprised, disappointed, and, yes, hurt. Aside from what it meant for us personally, we felt that it was a mistake for the college. With all the other Bible colleges across the country beefing up their missionary

departments, we felt our alma mater was going in the wrong direction. We loved the college and had gone all out in our
effort to serve Christ through serving her, Harrold left the college at the end of the school year in 1970, and opened the Downtown Neighborhood Center in Long Beach. This was fvuided under the Office on Economic Opportunities of the Federal anti-poverty program. He directed and built the program. This was the other side of the coin for Harrold. He worked with Cuban refugees. Blacks, senior citizens, and poor Whites living in the downtown area. It was interesting, challenging, frustrating work; not without its compensations and it certainly widened our experience and vision of the world without Christ.
In 1971, Mission Services, under the direction of

A1 Hamilton, sold all its properties except the bookstore in Joliet and moved to Tipton County, Indiana near Kempton and Kokomo, forty miles north of Indianapolis. They bought a recently vacated country high school building. It had a basement and three floors with a gymnasium in the basement and an auditorium complete with stage on the second floor.
We were undecided as to the wisdom of such a move, but

we cotild see the fantastic possibilities of the building. It woiild take quite a little fixing up to adapt it to the needs of the Mission, but to have the whole operation under one roof, with the families and staff housed separately, was a major

The Years March On

159

accomplishhient. We had been looking for such a building,

and planning to build such a building in Joliet for a number of years, but had been thwarted at every turn. Harrold and

I in California could see why the staff was willing to attempt

the momumental move of people, possessions, that vast amount of equipment, and relocate. We wished them well, but secretly were glad not to be a part of that. I remembered too well the move from Minnesota to Joliet with only a fourth
or less of what they had in 1971. In 1972, Harrold and I ceased our editorial work for

Mission Services.

Clifford Schaub was director then, and

they began a search for a new editor of Horizons to be

located "on the grounds. " Oleta Moniger, who had been working with me for several years, took over my work in the C. O. M. E. Department, and has been doing a beautiful,
capable job ever since. Richard Bourne came to Mission Services in 1973 as editor of Horizons; and when Clifford

Schaub left in 1975, took over temporarily as director until

the board could find another director. Harrold and I remain

as permanent member of the board, as original incorporatoxs,

along with Bill McGilvrey, of the work. In November of 1974, a group of five Christian families

living in Place rville, California invited Harrold and I to help

them in establishing a Christian church in their town. Placerville is in El Dorado county, the Sierras, and gold
country. There had been no Christian church in the entire

county. After visiting the people and the area, we sold our home in Long Beach, bought a mobile home in Placerville
and moved to northern California.

The church is progressing, has bought land and should have a building up by Christmas 1976. Besides all the work that is involved in building a new congregation, Harrold is liaison for senior citizens of El Dorado county with Sacramento,
and is doing promotional work for Atascadero Christian Home. He works with a local hospital committee, and is vicepresident of the local ministerial association. In the church, I teach an adult class, substitute for the regular church pianist, and work with the women in the

women's fellowship. I am a member of a hospital auxiliary, sing in an inter-church women's group called
"The Good News Singers, " and participate in the inter-church
local Christian Women's Club.

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A FAMILY AFFAIR

We enjoy the history of this area and take time to visit and explore all the historical places of the past. We
usually take all friends and visitors to them, too.

The years roll by; times and circxmistances change.

Nothing remains the same. However, as long as this world

lasts, there will be opportunities to spread the Good News of the Gospel, and people who need to know Christ.
Wherever we are, in whatever circximstances we find

ourselves, God gives us His task to do and power and joy

with which to do it. May we never turn it down.

EPILOGUE

KELLEYS:

Chuck and Carol Kelley, with Carson, moved from

Lios Gatos, California to Anaheim, California to First
Christian Church as Minister of Christian Education in late

1963.

Christine Marie was born in Anaheim in February

of 1964.

In May of 1966, the Kelleys entered Rhodesia as missionaries, serving with the Chidamoyo Mission in the

northern part of the country, 60 miles from the nearest

town, 200 miles from Salisbury, the capital city. Chuck

worked in evangelism and did the building and maintenance work of the mission. Carol taught women's groups and cared for her family. They built their own house and meant
to spend their lives in Rhodesia.

Cheryl Adele was the first white baby to be born in the

Chidamoyo hospital, arriving in September of 1968.

was born in December of 1971.

Curtis

In May of 1972, the family returned to the United States xmexpectedly. Chuck had contracted a bacterial infection
of the sinuses so severe that surgery on all his sinuses

was necessary.

After five operations, tests, much

medication and constant observation, the doctors told him that he could never return to Rhodesia, or any other

country similar to it because his problem was chronic and would require continual check and indefinite medication. In the early spring of 1973, they moved to West Lebanon, Indiana and took over the management and direction of Hanging Rock Christian Assembly which is located a little distance from the town. At this writing, the camp gets their
full attention with the children growing up in the area.
GIBSONS:

With the birth of their second daughter, Heidi, in

Springfield, Illinois in September of 1964, Roger and Ann

decided it was time to settle down from the song evangelism

field which required so much travel. He accepted an associate ministry with Central Christian Church in

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A FAMILY AFFAIR

San Bernardino, California, and they moved there in the spring of 1965. A third daughters, Kara, was born there

in September of 1968, In April of 1969, they accepted an opportunity to work

with a newly formed congregation in Glendale, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. This church had been started by the Arizona Evangelistic Association. The congregation grew and matured under his leadership, bought land and made plans to build. Then came a call from the Green Valley church in San Jose, California, and after investigating and visiting, they moved from Glendale to San Jose in June 1972. The congregation is pushing out the walls of the building. The growth is solid both numerically and spiritually.
BASEYS:

Judi graduated from San Jose Bible College in 1964, and

went to work as church secretary at Central church in

San Jose.

In August of 1965 she married Glen Basey in

Glen had been a

Caldwell, Idaho in Glen's home church.

non-graduating senior at San Jose. Due to the serious illness of Glen's father, they made their home in Caldwell while Glen held an interim ministry in his home church and finished his under graduate work in a nearby Nazarene college at Nampa, Idaho. In 1967, Glen entered Emmanuel School of Religion in Tennessee and began ministering to the Ardmore Church
of Christ in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Michelle

Carol was born there in February of 1969, and SharOfa Lynn was born in April of 1970. In June of 1970, Glen graduated with a Master's Degree in Christian Education and they moved to Long Beach,
California where he was Minister of Christian Education at

First Christian Church for one year.

In the spring of 1971, Glen accepted the position of

Professor of Christian Education at Puget Sound College of the Bible in Seattle, Washington and they moved there during the summer.
Jenine Marie was born in Seattle in December of 1972.
Glen received his doctorate in Christian Education from

San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo in

Epilogue

163

June of 1975.

He continues to head the Christian Education

department of Puget Sound College of the Bible.

McFARLANDS, JON:

In August of 1965, Jon married Mary Aless Elliott at

her home church. Golden West Christian Church in

Los Angeles.
College.

Mary was also a student at Pacific Christian

When Jon graduated from P. C. C. in 1968, they moved

to Lincoln, Illinois where Jon entered Lincoln Christian Seminary. Eric Scott was born to them in Lincoln in February 1972.

Jon graduated from Lincoln Christian Seminary with a Master of Divinity Degree in June of 1972, and they moved to Carson, California to accept the ministry of the Carson
Christian Church.

Jon has entered a doctoral program in New Testament

Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary. In December of 1975, they took into their home for

adoption four-day-old Maria Suzanne.

ministry of the church in Carson.
CHRISTENSEN:

They continue in the

Claudia graduated from high school in 1968, and entered

Pacific Christian College. She worked as secretary to her
father and as assistant to me in the college bookstore. In 1969, she married Jerry Christensen in the Parkcrest

Church of Christ in Long Beach. Jerry was a student at the college. Claudia continued to attend classes and work
for Harrold and I cifter her marriage.

Jerry graduated in 1971, and in August, they moved to Ashland, Oregon where they began a fruitful, youth
ministry.

In May of 1973, Amy Chere arrived from Seoul, Korea to become their first daughter. She was eight months old. In March of 1974, they moved to Clovis, New Mexico where Jerry became Minister of Youth at Central Christian
Church in Clovis.

Chad Joshua was born to them in August of 1974.

Then

in the fall of 1976, Angela Joy came from Korea to join Amy and Chad and complete their family. ,

In November of 1976, they accepted a call to minister

to the new church at Altus, Oklahoma.
McFARLANDS, TIM:

Tim graduated from high school in 1971. He received a scholarship to Control Data Institute and graduated from there
in 1972. He immediately went to work as a computer

programmer for American President Lines in San Pedro,

California. He has had several promotions and raises in

salary, gradually moving up in the company. In February of 1975, he married Julie Keenan from Inglewood, California, Julie is continuing to take classes in a nearby college in child development. They are fully occupied in working with a fairly new congregation in Inglewood; Community Christian Church. Julie works with
the children and Tim works with the coordinating staff, and in the areas of music, teaching and youth.

Adele, Tim and Jxilie

Kelleys; 1974
Christine
Carol Chervl

Carson
Chuck Curtis

Gibsons; 1976
Heidi

Baseys; 1976
Michelle

Roger
Ann

Kara

Judi, Glen, Sharon

J enine

Thais

W"

'

McFarlands: 1977
Jon

Mary
Eric

Maria