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Bank on their lovely home on Wagner in Los Angeles February 5, 1986. It's a Wednesday afternoon and Doctor Black, I wanna go back to uh March 6th or March uh 27 1916. I want you to talk for a moment about uh the family you grew up

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in and your brothers and sisters or uh and what it was like growing up in Memphis, I'm concerned with uh your roots. Was this a church family? Did you go to church a lot? And were your, were some of your early heroes, preachers? And did you

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have a desire to preach from a pretty early age? And if so, who were some of these heroes that made you first think in terms of preaching? Well, my father and mother were not a church family. Uh but my mother, as a girl had heard TB

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Larimore preach and he had made a great impression on her. Uh She was uh living in northern Alabama at the time and he came close to her home and held a series of meetings and she learned enough of the truth even though she didn't obey it

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at that time. When my brother who was 2.5 years younger than I uh when we came along as uh as kids. Um our folks were interested in us finding a Sunday school someplace to go and close to us was the old Harvard Avenue Church of Christ,

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which was the, the parent church before Union Avenue. It was a white frame building. Uh And we started out to Sunday school there. Harvard Avenue was the parent to Union. Yes, it was the church that preceded Union Avenue was Harvard spelled Harrbe RT. It was a

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white frame building. John Allen Hudson was preaching there there. And um uh they had planned to build a new building to move over on Union Avenue and build a new building which is still uh the um the main unit of that church building today at 1930.

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Union. Uh my father was reared in a family, his mother was a primitive Baptist. And if you know anything about primitive Baptist, you know that they don't uh uh meet every Sunday, but they do meet for their association meetings and the foot washing days. And he

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remembers going with her to church uh when they had their foot washing day at the old Catal meeting house, which later became a church of Christ, by the way, interestingly enough, this is still in Memphis. No, this was in the country where he grew up. Oh,

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so uh they, neither one had what you would say an active church relation. But at the same time they had a, uh, a background that was a, that was a church background. His primitive baptist and hers, uh uh, and her memories of the church. Well, as

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he came a long way, we were growing, he, he began to be interested in, in things religious and he decided he'd look around to see if he could find a church like his mother's. So, uh, on Sunday morning, I would go to, to the church of

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Christ Sunday school and then Sunday afternoon, I got to go into the a bypu at a Baptist church about a mile up the road from us. And they took a lot of interest in young people and I have a, a real uh a tender spot in

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my heart for the, for the work that the Baptist did because they, they encouraged me about wanting to, to speak and, and the preacher took a lot of interest. And I remember one night they're letting me tell a Bible story in church. I must not have

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been more than about eight or nine years old at the time. Now you were born in Memphis and the earliest memories of going to church then are this dual arrangement, Harvard Avenue in the morning. Primitive Baptist. No, not a primitive Southern Baptist Southern, excuse me and

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was John Allen Hudson, the preacher from the time you were born in 1916. No, not from the time I was born but I didn't remember him. You know, in the early I didn't get started to go into Sunday school, I guess until after I started going

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to school. Really? He was the preacher there. So, the first preacher you remember is John Ellen. Yes. And how long did he stay until he stayed until after they built the new building and uh in Union Avenue. In fact, my, my father and mother were baptized

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in the first meeting that was held in that building by John Allen. No, yes, by John Allen. But brother Hardiman was doing the preaching and behind me. So we've had a picture that, do you have a picture? Picture of brother Hardiman always hung in our living

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room by the door right there. So Hardman was doing the preaching in the meeting was um did Hudson stay on until your teenage years? No, no, just the, no. Uh he was followed by brother C A Nori. Uh The reason I told about the Baptist thing

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was that, of course, it was the, it was that uh influence that uh he was looking for. And so he'd come out uh he'd bring my mother and they'd come to, they'd attend baptist churches around, you know, they were just looking and my mother said to

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him that before they made a decision she'd like for him to hear gospel preaching. Huh? That's a great story. Boy. What uh is, what is the approximate age of your folks when they were baptized. I mean, your, your approximate age when they were baptized. Do you

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have a memory of it? I guess I was about nine. Excuse me for being here. Well, it's a great name. That's a great story. You were about nine. So, from that point on then the dual, yes, I had a struggle of what I should do and

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of course, to leave a bunch of people, you know, that has been encouraging and it wasn't, uh, it wasn't easy, you know, like Stockdale stories. Well, I'll be through with that in a minute. Excuse me? But I have often said, you know, that if it hadn't

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been to her influx, I don't know whether we've been in the church. It was, your mother was the one and the seeds were planted. My brother and I, but now you, you were not the oldest child? Oh, were you? Oh, you were the oldest? And how

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many total brothers? Two brothers. We had an older sister but she died before I was born several years. So, of course, uh, yes. You know, we, we didn't know her. We only saw the picture and we, we knew where she was buried and so on. But

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she was six months old when she died. So when I was 10. So no sisters after that, just the two brothers. And you were the oldest of the three. Ok. And, um, when I was 10, I, yeah, became a member of the church during the, during

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a meeting that Brother Horace Busby held. Was he the one that baptized you? I don't think so. I think probably better. I think maybe brother n may have, brother president may have, I've forgotten, you know about that. But I knew, I know that was under Brother

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Busby preaching. And was that meeting held at Avenue? So you were baptized at us then? Who is there any other preacher at union before you go off the list? Who comes after the? Oh, yeah, I'd, I'd call that another preacher. Yeah. Well, he was uh he

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was tremendous. He was there about six years and I was going through high school during the year and he was a tremendous boy. This is a who's who your pa uh the roots go back to Hardiman. I, I mean, go back to Larrimore with your mother

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hearing him, Hardimon is preaching at the time. They're baptized John L and Hudson, Norrid Busby and Brewer sort of a who's who so far. My mother's father became the, became a Christian when he was 80. But his brother, uh they were members of the church. And

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so of course, there were influences, I'm sure that came through uh my, on my mother from the fact that uh her first cousins were, were active Christians in North Alabama, but she never came into the church until she came in with my father. Uh Your mother

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was a stronger spiritual influence on you than your father. Although he was always supportive after he became a Christian, he was, he was faithful. And they both were, was, were you encouraged from 10 on to, to think in terms of preaching? I thought about it before

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that first, once you got the floor, you your eyes, I could uh I could learn to like that. Well, I my, I told my class the other day my mother and father, uh, bought, uh, Herbert's store of the Bible. And, uh, my father taught me to

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read before you went to school and, uh, and to write. So I just stayed in the first grade. Three days. J excuse me, is this going on? But you're not gonna d used that. Are you? Except for yourself? My, my emotion, I need to get myself

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straight and I was thinking about it. He said his father taught him to write. But if you've seen any of Frank's writing and then if you had seen his father, you'd never know it. His father the day I used to write like my father. But of

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course, I it was corrupted and the doctor is just scribbling. But he, he wrote a beautiful hand. He went to, he went to writing school and learned to all kinds of fancy writing and so on. And he always, and my youngest brother writes like him to

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the. But you learn to read by reading her the story of the Bible reading. No, I learned to read. I don't know what he used to read, to teach me to read. But after I got to reading then I, they gave me this and I just

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wore it out, you know, I read it, read it, read it and, you know, and, uh, so it was a great thing that happened to me, you know, with those stories. And, uh, so that's, uh, that's, uh of course I thought about before I was too

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taken with the church, you know, with the encouragement the Baptist gave. And I thought about being a Baptist preacher, you know, and then as I began to think about a number of things, finally, you know, made my decision and uh I had that very same mix.

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My, my father was Baptist, my mother, a member of the Church of Christ. And my grandfather, my father's father was a Baptist preacher. And when I made the decision to think in terms of preaching at about the time, I was 16, I suppose he gave me

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quite a number of volumes of his library. He clearly was disappointed that I wasn't going to be a Baptist but was never overly critical. Now, my grandmother was, she was very vocal. She did not like the church of Christ, but my grandfather was a, was a

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tall lanky man and gave his whole life to the Southern Baptist Convention all in northern Northeastern Arkansas. He just that was his circuit his entire life. But he gave me the Isbe the international standard Bible encyclopedia. And I began to wear that out. I had the

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same dichotomy that you're describing. Who uh tell me a little about uh Brewer's impact on you as a preacher. Well, of course, uh he uh particularly on Sunday nights, uh he, he would have uh uh a major sermon on Sunday morning when you had more constriction

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of time. Well, he, he preached all right. But he, he put some of the great doctrinal stuff at night. And if, if you ever remember hearing him, um, he, he really could, he was tremendous as a doctrinal preacher. Um I've often said that a congregation that

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got fed by GC Brewer really got a diet. He, uh he was, uh, he dealt with all kinds of issues, you know, I mean, uh issues that uh had a social consequence and issues that had uh uh community consequence and uh issues with regard to modernism

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and atheism and things of this sort as well. Isn't this an interesting model that, uh when you go back and look at G Campbell Morgan and some of these big English preachers, they preached very short sermons on Sunday mornings, their fame was Morgan's fame was, it

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was, it wasn't a Sunday night. I think it was either a Monday or a Friday night. There was a night during the week when he preached the hour long or hour and a half doctrinal sermon that 3000 people would pack into the Westminster Channel. But on

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Sunday mornings he was much, he was a brother Brewer. She would run 4 to 5 minutes, maybe 50 minutes. So, you know, I mean, at night, what size congregation in your memory was? Union in those days? Well, it, uh, I think when they moved they were

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about 450 from the, from Harbor, I think something like that. That's uh now, you know, they might want to correct it. But, um, but it came to be a church, it came to be a big church. Uh 0 700 or more members, I expect because we

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had people in the balcony every Sunday did Brewer outdraw on Sunday night. What he drew on Sunday night because that's the model I've seen in England. They, no, he uh our brethren of course, are pretty strongly oriented, you know, taking the Lord supper and so on.

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So, uh, so we, we uh uh had a larger crowd on Sunday morning, but uh we always had a nice crowd on Sunday nights and, uh and he was, uh he was a remarkable man before he ever came to Union Avenue. He was doing evangelistic work

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and Judge Ben B. Lindsay was going around speaking on companionate marriage and Brewer in Memphis at the close of a gospel meeting that he had held at Union Avenue. I didn't go and hear the debate because I was such a kid. But my parents did, uh

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they went to hear him debate with Lindsay on companionate marriage. And uh uh Lindsay was clearly outclassed by him and Lindsay complained that after all, he hadn't been given a fair treatment at all. And so brother Brewer, when he came to the stand just stepped back

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by his chair. And he said, now, Judge Ben Lindsay has accused me of not being fair. He said that I will uh challenge you, Judge Lansing to meet me in this hall for a series of discussions. And I will provide this hall rent free for as

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many nights as you want to do that. And of course, Lenza didn't accept it, but he clearly Brewer clearly won the thing. The vote was overwhelmingly in his favor. Well, that was before he ever came to Memphis. So you, you already knew of him by reputation,

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then, then he came and, and worked there in Memphis for six years. And then he went from Memphis to Broadway and love and uh and who came after Brewer before you went on the lips? Well, I went to Lipscomb while Brewer was like, oh, so that

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was, that's right. So, and uh and started preaching, uh my first sermon was uh was at the home church that my grandfather, my mother's father went to church at where was, that was Reed Avenue in Nashville, RE ID. It is no longer there. But Reed Avenue

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was located by the old Nashville Bible school when it moved before it moved out on to the Lipscomb Farm. Uh, and uh the old dormitory building stood behind the church there and was apartments. Uh, you know, do you have the date of this first sermon? Yes,

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very much so. I think July 10th, 1932. July 10th, 1932. I preached my first time. How old would you have been? And, uh, was it a Sunday night? No, Sunday morning, Sunday morning. In fact, I preached twice that Sunday, Sunday morning and Sunday night and had

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a baptism first sermon and I had never baptized anybody. So, uh, one of the other brothers did that, but, uh, it was the 25th anniversary, wasn't it? That we held a meeting for them Dell and I, we were invited to come back on the 25th anniversary.

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And, uh, they, they gave me AAA now you didn't enroll in school till that September the fall. So this was the summer before you actually started the college at 16th. How was that? Accomplished? You skipped the first grade. Well, I, I skipped a part of the

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first grade. Then I skipped another grade, uh, in grade school. Uh, so that when I graduated from grade school, which was in 88 grades, then I, I graduated at the age of 12. Uh I was socially immature to, to, uh go to college at the age

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of 16. And then, but so far as intellectually was concerned, why I could handle it. I, I'd gone to high school. You went just two years because it was only a junior 3233. I, I went actually three years but, uh, the, it was a two year

00:19:37.060 - 00:19:58.890

college but I was working my way through. And, uh, the, the end of the second year, brother Baxter was, was the president. He came to follow brother Bold in, in the fall of 1932. Brother Baxter brought brother Bell RC Bell with him and he brought brother

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Kiefer from Texas. And um, and brother Shug Howard Shug, uh who taught, uh who, who, who came to work on his doctors and taught foreign language. And uh the, he said two years that is Baxter did from 32 to 34. But when I came back in

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the fall of 33 to, to go to school, which is my second year. I had uh signed a work contract to work in the library for a part of my tuition. And when I got to school ready to register, well, I found out that he had

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reassigned me and had assigned me as a halftime teacher in the grade school. And I was two weeks late because the grade school started two weeks ahead of the college. I was to teach under the supervision of the principal for half a day and then the

00:21:08.810 - 00:21:24.680

other half the day I could go to school and he told me that he would excuse me from Bible classes since I was going to be teaching 7th and 8th grade Bible and teaching. Well, uh, Logan Fox was too young to be in my class. Harr

00:21:24.689 - 00:21:38.609

Robert was in my sixth grade class and of course I'd gone to school with his dad, you know, and, and his dad was going, was on furlough from Japan and, and going to college. So you told him you didn't want to be excused me? No, that's

00:21:38.619 - 00:21:54.280

right. I told by the back, I said that's the reason I came is to study the Bible. And so if you excuse me for the Bible classes, why then, uh I'm defeating a purpose that I came for. So I stayed three years and taught that year.

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And then the next year, Brother Iams became president and then he made me his teaching assistant in that last year of 34. The episode. Not really assistant. Well, he was assistant. That's right. You didn't know a whole lot of it. You just did it. Well, he

00:22:10.319 - 00:22:25.109

would, uh, he would, uh, JC Moore Tea used to teach me that ship's dad because he's dead now. But he used to tease me, you know about that because he was in school at the same time and uh brother Iams would come in and he would

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have other things and so he'd be teaching a class, but he'd come in and I was supposed to check with him every morning and some mornings why he, of course would teach. But then some mornings he'd just say to me carry on. So I always sat

00:22:40.369 - 00:22:54.810

in the class, you know, to see what he was teaching, uh, so that I could have a connection to carry on. But that's why I kind of got bit with the boat to teach, you know, was, uh, was uh uh and I didn't know anything much

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about teaching. I've, I've decided, I don't know anything about it. Now, let me ask some more questions about preaching in this sketch as I write it, this is a book of sermon. I'm wanting to know what your models have been for preaching. Who do you think

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that we all have certain creatures that we, you know, I guess as teenagers, we almost imitate them for a while. Who were the models for you when you began preaching and change? I was very fortunate at Union Avenue when we would be without a preacher in

00:23:27.680 - 00:23:50.150

between preachers. Uh for instance, or when our preacher would be gone, uh We often drew upon Fried Hardman College, which is only about 80 miles away or 70 miles away and Harding uh college, which was at that time at Marlton Arkansas. So uh brother Armstrong would

00:23:50.160 - 00:24:10.310

come and preach for us. And then one time when we were without a preacher, brother Hardiman came for several months and preached a whole series of sermons to us. And uh brother Brigand would come and, and I remember just as a kid before I was in

00:24:10.319 - 00:24:32.630

high school, that brother a G freed came and spoke. Well, Fred died at about uh 1930. But uh he was a very impressive man just as neat as a pin. And he wore, uh he wore glasses on a chain, no glasses and he'd pull those glasses

00:24:32.640 - 00:24:47.869

at you and, and put them on that always fascinated me. You know, there was this chain hanging down, you know, as he'd read the Bible or whatever else. He was an impressive man. And uh he left Fried Hardman and went to Lipscomb and taught his last

00:24:47.880 - 00:25:01.420

last years of his life. He taught at Lipscomb with his brother Bold. So each of those four would be, that's right. And brother Hardiman would be a great influence. And then of course, Brother Brewer was the, was a real influence, you know, really in a great

00:25:01.430 - 00:25:16.880

influence when you stood up to preach that first sermon at Reed Avenue, would you say at that point that the greatest influence up to that point was GC Brewer. Is, is he probably, probably because you had hurt him every week for a couple of years. Brother

00:25:16.890 - 00:25:36.739

Hardiman had a great uh he was a, he was a very beautiful orator, a man that can really mold his words and everything. Uh He, I think uh was the kind of man that probably uh uh had a certain select number of sermons that were so

00:25:36.750 - 00:25:53.589

well prepared. Uh I don't know how he would have done, let's say, with a long extent of Sunday by Sunday preaching. But of course he was teaching, uh but he was a great artist and everybody liked to hear him. His time would come or, you know,

00:25:53.599 - 00:26:12.160

people would come, we'd have visitors and all that would come just here and be hard and speak. Well, Brother Brewer was, I think a more deeply educated man had a broader scope. And the interesting thing about him was that he never had a note in front

00:26:12.170 - 00:26:31.219

of him. He had a photographic memory and he could remember on the page where he read something and could go to it. And so he never did, he never preached from an outline and he never preached from the manuscript. Uh He simply grouped his lessons and,

00:26:31.229 - 00:26:47.449

and in his own mind and thought them out uh carefully. But uh uh he even committed his scripture all to memory. You know, of course, that was the fashion back then. Brother Hardman was the same way. Brother Hardiman would hold a tent meeting for instance, and

00:26:47.459 - 00:27:02.089

people would stand up and ask him to quote this or that and he'd quote the pastors all over the Bible. You know, that was the inspiration for you learning the sermon on the mount before you went to lips. I I guess, I guess now, uh Brewer

00:27:02.099 - 00:27:15.079

and, and all the preachers, I mean, they did a lot of, you know, that was part of the Mark then it isn't today. But then it was, then was the translation as you were growing up, King James. King James and the American standard. I didn't really

00:27:15.089 - 00:27:32.239

pay much attention to American Standard till I got into Lipscomb and all the teachers there were wedded to it And uh they, they believe that that was the best translation. And so they all followed me. Now, what influences at Lipscomb on models for preaching would bow.

00:27:32.560 - 00:27:47.430

Did you get to hear him enough? Not very much. I didn't get to hear brother bows very much and I never did have a class with him. So Paul Calhoun was, I forgot all about Hall Calhoun. He died in 35. So you caught him right there.

00:27:48.390 - 00:28:06.689

Where did you worship as a student? He was at sin. I worshiped wherever I was preaching. You see the pattern in Nashville at that time was that there wasn't half a dozen churches with regular preachers. Uh Instead, uh you'd preach on the second Sunday of the

00:28:06.699 - 00:28:19.500

month with this church and the third Sunday of the month for this one and the fourth Sunday of the month for this one. So when I first got going, I, I went to Reed Avenue. In fact, all the years that I was a student in Nashville,

00:28:19.510 - 00:28:35.969

I preached to Reed Avenue on the second Sunday from the second Sunday of July on around. And in fact, one of the elders at Reed Avenue was, was kind of like a second father to me, I guess Ic Finley, who was on the board at Lipscomb

00:28:36.719 - 00:28:53.140

and uh of, of and an elder in the Reed Avenue Church and, and encouraged me and, and, and helped me and, and encouraged me to not stop at my Bachelor's degree. You know, when I stopped in my bachelor's degree and work for a church for a

00:28:53.150 - 00:29:06.380

year while he's, when he found out I was gonna do that. What he told me, he said, what you'll do is you'll get interested in preaching. You won't go on. And I told him no, I'll resign at the end of this year and I'll go to

00:29:06.390 - 00:29:25.560

school and I did and then they hired me back on a part time basis to breach bar. So uh Calhoun to get back to my story was preaching at central there and in the height of his glory and he was an expository preacher and he was

00:29:25.949 - 00:29:49.920

uh he would preach every day at 1225 to 1255. They had a service in the auditorium and he preached every day. Then every afternoon he caught the streetcar and came out and taught a Bible class at Lipscomb from uh about two o'clock until three. And then

00:29:49.930 - 00:30:05.829

he went home, he was the most organized man I've ever known Jerry. Oh, yes. That's right. Well, I'd say this because I don't know all of Jerry's pattern. But of course, the boys got to watching him because he lived behind the school. But he would tell

00:30:05.839 - 00:30:24.339

us in class how he blocked out his day. He was a mcgarvey student and he came from West Tennessee and went to, went to the college of the Bible and he revered mcgarvey and he taught us mcgarvey's notes, uh Genesis and, uh, and on the law

00:30:24.349 - 00:30:40.459

and the wanderings in the wilderness and all of that that goes up through Duran. And I still have my old notebooks. You know, that I've studied with him under and he arose at 325 every morning and was in his study about 10 minutes to four. All

00:30:40.540 - 00:30:53.400

right. Then that sounds like Elton Trudeau. That, that sounds like a Quaker. And he, and he worked from there until six o'clock and he'd wake up his wife and then he'd, uh, then he'd have his breakfast at a certain time and then he'd work in the

00:30:53.410 - 00:31:06.140

study until nine in the morning. He didn't know how to drive a car. She was a chauffeur. So she would take the car and drive to the end of the street car line in Belmont and he'd take the street car and go into central preach every

00:31:06.150 - 00:31:18.290

day and come back then and then he cut his lawn and worked on his flowers and he'd go home and if you went over and buy there to see him, well, you'd have to walk around with him when he was cutting his lawn because that was

00:31:18.300 - 00:31:32.810

his time to cut the lawn. Did you hear him in these daily things? You could hear him? Yes. But of course I heard him in class, you know, teaching that raises another question. These are your models for, uh, for preaching. Was there ever a class in

00:31:32.819 - 00:31:51.060

preaching in those days or is that they had uh Charles Brewer? Charles R. Brewer who was G CS, younger brother was teaching at uh at Lipscomb at the time. And he had uh a uh well, they called it a uh preacher's outline class. In other words,

00:31:51.069 - 00:32:06.849

he'd give you outlines, you know, and then you'd model your preaching after, after the outline that he would give you that. Now that's kind of the way they taught then. And uh brother Bowles also had a non credit uh outline in the class. Did you take

00:32:06.859 - 00:32:30.589

that? Yes. So Bowles and Brewer both were uh yeah, that's Charles R. Brewer. Charles R for teach for class teaching. Yeah. And Charles Brewer was an English professor and really a very talented man. And so he brought in, he would bring in literature and things of

00:32:30.599 - 00:32:48.760

this kind, you know, into the thing so far as illustrations and poems. I had a great memory for all of that. So uh that more or less opened me up for, for that. Then a young man came the second year that I was at Lipscomb in

00:32:48.770 - 00:33:05.150

1934 as a part time teacher, Athens Clay Pus, I've heard that you may, you may not want to bring him in uh since he didn't stay faithful to the church in the last of his life. But he was a student at Vanderbilt and Bright and uh

00:33:06.939 - 00:33:27.709

and he had a non credit class at night in the social teachings of Jesus. I still have the note and I never had heard about some of that, you know, uh we had lessons on war and on internationalism versus nationalism and on uh uh on uh

00:33:28.829 - 00:33:52.400

various social issues including race. And later on when he was President of Lipscomb and tried to keep Abilene from integrating why I, I remembered that he had held a different position when he was just a teacher. And so uh in, in trying to uh to make

00:33:52.410 - 00:34:09.179

it so that we would open up Abilene for blacks to come in. OK, I reminded the committee that after all, what we should do is to do the thing that was best for a Christian. But Clay was a fine teacher and I took a class in

00:34:09.189 - 00:34:26.229

sociology with him and decided that that's what I wanted to major in, in college because all of the preachers were really afraid of somebody majoring in, in religion. All the brother bows had gone to Vanderbilt to the School of Divinity and had studied with Dean Tille

00:34:26.239 - 00:34:40.610

and some of the others and had gotten a theological degree there. But they were all uh afraid of that because of what they had, had the experience with the Christian church, the disciples that had done. When you finished at the University of Chattanooga. What was your

00:34:40.620 - 00:34:57.860

degree? It was so, and a minor in philosophy, which later you would teach at Heidelberg years later and much to your chagrin, you had to go back and cram, well, they didn't even let me t I offered to teach in an introductory class, which I could

00:34:57.870 - 00:35:16.060

have done very well. But that wasn't up there and I really shouldn't have tried it. They, they made me teach the advanced class in the social thinking, you know. So it was really, I had to work harder than the kids, but any rate, uh Clay was

00:35:16.100 - 00:35:32.979

a, was a young man and he was capable and he was a good preacher and all. And he's the one that, that gave me the, uh the recommendation to the church in Chattanooga. So that I later let me ask this, did you have any models outside

00:35:32.989 - 00:35:52.129

of the restoration of in your preaching? It was when I came along and began preaching in the early sixties, my models were, uh obviously yourself, you held a meeting in Strathmore, that's Al Barrett Baxter who I could see on television. And here and so on. But

00:35:52.139 - 00:36:09.629

at some point about my senior year at Oklahoma Christian, I began to read some of Elton True Blood. And when I went to Abilene then of course, there, uh, I was introduced to the Scottish preachers, James Stewart and Arthur John Gossip and G Campbell. Some of

00:36:09.639 - 00:36:26.040

the English preachers. Did you? I'm curious to know what it was like in the thirties. Were your models pretty much the models of the restoration room? I'd say primarily they were, um I was attracted, of course, after I got to preaching to Harry Emerson Fosdick so

00:36:26.050 - 00:36:41.159

far as his craftsmanship was concerned, but I was well aware of the fact that he was a, he was a liberal uh along the way. But of course, I've laughed about it since that I probably couldn't have chosen an academic field. That was, that was more

00:36:41.169 - 00:36:59.729

atheistic than sociology. So, uh uh in reality, why I was exposed to all of the stuff, uh uh that, uh that they put out from just a, a social standpoint and in the thirties, uh we were going through the depression and so there was a lot

00:36:59.739 - 00:37:16.780

of socialism that was around and, and uh young kids coming along, you know, I, I remember going down when I was a Vanderbilt student and attending and hearing Bishop Francis Connell, who was a big Methodist bishop from Boston who was as socialistic as a man could

00:37:16.790 - 00:37:29.669

be, you know, and I didn't really see much, uh, you know, I mean, I wasn't aware of, of, of a bunch of those things because I knew how much we were going through, how many people were unemployed and what a struggle people were having. So Fosdick

00:37:29.679 - 00:37:47.199

is the craftsmanship. What about the Beacher lecture? Would they have even been known much? Well, I didn't know much about. That's right. I didn't know much about them. We had in Nashville at the time, a very distinguished preacher at the first Presbyterian church. Uh Doctor James,

00:37:47.209 - 00:38:02.830

I Vance, it was a very distinguished old church that went back to the days of Andrew Jackson. He was a member of that congregation and their building had been used as a hospital during the civil war and so on. And he was a very fine preacher

00:38:02.840 - 00:38:14.919

every once in a while. I'd be able not to have to preach on Sunday night, coming on the bus and I'd drop by first pray in church and hear him as a student, but I didn't do that much. You know, let me jump ahead. You went

00:38:14.929 - 00:38:32.250

to Saint Elmo at Chattanooga. Then you preached there while you finished that degree. You began teaching at Lipkin at 40. Now that you're completing 46 years of teaching, uh ha has your view of teaching changed any? And, uh do you, would you do it all over

00:38:32.260 - 00:38:48.659

again when you launched this career of teaching in 1940? Looking at it now, 46 years later. What's your reaction to having given nearly a half century to teach? Well, I've been able to do, uh, you know, the very thing I've always wanted to do. You know,

00:38:48.669 - 00:39:09.449

I've been, I've been wonderfully blessed, uh, because I didn't apply for the teaching job. I was sought and had to make up my mind, uh, about doing that. And brother Iams is the one that came and offered me the job. And while, of course, it was

00:39:09.459 - 00:39:23.959

not lucrative at all. In other words, our salaries were ridiculously low at the same time, that's where I got started. Well, then I had to decide, uh, if I want to stay in teaching, I must get a doctor's degree. If I'm not going to get a

00:39:23.969 - 00:39:40.770

doctor's degree, I need to get out of teaching as fast as I can get out because by then I was filling up my summer with meeting. So, uh, when I left Lipscomb, I, the year that I left, I had six months solid meetings at, uh school.

00:39:40.870 - 00:40:04.209

Of course, I forgot to ask. When did you preach your first gospel meeting? 1930 I believe it was 33 when I held a meeting at, uh, in, in Jonesboro, Arkansas for the Monroe Street church, which was meeting in an old, uh, it had belonged to a

00:40:04.219 - 00:40:21.979

denomination and they, uh, they had left it. And so this little church got into that meeting house and it was during the Christmas vacation that I held at that meeting Christmas 33 almost 34. Yeah. And then since then, I mean, your summers have been pretty cool

00:40:22.090 - 00:40:40.550

with, since last summer. Uh, no, the summer before this last one I went back to the church. Uh, they asked me to come back on the 50th anniversary had gone somewhere on the 50th anniversary and that would have been an 84. So, back to 3434. What

00:40:40.560 - 00:40:57.600

church was that? The Marlboro church at that time, it was called Antioch. We were looking at some pictures here this morning. Um And uh uh some of those people that were there in that time are still living and one of the younger men there is, is

00:40:57.610 - 00:41:12.979

an elder there in that congregation. He's nearly 80 years old now, but very, very active. And so in the summer of 34 you preached there in the summer of 84. Did they even try to correspond it on the same week? Or wasn't that? It was just

00:41:12.989 - 00:41:27.399

the, uh they didn't do that because I was teaching. I had to teach in the summer. And so I couldn't go until August. But uh whereas the meeting was in Ju in July, I think when I went, it used to be called Antioch and it's now

00:41:27.409 - 00:41:49.739

called Marlborough ma Rlboro. Ok. They have a nice brick building and a nice brick preacher's house and a full time preacher. You know all of this and back then it was just a frame church. Have you regretted 46 years ago? No. Um, we've, I've been through

00:41:49.750 - 00:42:04.510

the period when we've been struggling to keep the Christian schools alive and we've had to do all kinds of things, you know, uh, to do that. And so I've taught all over the curriculum but at the same time it's been, it's been a lot of fun

00:42:05.179 - 00:42:25.689

and one of the great blessings I think both for me and for Della because she's, she was a gifted teacher and, uh, uh, she'd have girls. She also had some boys as well. That, that really do you know, do you know Norman Bales? I know that

00:42:25.699 - 00:42:44.110

name. Yeah. Well, Norman Bales who preaches the Cedar Rapids. He gives Della credit for teaching him to write and to spell and just basic grammar. And so, uh, we, she would have maybe a lot of girls because she taught elementary education and all that. And I'd

00:42:44.120 - 00:43:01.350

have boys. And so, uh, uh, we, we have kids that are scattered all over you and since we have no Children of our own, well, they're kind of, uh, they are our own. Uh, what do you call them surrogate Children or our Children? That, uh, that

00:43:01.360 - 00:43:16.189

we've had a lot of, uh, uh, pleasure. Of course. Uh, we've also seen some that didn't turn out the way they should, but I guess that's, uh, that's true with any family, uh, one that large. But no, because I've been able to preach all the time.

00:43:16.199 - 00:43:30.409

Yeah. And, uh, a lot of other things that I couldn't do. But, uh, but I've been able to preach and, uh, and I wouldn't have wanted to teach if I couldn't have preached because you were both professionals as teachers. Was there a deliberate decision not to

00:43:30.419 - 00:43:42.949

have a family? Would that have? Really? No, I don't think so. No. So it wasn't, you weren't? No, you didn't make that cons now. Whereas a lot of that's pretty common today and particularly where I work. A lot of people in the University of a have

00:43:42.959 - 00:44:04.469

really thought it through and decided, like, for example, Bob and Sherry Woodruff, I'm very close to Bob and Sherry are about 36. I don't know, I don't believe I know them. His father's Dan Wood preacher, Bob work is our director is I've been with Dan in

00:44:04.479 - 00:44:23.459

meetings, I think. And his brother in law is Tom Milholland who married his sister. But uh they both enjoy their job so much that I think with them, they just really felt like we just wanna make a deliberate decision to do that. What, let me ask

00:44:23.469 - 00:44:37.719

you all, what uh has your reaction been to his being teacher and preacher? Were you always happy with that as his chosen career? I guess I was, I did everything I could to help him and I, I was going to say when we used to preach

00:44:37.729 - 00:44:51.709

in the summer from a, you know, we didn't have, didn't teach summer school or if we did, we'd teach the first block and then leave. We didn't teach it so hot in there, you know. But anyway, we would pack up our car hang. That was when

00:44:51.719 - 00:45:05.830

you hung your clothes across on the, and we would leave for meetings and we would be in meetings every night and every day from that time until we started and we'd come back. Sometimes it's pretty hard to have them when we got back. Sometimes I'd hold

00:45:05.840 - 00:45:21.389

10 meetings in the summer because we might have a week between, if we were going to travel. You know, the last, the last summer that I held meetings, uh, we, we started off in Tyler and then went to, to, uh, uh, to Idaho and then from

00:45:21.399 - 00:45:36.040

there to Oregon and there to Washington and then came to California before we got back. Yeah. So, uh, now, did you hear him as a preacher before you ever dated, or? Uh, yeah. Well, it was interesting. I don't have the frank thing to tell you this.

00:45:36.050 - 00:45:47.600

I suppose you would if, if you wanted. But anyway, I had friends who came here about the same time. I did. I guess I came a little ahead of them, didn't it? The Bills? George and Wyndham Bill. I don't know what you've heard us talk about.

00:45:47.629 - 00:46:00.290

Probably. Well, uh, they went to Burbank and I used to go out and visit them. They were always calling me. Please come for the weekend. That's a bar preach. And I would hear about, that's a bear, of course. And I went and so then thats all

00:46:00.300 - 00:46:13.300

left and Frank took his place. So one day the beat called me and said, oh, you should come out and said, we, we have a new preacher now. Where were you living here? I mean, not here but in, I was teaching in San Marino. San Marino.

00:46:13.389 - 00:46:29.780

You see, I, I, when I got up from us c I got a job at uh Arcadia and I taught there three years and they asked me to come to San Marino, which was a better job. And I, and that's why I was teaching. When, uh

00:46:30.080 - 00:46:51.040

when we met him, how long had you been in California? Let's see, I finished two years at sc you came out from Iowa or Kansas? The store was in Kansas, but I taught in Oklahoma. And uh, so I came out here and went to church and

00:46:51.050 - 00:47:10.219

they had a dinner on the ground, you know, those kind. And that's in the, so the first time you met Frank, the first time you actually saw him was, he was preaching at Burbank. And when was this 46 or 47? It was 4646. Yeah. And that

00:47:10.229 - 00:47:21.010

day the Bills, I didn't have a car then, and so they were going to bring me home. And finally George came around and he said, would you mind to frankly bring me home? I said, no, I didn't care, you know, because we'd already seen each other.

00:47:21.020 - 00:47:34.120

It was a picnic and I was talking to people that I knew and he was talking to people. So that was, we, we had our first time together. He brought me home. I was in graduate school. In fact, I finished most of my residence and was

00:47:34.129 - 00:47:55.300

getting ready to uh take qualifying of the fall. Now, what was the date of your wedding of that year, June of 47th? Yeah, we met in August 47 August the 47. Ok. Well, that's uh uh that's symbolic or something. The first time you saw him, he

00:47:55.310 - 00:48:10.879

was preaching, it was at the same Burbank church building over on the Boulevard was, we were in North Hollywood in the woman's club building all the time. The baps was there while we were in the womens club building and then they were planning to build. So,

00:48:10.889 - 00:48:26.469

while I preached for them, why they built, built the first unit of the Burbank building. But now before I forget it, what did you think of him as a preacher that first time you heard? Well, I thought he was good, you know, and I uh it

00:48:26.479 - 00:48:44.979

was kind of funny because, um, what I didn't know he brought me home on Sunday and Monday night, he went out to visit the BES. And, uh, so they, he, they, he asked them every question about me that could be asked. So, of course, they were

00:48:44.989 - 00:48:57.479

good friends of mine and she passed away just recently, but he still needs to be like very much for him to come to our dinner like Frank me. So, uh I said, well, I think maybe I'll ask her for a date. So on Wednesday night, when

00:48:57.489 - 00:49:10.959

he got to church, he told me this, George said, did you call him? And he said, well, no, he was studying French. George said, oh my goodness. He told me, oh God, he said, you will never get married if you don't get with it better than

00:49:10.969 - 00:49:22.810

that. Frank said, I'll call her before the weekend. He called me, but it happened, I had a date and I was going to a musical and I just happened to tell him what I was gonna do. So he told me it's a good thing because he

00:49:22.820 - 00:49:34.679

was pretty independent and didn't want to be turned down. You know, I thought if a girl turns you down, you know, I time it too well then that she was sending you signals. You know that when I told him what I was going to do where

00:49:34.689 - 00:49:49.040

I was gonna be. So then he's, but you called me back later, I guess, or did you ask me then? I think I asked you, then if you had a, uh, then what about, uh, night then because you were, you were, uh, I was working for

00:49:49.060 - 00:50:00.739

the summer because I was going to, no, I was teaching them that. But anyway, that was funny because, uh, he said, uh, well, where will I meet you? And I told him where to meet me, you know, and, and of course, when you know that I

00:50:00.750 - 00:50:14.760

had a, uh, late customer because I told him I'll be in New York. So he was so independent then. So he met, he went up here around the corner and I said, come out down here, you know, I said, meet me here and he had, I

00:50:14.770 - 00:50:28.239

guess he had walked down there and I wasn't there and he stopped. Now, he was skeptical. He said, I, I wonder if she decided not to go. So anyway, about the time he picked his head around the corner. Well, here I was, I met her face

00:50:28.250 - 00:50:44.520

to face, you know, I've met people around the corner since she was coming on the two ashes. But anyway, that was our first date and we went to the bowl. We had, I took her out to an Italian place that pine people liked up on western.

00:50:44.530 - 00:50:57.219

We ate and then went to the bowl and it was a full moon and a guy I was going to buy just, uh, I didn't have much money, you know, as a graduate student. So, uh, I was gonna buy a ticket, sit kind of up in

00:50:57.229 - 00:51:07.070

the, in the boondock. This old boy came up and he said, do you have a ticket? And I said, no, he said, well, I said, I've got a half of the box and says, I'm not gonna be able to use it and he says, I'll give

00:51:07.080 - 00:51:23.919

it to you at a real bargain price. And so I said, all right, so I splurged and bought that box, you know, when we were sitting right down in the, in the nice uh section and they played, uh Rachmaninoff's second symphony, you know, and there's not

00:51:23.929 - 00:51:41.320

more romantic music anywhere, you know, than that is. So, and this is the Hollywood Bowl. It was Hollywood Bowl and this was your first date, first date. That's right, Italian restaurant. And that's right. That's right. Yeah. And I was, I was really after that on our

00:51:41.330 - 00:52:00.929

first date, I took Laurie to get a pizza and we went to a basketball game out in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan. I was a basketball coach, but, uh, we didn't have, we didn't play rock modern off at the halftime show. No, but then,

00:52:00.939 - 00:52:14.239

uh, then you got together. All right though. Now let me get back to your, do you have any reaction? Uh, any memories of that first Sunday? I mean, you'd heard a lot of preaching. You remember the church and the first time you heard him or the

00:52:14.250 - 00:52:29.560

second or third time. Did you, uh, what other kinds of reactions did you have for him as a preacher? Did you? Was he as good as anyone else? I thought he was still a little young or? No, I didn't think so. He was mature minded, you

00:52:29.570 - 00:52:47.550

know, he wasn't too young but, um, I thought he was very good and he was, he preached but he started out to preach, I thought, and so I thought he was good because I heard Basil, you know, and basil was more slow moving than, than Frank.

00:52:47.590 - 00:53:04.830

And, uh, I of course, heard Brother Brewer and, and Homer Haley and all right now between, uh, August and June in that 10 month period, there was there an eight day time in which you said, I'm not sure I want to marry a man who's gonna

00:53:04.840 - 00:53:20.800

preach all his life. You didn't have any negative reactions. You may have had some other reactions, but not about preaching. We won't get into those, but no negative reactions to preaching. This will get close to help me listen for this click. We're down to the last,

00:53:21.090 - 00:53:33.419

uh, oh, no, maybe we have seven minutes. Yeah, I looked at that one instead of two. Um, well, let me back up to, um, who encouraged you to get a, a doctorate that there couldn't have. How many phd S could there have been in the Church

00:53:33.429 - 00:53:50.929

of Christ in 1940 Paul Calhoun had died. Nobody in that I knew of had won in New Testament because I didn't start out in New Testament. I started out, uh, and, uh, to, uh, in speech, the, the last year I was at Lipscomb teaching was, uh,

00:53:50.939 - 00:54:07.419

the first year brother Baxter was back after we'd had the big blow up. And I, I got sick that fall. In fact, I came back to school sick and had, uh, virus pneumonia and I had to be out the whole term, which is probably a blessing.

00:54:09.090 - 00:54:22.810

And, uh, when I came back, my brother Baxter was, was there and I had gone to school under him and his wife was dead. And so he lived in the, had a room in the, in the dorm and I had a room in the dorm and,

00:54:22.879 - 00:54:37.570

uh, so he would come by and we, he'd pick me up and we'd go to eat and talk and that kind of thing. And, and so I found out what bets was doing, how bets had gotten his doctor's degree in speech. And so I decided, well,

00:54:37.580 - 00:54:51.830

that's what I want to do is to go to Southern California. And I needed to get out of the, of the climate situation because I had such a terrible time getting over the virus pneumonia. I'd been in Florida and spent that term and came back in

00:54:51.840 - 00:55:10.129

January to teach. But I still had lots of problems at night with my lungs and So, uh and I got into having several cases of the flu, you know, you kind of get to where you can hardly shake it off. So, um that's the reason why

00:55:10.139 - 00:55:30.370

I decided to go to California and get a speech, a speech degree. But my first term during my first term while the, the dean of the School of speech who had been battles Mental, had a heart attack and died. And I was also taking some religion

00:55:30.379 - 00:55:51.250

classes along WB West's influence on me. Uh I think I give WB credit for encouraging me to get over into a doctoral program in uh in religion. He had uh gotten a phd degree at US. C he'd done some work at Chicago and uh he was

00:55:51.260 - 00:56:10.969

a close friend of uh ABC Calwell. And uh so he encouraged me and I began to see that that's where my interests were more than w well WV was at Pepperdine. And uh when I came out here, see Pepperdine on the old campus had a lot

00:56:10.979 - 00:56:30.270

of rooms empty because this was 1945 and the war was going on. So they would rent me a room and I had several students that were Lipscomb students that I had known who were out there, including James Smythe and some others. So when I got there,

00:56:30.280 - 00:56:48.300

why I, I uh uh arranged through WB, he was living in the dorm, he and Belma were, and he was a dorm supervisor at the time uh to uh let me have a room. And so for that first uh for that first spring term uh at

00:56:48.310 - 00:57:07.239

that time US C was on a trimester system. Uh Why I stayed on the campus at uh you left Lipscomb in like June of 4444 and came west west. No, I came west in February 45. 0, what were you doing from June? I held that a

00:57:07.250 - 00:57:24.909

66 months of meeting. That's right. Finished up just at Christmas time, finished a meeting in Wichita, Kansas before Christmas and, and then went home and had Christmas with my folks and then I had the month of January free and uh I was going to move. So

00:57:24.919 - 00:57:41.770

I, I had to be careful about using, I had to get gas tickets so that I could make the move and drive out. Brother Wallace was going to f for Wallace was going to do his music hall meeting at Houston. So after Christmas, I, I had

00:57:41.780 - 00:57:58.139

a good friend that was living in Houston. So I flew down there and spent uh the beginning of that meeting with uh with this friend and went to hear for it for part of the meeting and as it began and uh he and Roy Cognal and

00:57:58.149 - 00:58:13.399

I had lunch together on a Monday and went up and kind of scouted out the, the auditorium before he, I say Monday, I believe maybe it was Friday before he started, this was in January of January 45. And you still had not met WB, West? Uh,

00:58:13.409 - 00:58:30.070

I had not, uh, I had met WB. But, uh, but I didn't know him well, uh, I didn't know by then, by January 45 he had his, he had his doctorate and was there any other doctorate in religious course? Phil Green was, he had a phd

00:58:30.080 - 00:58:47.070

though. He had gone through the Divinity school. And when I, when I started, I started in the, in the speech, you see, with a phd with a minor in religion and I reversed those after the first term and majored in, in, uh, in religion and minored

00:58:47.080 - 00:59:02.810

in speech. So I didn't lose my speech hours. Was there anybody with a phd in religion that I know of? I didn't know about it. Paul Calhoun. Yes. He had a phd, he died in 30 years. And I think there may have been, uh, now, uh,

00:59:02.820 - 00:59:23.520

I think that Frey had a, a brother in law, I believe I've forgotten his name but got one but went off into the Christian church. I think now Ralph Wilburn was at, at Pepperdine. Did he have his degree? Yes. Uh, he, uh, uh, I think that,

00:59:23.530 - 00:59:41.699

uh, he might have, he might have, uh, have had a degree. Then I'm not sure whether he finished his degree after he came or not. See, the graduate program started in 1944 in the fall and I got there in the winter and I think that Ralph

00:59:41.709 - 01:00:00.330

didn't have his, did you teach as soon as you came? No, not as soon. But that fall I did fall in graduate program. No, I started, uh, he, I was just part time and wb, uh, had me to teach some part time work and, and then

01:00:00.709 - 01:00:15.020

while I was going on to graduate school, I then, and we became good friends. Why? Then the next year, why he had me to do a graduate class? But I was, I would just kind of fill in teaching. You see those first two years and then,

01:00:15.399 - 01:00:33.919

then came on the staff at Pepperdine as a regular professor in 1947. Still turning did uh anyone other than WV play a major role in urging you to get a doctor? Well, of course, brother Finley, uh IC Finley that I mentioned, wanted me to go on

01:00:33.929 - 01:00:49.260

to get a doctor's degree. I mean, he, he, he urged me all along to do that. He didn't, uh he didn't urge me to go into religion for it. But uh he, he urged me to get a doctor's degree and I think a lot of people

01:00:49.270 - 01:01:05.489

don't understand higher education at that time at any rate. Uh didn't know the difference if you got a doctor's degree, it didn't make much difference what subject you were in. Now, at that point, you had not met Lemoine Lewis. No. And Uh, no, he would later

01:01:05.500 - 01:01:33.679

sort of be the Pied Piper for the Abilene people going out to get that WB really played the role the mo played out here still. But you didn't start at Burbank right away. Well, that's a left at the end of that spring. That's right. In other

01:01:33.689 - 01:01:47.989

words, he finished up out the school year that spring, I guess, maybe, uh, I don't remember how the dates were then, but I think that they were on a quarter system and I think that it was about the end of May or something like that, that

01:01:48.000 - 01:02:03.919

he finished out. Then he was moving to Nashville. And so, uh then they asked me to come and preach for, uh did you just preach at different places until you went to Burbank or did you worship at Burbank? No, no, I didn't just sort of filling

01:02:03.929 - 01:02:20.889

in for a while. I preached at different places and you preached at Burbank that whole four years that you were out there. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I was a little confused in, in preachers of today about uh Abilene. You preached at North Side from the time

01:02:20.899 - 01:02:40.360

you went there the first year that I went to uh to uh Abilene. You see, uh you have to understand that Abilene at that time was really a tight kind of community. And almost every teacher they had, had been a graduate of AC U and it

01:02:40.370 - 01:02:59.080

was through nrl's influence that Norville recommended me. Uh when he found out I was going, I that spring that, uh before we left here, uh, we've had a lot of, of tension in the, in the department and all. And I, I held a meeting that spring,

01:02:59.530 - 01:03:17.840

uh, Della was with me uh at Harding at church 4 to 9 at Harding and the old Galloway Hall chapel and then came from there to Broadway in Lubbock and held a meeting and then came out here and brother Morris came up to hear me and

01:03:17.850 - 01:03:34.139

brother Morris. Then both George Benson and brother Morris offered me a job. Me too and offered her a job, the principal of the school of the grade school. So you had a choice between Harding and Emily there. And what decided me? Of course, I don't know.

01:03:34.149 - 01:03:48.699

Maybe we should say that what decided me was that uh I had, I had uh decided not to go back to Lipscomb because after I married and, and Debbie B felt like, you know, that we, that I ought to stay here and help him out with

01:03:48.709 - 01:04:06.879

the thing. And so I felt well, maybe I could. And so I resigned at, at Lipscomb. Then, then I come out here and stay and then I, I felt so unhappy with all of the detention that we were in, you know, when we'd have uh faculty

01:04:06.889 - 01:04:26.070

meetings and particularly that was sort of the low part of the university. Wilburn was getting ready to and all of that, uh, that, uh, yeah, I talked to, to, uh, MP and to George before I left about, uh, what I thought the, the, the trends were

01:04:26.699 - 01:04:50.969

and then the, uh, I decided, and it was hard on my darling because it took her away from here. But I decided that, uh, I, if I went to Harding and I was not happy I wouldn't spend a life unhappy And if that happened, why then,

01:04:50.979 - 01:05:08.830

and I didn't know whether I could, uh I could take uh as authoritarian a man as, as Benson was too. We were there. We stayed, we stayed at home with him in their home. That was providential. And uh and I think he's a wonderful man. I

01:05:08.840 - 01:05:27.139

mean, it's just a matter of his style was the rule of whether you could, whether you could uh could take that or not. Well, um I decided that uh that I'd rather try Abilene because I felt like that I had, I might have a better chance

01:05:27.149 - 01:05:41.699

of, of, of being, be being happy there. If I, if I went to Harding and I wasn't happy there and left, they'd say what's wrong with that guy. He's been to lips and then the Pepperdine Ben Harding can't be satisfied any place. And yeah, so we

01:05:41.709 - 01:05:57.199

went to Abilene and Della then went to school uh because she, she who Don Morris invited you but who else encouraged? Did anybody else say Frank, I know you're struggling between about three options here. I think you ought to go to a, that wasn't, no, no

01:05:57.209 - 01:06:11.060

one did it. I remember. Did you? In fact, uh, I had such a good job. I was making twice at my school while he was making, yeah, with a doctor's degree. And you had to take quite a loss to go to a, because I wasn't teaching

01:06:11.090 - 01:06:26.514

through there. I went to hard and sympathy on my masters. We decided that was the best thing to do instead of trying to. So the first year that we went there, I, I uh we knew Glenn Wallace all the way. She knew Glenn Wallace. Let's put

01:06:26.524 - 01:06:43.810

it that way. They were very close. Her family was close to the Wallaces Glenn particularly. And because Glenn had worked in Kansas and Glenn was preaching at the college church then. So uh I didn't know them very well, but uh through the ties with her family,

01:06:43.820 - 01:06:59.659

why? Of course, as soon as we came to Abilene, that was one of the first places we had to stop by and visit with Glenn and Leola. So um I made a resolve in talking with Glenn. I made a resolve that I would go any place

01:06:59.669 - 01:07:17.320

that would invite me to preach. It didn't make them so far away. So the first Sunday in West Texas that the first Sunday we went to uh Brady and the next Sunday went to Wellington, which is almost 200 miles north of a, and it's a long

01:07:17.330 - 01:07:35.629

pull at night after you're through. Then the next Sunday we went to San Antonio and, uh, and that's even further away, you know. And, uh, then about the, about, uh, oh, I, I guess I hadn't been there very long until the Church of Ballinger invited us

01:07:35.639 - 01:07:50.290

to come. And they, they were without a preacher. So they wanted me to come every Sunday. So it is just 40 miles there. So I could drive to Ballinger. And so they let me come all year that first year. And I preached at Ballinger in 1949

01:07:50.300 - 01:08:07.479

and 50. How were you received by the Abilene family? You're pretty much an outsider. And we were definitely take quite a while to let us. She said, uh, what does it? She talked about the, oh, it was really funny, you know, and I don't think that

01:08:07.489 - 01:08:22.700

they realized it but everybody there, I think at Abilene they don't realize that they're as provincial as they are, you know, because they are, they are pretty inbred. And I guess it harding too as far as that. But now I wouldn't want to. But it didn't

01:08:22.709 - 01:08:36.430

take long, you know, they, they found that we were people too and we had some, well, you know, some of our very, very dearest friends. Well, there's a prejudice against California that's back there, you know, and they have a lot of misimpressions of California. When did

01:08:36.439 - 01:08:53.209

you meet JW and JD after we got to uh uh to Abilene, uh I met not in that first year or were they there? They were there the first year we were there? Uh, see JW and La Moy. Uh now JJ W came earlier than that

01:08:53.479 - 01:09:11.879

JD and Lemon and I were the three new Bible faculties because um uh the school was growing and of course, Brother Robertson was, uh, was getting along and, and brother Bell Paul Southern took over in 51 didn't he? So you caught the last two years of

01:09:11.890 - 01:09:30.229

Robertson? But now when you put out that book, our Bible in 1953 0, I was thinking that was so that was a couple of years. But by then you were uh very well received in Abilene. You wrote, there was a tribute in there to, to several

01:09:30.240 - 01:09:44.729

people. You had five or six people that you honored at the front of that. Yes, they were, they were all, they were all retiring. And so I asked Brother Morris if we couldn't do that. And so he backed us in doing it. Um, and I learned

01:09:44.740 - 01:09:57.350

a lot of things out of it, by the way, you've never done that before. I never done it before. And so of course, you know, but, uh, excuse me, I was just gonna say that uh what Frank did was to finish his phd and if I

01:09:57.359 - 01:10:09.839

must say, so I encourage you to do that because, you know, so many people they get it as Mrs Robertson said, you know, I have no one to talk like her. She said, now I told Paul Paul you get that degree and I don't want you

01:10:09.850 - 01:10:25.049

to come here with all. But because everybody come back and say, well, I'm finished all but the dissertation, but I did start teaching at, uh, at pine before I, while I was working on that dissertation. But you got the degree in 48. So you already had

01:10:25.060 - 01:10:43.399

that in pocket that he stayed, he didn't teach one quarter. He stayed home and wrote that. But how many phd S could there have been at a for that? Well, uh, I don't know, not a, not a lot of phd and any in religion. No, I

01:10:43.410 - 01:11:02.330

was the only one in religion. In fact, Brother Myers hired me this way, which is amazing. He hired me on probation the first year. Uh, I came in since I, since I already was a full professor at Pepperdine. When I left. Why? Uh, he, he hired

01:11:02.339 - 01:11:19.310

me as an associate the first year and the second year promoted me to the professor. You were off probation. Well, when did you start at Northside that second year? Second year, 1950 Ballinger. Now we went to North Side to fill in for three months while they

01:11:19.319 - 01:11:34.359

were looking for, to preach in state. Eight years. 8, 50 to 58. Then where did you preach? From 58 to 63? In 58 I drove back and forth to ST Angelo and preached for Colorado and Jackson nearly all that year. They were without a preacher. And

01:11:34.370 - 01:11:52.660

so we, we drove down there every Sunday and preach, what would make you leave North Side after eight years, they decided they wanted a full time preacher. And the church, the church had grown to where we had over 700 members. The building seated 850 we were

01:11:52.669 - 01:12:15.200

nearly, they were nearly filled. We were running Sunday. School was about, we got as high as 700 who became the preacher when you, who followed you? He died recently, he was at the bible chair at Texas at Canyon in Texas uh hall real nice fellow, real,

01:12:15.209 - 01:12:33.970

real prince of a guy. I don't think I know who that is. So for five years, did you? You didn't have a regular, uh the, the 58 I preached uh uh in San Angelo that school year then in 59 Graham Street. Oh, sure. Graham Street. Yeah.

01:12:34.700 - 01:12:52.649

And I was there two years and Paul Faulkner followed me there. You were Graham Street? 59 to 61. 61. Yeah. And then was there one more before you left? We went to Colorado. Yeah. We, we, we then the next year we went to uh uh we

01:12:52.660 - 01:13:09.240

did appointment preaching those next two years. But one year we went to uh Cisco all year uh while they were without a preacher. And then uh we went about three months to Colorado to Colorado City and uh north side of Colorado City before we left. Let

01:13:09.250 - 01:13:28.919

me ask about the lectures of preaching at ab didn't they start about 1950? They started shortly after you got there. They started uh um I don't think they started that early. Whose idea was John Bannier gave the first series? 52. Whose idea was that? And did

01:13:28.930 - 01:13:47.500

you have any role in helping organize? Well, I didn't have a leadership role. Fred Barton had that role, the leadership role in that he was chairman of the speech department. And Fred was, uh that was, that was his main, main interest was in Hole. And uh

01:13:48.080 - 01:14:03.490

they uh the way they were set up there. Uh He did the teaching in uh in home. Now, did you, you did them one year, didn't you? Uh I taught a course after Homer Haley left, I took up one of Homer's courses. No, I meant the

01:14:03.500 - 01:14:26.759

annual series of lectures on pre um but that was uh um it was just three or four lectures in each fall. Do you know a year? You um I think that um it was after I came out here that I did those lectures because uh that's

01:14:26.770 - 01:14:42.580

what, how that Prentice met. And I got together, he went to Harding and did a series and I went to Abilene and did a series and they were similar enough. In fact, actually, I, I had the, uh, discussed the thing, uh, with, with Prentice. He was

01:14:42.589 - 01:14:58.259

living here at the time and teaching at UCL A and, uh, uh, we had no idea of putting the things together until, until later. Have you ever done any other lectures on preaching? Other than the Abilene one? No, because I guess we don't have any other

01:14:58.540 - 01:15:14.830

forum like that, you know, in the churches of. So you taught Homiletics at Abilene for a while? Well, yes, I, after, after home I left, well, I, I wouldn't say homiletic so much as it was. Uh, he had a course on the minister's life and work

01:15:14.839 - 01:15:32.470

practical side and I taught that course from that time on until, until I left there, the minister's life. Had you taught anything like that at Pepperdine in the forties? No, not in the forties. But I taught it when you came back when I came back here.

01:15:32.859 - 01:15:49.350

What, uh, and maybe I've asked you this for a little blank. What was the, was the turning point in getting you to come back here? Because I know nor will appeal to you and all that. Uh, when, uh, this thing out here got upset. Uh, after

01:15:49.359 - 01:16:11.859

you problem why brother Pepperdine, uh uh uh Don Miller uh turned to, no, and he was at Broadway and I happened to be in the meeting at Broadway that spring. Uh, and, uh, the offer came from Harding to Broadway. Henry. No, that was, uh, that was

01:16:11.870 - 01:16:31.299

when we were moving 63 years. This was the sixties. And, um, I urged, uh, no, it wasn't in the sixties. It was a noble came in 58 I believe. I'm right about that. Uh, no, September 57. Was it 57? Well, then in other words, it was,

01:16:31.310 - 01:16:49.990

uh, it was probably in the spring of 57 that I had that meeting anyway, it was sometime in the early part of that year that they, that they offered it to him. And, uh, I urged him to, to accept it to take it. Well, after he

01:16:50.000 - 01:17:08.660

took it, then why he, he came back in 58 and, uh, tried to persuade us to go with him out there. And that's when he also got, uh, Warren Jones and Howard White and some of those people to go. But, uh, we turned him down because

01:17:08.669 - 01:17:24.310

our graduate program was just going, the more that I thought about it, I worked so hard to try to get that off the ground and worked on curriculum and things of this kind because the other fellow hadn't had the experience. You see, Lemon nor JD, nor

01:17:24.319 - 01:17:42.129

JW, uh, had, didn't any of them have their doctorates. So when we started the graduate program at Abilene, Paul Southern and I were the only ones that had doctorates and, and so, uh, we were trying, we were trying to get that off the ground. I think

01:17:42.140 - 01:17:57.029

maybe about 1953 was the first year of that. It was beginning to, it was beginning to grow and beginning to build enrollment and that sort of thing. And I felt like, well, we've only had a short time here and we're having such a tremendous influence. Uh,

01:17:57.350 - 01:18:14.009

I just couldn't see it to step away to do it. And so then we built a house on the, on the lot, you know, that, uh, that we had had for 10 years and, and so we felt like we were settled well, then in 1962 or,

01:18:14.370 - 01:18:31.950

yeah, 1962 uh when we came out here for Christmas holidays, why, uh Norval, uh, began talking to Della about how much he needed her that he didn't have anybody in the education department, uh, in elementary education that was a member of the church. Ollie, of course,

01:18:31.959 - 01:18:49.649

was the head of it. And, and, uh, uh Wyatt Jones was in secondary, but, uh, he was here then, wasn't he Wyatt was here? But, uh, he didn't have anybody. And so he began to really tell about how badly he needed this. And he said, now

01:18:49.660 - 01:19:05.220

Howard Harton is really great and a wonderful fellow. But he said he's the only, he's the, that's the only department. I don't have a doctor at the head of and the religion department. So, um, he had a hard to get on the phone and call me

01:19:05.229 - 01:19:17.950

and all of that to me. And so we went through about 2.5 or three months of real agony because we built our house and it began to get out, you know, you can't keep anything like that. We didn't talk it but others would begin to hear

01:19:17.959 - 01:19:36.850

the rumors. And so we really had a, we really had a sad time. It was really a sad time. People would meet with us and Jay and JB and pray with us and cry, you know, came down and the tears just, just like you were criminals

01:19:37.299 - 01:19:52.169

and so on. And when finally I went in and we went out, we went away and went by ourselves for a weekend and just sat down and talked it out and prayed it. This would have been 6363 March about three months ago. Well, it was uh

01:19:52.180 - 01:20:06.899

yes, it was before the lecture shift out here whenever it was, it was in April because uh we came out, they wanted us to come out and elect to shift to make the announcement. It was made the announcement in the sports arena. That was what they

01:20:06.910 - 01:20:24.390

called it. That was a big, big one. Yeah. And uh uh so I went and told brother Mars that I, that I had come to the conclusion that it was the Lord's will for us to come. And, uh, he said, uh, and I'll never forget it.

01:20:24.399 - 01:20:39.890

He said, well, he said, I think you're wrong. I don't agree with you on that. But he said, if that's your conviction and you believe that he said, I won't ever say anything more to you to try to get you to change your, your decision. You'd

01:20:39.899 - 01:20:59.399

already been to our house. Oh, yes. Oh, sure. Yes. And, and he talked to us a number. Well, we, we were two months ago, you know, and I hadn't said yes to no at all. We hadn't. So, uh, I had accumulated enough master specs. So our

01:20:59.410 - 01:21:22.240

load then was 15 hours. And I had a lot of fellow that wrote theses with me. And so I had accu accumulated enough credits for, I believe at 19 hours of, uh, of teaching that I hadn't taken. And he was so nice, he could have said,

01:21:22.250 - 01:21:41.049

you know, well, you're leaving us. And so we, we're not gonna pay you for that, but instead he paid me for 15 hours of that time was, that's right. And so that fall before we came to Pepperdine, we went around the world that's went around the

01:21:41.060 - 01:21:57.029

world. And when we taught at Heidelberg, and that was the, that was the, the, excuse me, the year that, that, uh, the first year of the Heidelberg program and Howard White was there and JC was there in the fall. So we stayed two weeks with them.

01:21:57.040 - 01:22:13.950

Fall of 6363 and both of us gave lectures while we were there and took a field trip with them and uh stayed in the little Golden Arosa Hotel that was there. You know, they were using then uh you've never been to Heidelberg. No, no, never been

01:22:13.959 - 01:22:33.879

to Europe. And uh they were using the America House then they didn't have that annex from the hotel there. You know, then, so they were using the America House for classes and staying in the Golden Arosa Hotel. And uh so you didn't actually start here until

01:22:33.890 - 01:22:53.000

January 64. I was, I was, we were employed both of us by the school and as a part of our responsibilities, we were over in Heidelberg for those two weeks. So actually, we began, our contracts began that the uh in the fall of September 1963. But

01:22:53.040 - 01:23:14.049

you actually didn't come uh here. That is, we didn't come here to teach until uh the, the January of 64. And did you live here? No, no. Yes, we did. Yes. Yes, we moved here because when I came out to, to uh uh well, I have

01:23:14.060 - 01:23:30.379

to, yes, I'll have to refresh myself as to just what. But I, we were out here in the summer and that's when the elders approached me. The these elders approached me about preaching for them regularly. Norville didn't want me to accept a regular church. Uh, but

01:23:30.890 - 01:23:51.890

I just wasn't excited about traveling every weekend after I'd done so much of it in Texas because the land they own this home. Yes. The previous preacher had been moving here. Uh, so were you back here in time for Christmas at the end of December? No,

01:23:51.899 - 01:24:10.120

we came, we came home for Christmas. That is, we got home in time for Christmas. That is to my home. But, um, we, uh then we had to drive out here and uh of course, uh you already had all of our things in storage. You see,

01:24:10.129 - 01:24:27.020

we'd already put our house up and sold it. So right around New Year's Day, somewhere in there, you moved in here uh of 64. Yeah. So you just passed 22 years. This is our 23rd year with the church and in this house too, you're into your

01:24:27.029 - 01:24:45.020

23rd year. That's right. Well, you've just about got it. Uh war broken in now. It should be, I guess so. I guess we should have so much needs to be done. I know. But of course it was, it's really very, you know, as I say, we've

01:24:45.029 - 01:25:00.250

been just wonderfully blessed. That's all. And we've had the opportunity to have contact with uh a lot of wonderful people. You can't tell him after that goes off. I want you to tell my brother Miller says about you getting your doctor. Well, this is only to

01:25:00.259 - 01:25:17.310

help me write the introductory article and to help with the uh the night that we do at the dentist because I need to collect all my facts on that. Well, I was preaching at Grace Avenue in Nashville Old Church. It was the mother church of the

01:25:17.319 - 01:25:35.209

east of the River Old Foster Street Church and they moved up on Grace and built them a nice building. They'd always had appointment preaching until I came 1940. And so they decided to employ me for every Sunday except the Sundays that Brother Bowles would come. Brother

01:25:35.220 - 01:25:50.740

bows would hold meetings most of the year. But he'd be in, in December and January and February when he was writing his Sunday school material and articles and things like that for the advocates. So he would preach on the third Sunday and those on those Sundays,

01:25:50.750 - 01:26:10.330

why I would be free to go someplace. So, um but I was the only preacher. They had the first one that they ever had Sunday to Sunday, that Grace was there uh there. So Paul Miller was a leader in the church. They didn't have elders. Paul

01:26:10.339 - 01:26:28.629

and Miss Fannie had been with that church for years and years and they had no Children. But uh he was just about one of the most unique men I ever met. Actually, he was an uneducated man in the sense that he didn't get through high school,

01:26:29.009 - 01:26:45.569

but he was a marvelous bible teacher and a very dedicated man. He always made the announcements at church and he had a kind of a booming voice. No, he was, he was a short man, but he had a booming voice. So the last Sunday night I

01:26:45.580 - 01:27:07.020

was there while he got up and, and he announced it like this. He said, uh well, he said, uh this is uh brother pack last night. And he said, uh you leaving us that he's going to California that he's going to school out there. He's gonna

01:27:07.029 - 01:27:28.740

work on his doctor's degree. But he thinks that it will help him preach said, well, we'll see the house. Just the house just roared. You know, because of course they all knew Paul and they knew, they knew his whole spirit, you know, and they knew, and

01:27:28.750 - 01:27:42.189

he didn't intend it to be funny. I mean, he was just that he was just, he was one of the funniest little men I ever, I ever saw. What year was that back in 1944 when he was so cute. So Frank talks like him, but he,

01:27:42.200 - 01:27:55.700

he talked loud because he didn't hear and they just took him in and, well, of course, when Frank came out here, they said, yes, you'll go out there and marry a Yankee. And Frank said never. And so we went back, I wasn't quite sure how I

01:27:55.709 - 01:28:07.640

would be accepted, you know, but they just took me in and love me just like they did. Well, everybody did. But it was so cute. You know, the way he would talk and well, when you got ready to leave, they gave you $50 and he give

01:28:07.649 - 01:28:27.399

you $50.50 or $100 that he gave because I've never seen that much in a bill, you know, one bill, he had to run a planning bill, uh, a cabinet bill, uh, in South Nashville. And it was a small business but it had survived when nearly every

01:28:27.410 - 01:28:42.520

other business went to the wall. And I asked him one day after he got sick, he was sick for uh quite a while before he died about how it was that he was able to survive during the depression. And he said, well, he said, I figured

01:28:42.529 - 01:28:57.740

every job make a little damn profit. That's the way, that's what he would express himself, you know. So, uh so they were really wonderful to us uh to, to me to start with and then to us after we got married and then let me get a

01:28:57.750 - 01:29:18.470

few more comments on preaching. Did you ever hear TB, learn more? No. So that was just he, he died in 1926 I believe, 27 somewhere 29. He died in Santa Ana. So that was just your mother. And um uh would you li enlisting formative influences back

01:29:18.479 - 01:29:34.069

here? Would you have list uh any of the Wallaces? You didn't know them in the early, that was later, Kel That's right. And, um, how about Batel Baxter? Uh, the father? Was he much of a preacher? I didn't hear you preach much. No, I, I had

01:29:34.080 - 01:29:49.950

a class with him but I didn't hear him preach much. And what about any of the black preachers? Would they have ever had any input? Well, not, uh, not in, not in those years. No, I, I, of course later, uh, knew Brother Keeble and he used

01:29:49.959 - 01:30:05.040

to come every year and, and speak in the lectureship at that at uh at Lipscomb. And then of course, he got to going all over. See, Brother Burton helped. Uh in fact, brother Burton supported, I knew that. What about the hard and Tabernacle sermon? Did you

01:30:05.049 - 01:30:20.060

ever catch any of those series? I have, we had all the books. Uh We never went and got all the books. Yes. My father got all of those books. But you yourself were never in there in A R and A? No, not, not a, not A

01:30:20.479 - 01:30:38.640

because the first year was 22 but the fifth and last was in the thirties. In fact, brother Hardiman preached that series of church history sermons at Union Avenue. That, that spring before he went to the, to the meeting. Brother Miller uh is very much interested in

01:30:38.649 - 01:30:54.399

those meetings, but he was very disappointed in that meeting. He said we brought him here to preach the gospel and he preached church history and he felt like that that was really a bad thing because what it was, he, he, he hit the Catholics and he

01:30:54.410 - 01:31:09.330

hit the Methodist. He used the Presbyterians, hit the Lutherans and all of those you see along the way and, uh, instead of letting the, and, and he was such a good master, you know, and just preaching the gospel and laying out in his, in his less

01:31:09.479 - 01:31:23.859

the other that he felt like, you know, that it was really a uh not a good thing. Uh Let me go back again now to uh some early yearnings to preach. You, you think you desire to preach even before you were baptized at 10. Can you

01:31:23.870 - 01:31:38.700

think so? Can you describe some of the, you know, was preaching, held in high regard and, and what, uh I really don't know exactly. Uh you know, what made me turn that way except that I was active in this uh youth group because I went to

01:31:38.709 - 01:31:57.549

Sunday school over at the other place active in the youth group. And uh um and I don't know uh just why it was that they let me do the, do the Sunday night storytelling. It wasn't very long, but I got up on the platform. I remember

01:31:57.560 - 01:32:16.870

that and told my little story and um um I don't know, I don't remember enough about those formative influences, you know, to know just how much of it must have come together one way or the other. And then coming out into the Brewer years. Uh Did

01:32:16.879 - 01:32:34.189

he ever personally talk to you about preaching? He had a class that he called the Pauline class. And uh we studied Paul's life and Paul's missionary journeys and all of those things. And he taught that class and it was mainly for young, young people. And in

01:32:34.200 - 01:32:48.089

fact, uh he had us all to memorize those speeches. And then we, on a Sunday night, we acted those out on the platform, which is pretty innovative. I thought, you know, as I looked back at it, uh, but our own brother and they moved all the

01:32:48.100 - 01:33:03.979

furniture off and, and he would be the governor and he would be Bernice and he would be somebody to represent soldiers, you know, and it was Sunday night, Sunday night assembly and then they came and, and, and quoted the speech, you see, there's obviously a woman

01:33:03.990 - 01:33:20.950

playing Bernice. She's up there in the state. It would have been pretty. That's right. And, uh, so, uh, several of us were involved in it. And in fact, uh, out of that group, uh, uh, Woodrow Whitton came, who used to be head of the history department

01:33:20.959 - 01:33:37.540

here. And, uh, Leslie Burke who taught Greek at Harding until he retired was in that same youth group along with me. Let me ask you about books of, of sermons. I've been talking about preachers. Have you, have you in your life? Been much of a reader

01:33:37.549 - 01:33:52.080

of sermons? Do you enjoy reading sermon material and, and have you made any kind of special effort to collect volumes of sermons? Have you've gone along? And which ones have been? Which ones do you enjoy reading? Which ones might have been formative in your own love

01:33:52.089 - 01:34:10.240

of preaching? Well, so far as sermons are concerned, I've not been as much interested in reading sermons, I guess as, as I have, and I've always said to boys that you ought to read a good homiletics book every six months to rekindle your interest in, in

01:34:10.250 - 01:34:32.439

preaching and the whole process. And I think Butrick Jesus came preaching and uh and cheer us for. We have this treasure um in the Yale series. And those two are particularly outstanding in my way of thinking. And I have, I have those. And then Ralph Salman's

01:34:32.450 - 01:34:52.629

book based on John the Baptist on the Highway of God as he calls it um all good. Now, there used to be a uh uh when I was a young fellow, uh going to school, I guess, maybe in college. Uh there used to be a uh

01:34:53.509 - 01:35:13.370

a radio program that was put on as a sustaining public service program by the national broadcasting company called Catholic Hour. And uh every year from Christmas to Easter Monsignor Sheen, as he was known at that time, later, became Bishop Sheen, and then later became archbishop would

01:35:13.379 - 01:35:37.479

speak and he was uh he was very, a very, very polished speaker. So I set off and, and got to those radio uh um series when he would speak. Um he had one that he, that he gave on our prodigal world 16 lessons for those weeks

01:35:38.209 - 01:35:55.799

in which he took the prodigal son story and really Alleg r it, you know, and applied it to the, to the father's house is the Catholic church and the younger son is western civilization that's gone off and wasted substance and riotous. August started off with the

01:35:55.810 - 01:36:07.959

reform when they left the church. You know why they wasted this and they wasted that, wasted the other. Now they've gotten down to the house. So the Father holy Father invites them to come back to the father's house. You know, I mean, that's the way it

01:36:07.970 - 01:36:24.299

goes. So I've used that as an illustration of how that I thought I could do a better one by taking that parable and, and saying that the Father's house is the Lord's church and that it wandered away, drifted away into apostasy. And in that why they

01:36:24.310 - 01:36:35.160

developed the Papacy and all the new doctrine and things of that sort. And what they need to do is come back to the New Testament. And I said, I think mine would be better Bible than his. But I said, I don't think that's what the prodigal

01:36:35.169 - 01:36:52.140

son story is about at all in either case. Yeah. And I used it as an illustration of the misuse and the passage. But he was a very, very smooth speaker. And later when he was on television, you know, he's extremely popular in spite of the fact

01:36:52.149 - 01:37:11.290

that he wore his ecclesiastical robes and everything. Well, there were a lot of people that watched him on television. Did you know, uh, uh Dalzell, did you know Lyle Dalzell? I used to work for Herald of Truth. I'll have to tell you this in Idaho. I'll

01:37:11.299 - 01:37:24.200

have to waste one minute of this valuable. I'm telling you that for years I worked at for Herald of Truth in what was called key workers. They had, that was the term, they had key workers and I was a key worker in the state of Michigan.

01:37:24.799 - 01:37:38.500

And Lyle would go around. Let's see, what year are we talking about here in 1969? This probably was maybe 70 Lyle would go around and rally the key workers and we had to work harder for Herald Truth and raise more money and so on. And his

01:37:38.509 - 01:37:51.410

way of uh pumping us up was to read letters that had come in and of course, that would always do it. That's sure fire. And Lyle knew that and he had honed it to perfection. He could make you cry on a moment's notice he'd read these

01:37:51.419 - 01:38:05.120

letters, you know, these people just call this and if that didn't make you want to go out and up that budget, nothing would, you know, Lyle was just a master one night at the Highland church building in Detroit over in Highland Avenue. The preacher there was

01:38:05.129 - 01:38:20.029

Doug Kasowski. He was a key worker. I was preaching at uh Hazel Park. I was a key worker. We all, we all gathered in there for our annual uh pumping up time. And old Lyle got up there and he went through all the letters and it

01:38:20.040 - 01:38:34.479

was a typical night. But then he said, uh for boy, his voice hushed and he, he quivered and he said, I've got a letter now that I need to read you, that's just gonna knock your socks off. And he got so low, you know, we're straining

01:38:34.490 - 01:38:53.359

to hear him and he read this letter and it was from Fulton Sheen and Shane had said he had watched the program and was really impressed and wanted to know more and all that. Well, anybody that have a, like a sense had to know that that

01:38:53.370 - 01:39:09.910

was a fraudulent letter. The bishop seemed not interested in that and Doug and I, we were sort of mischievous all our lives anyway. I mean, we, we got to snickering and couldn't believe but everybody else just taking this serious and obviously Lyle just convinced. Well, he

01:39:09.919 - 01:39:24.859

went ahead and read it and then boy, he said, brother, we need to redouble our efforts while the leading Roman Catholic in America is about to embrace New Testament Christianity. And can you believe it? And of course, later it, it was, they finally discovered it was

01:39:24.870 - 01:39:39.700

a woman who was mentally ill who had written that they finally traced it, you know. And, and later Lyle couldn't be kidded much about it. Later. I tried to embarrass him. I tried to kid him a little bit and say Lyle, we heard from Fulton is

01:39:39.709 - 01:39:58.009

Earl Roberts written this lately, you know. And, uh, so anyway, you mentioned sheen. Sheen was very, very good. We had a preacher in, among the old preachers in Tennessee. Uh, I had, uh, real good friend that in college we became acquainted. Grand B Tyler and he

01:39:58.020 - 01:40:15.569

was a very, very capable young preacher several years older than I am. But, um, one time we were down in Warren County, which is really a strong county in the state of Tennessee. It's where the SES come. Uh, I forget how many churches there are in

01:40:15.580 - 01:40:33.410

that county, but it's, it's really strong for the, for the church. And, uh, the preacher at, uh, mcminn County seat was, was TQ Martin. Have you ever heard of TQ Martin? Yeah, Morris Waln did a book of sermons on his outlines or? Oh, no kidding? On

01:40:33.419 - 01:40:52.020

TQ Martin? Yeah. Wasn't it the c, the outlines of TQ Martin? Maybe so. Yeah. Well, anyway, he is the only man I've ever seen that could cry and talk at the same time and he would preach and, and he'd get on to a real sad thing.

01:40:52.029 - 01:41:06.790

And the tears would just roll down and drop off of his cheeks. And I was sitting on the platform one time at Lipscomb and, and people all over that crowd would, would, would cry with him and then he'd make some little humorous quip and people to

01:41:06.799 - 01:41:18.919

laugh right through their tears. He could just play on an audience just like that. Of course, he was sincere. I mean, the one, he was just naturally that way. I never saw a man that had such a wealth of funny stories in my life. So Grandville

01:41:19.000 - 01:41:33.459

went, he said, I want you to come over here. He was living in Mac Manville. Then he said, I want you to come over here and let's visit old brother TP Martin. By that time Martin was retired and we spent all morning long with him regaling

01:41:33.470 - 01:41:45.720

us with stories and if we tell one, he'd tell two or three and of course his was three or four times as funny as anything we had. I never saw a guy like that. You know, he just, just had a wealth of, of all of these

01:41:45.729 - 01:41:59.649

stories, you know, that, uh that he could share with you. Um I have two last things I need to ask you before the tape runs out. One is large crowds that you've preached before. What, what have been the largest gatherings you've been privileged to address? I'm

01:41:59.660 - 01:42:18.970

assuming that one big Pepperdine lecture at the sports arena. What, what year. That was, that 63. I think so. I think it was the Spring Lectures of 63. Yeah, the biggest. And that would have. And, but then you spoke at several abs. Yes. Then the year

01:42:18.979 - 01:42:36.979

they had the 50th in 1968. I see that was 63. Abilene 68. Um, of course, they were still doing two. You and somebody else VP Black, I think. I remember we were speaking to the, to the old soul when everything was jammed all around. They were,

01:42:36.990 - 01:42:54.520

they were just, they couldn't see them all but would only, it would only hold a certain amount 1500 or so. And so the, the sports arena might have been 6000. But uh yeah, I don't know how many were there. They had a big crowd there and,

01:42:54.529 - 01:43:06.779

and I held a meeting after I came to teach at Abling, held a meeting, I guess it was the first year. Maybe we were there and they, they were building the college church. And so they didn't want to have to pay money for, for a preacher.

01:43:06.790 - 01:43:22.000

So they wanted to cheat me. So they asked me to start it on Wednesday night and close it on Wednesday night. And so I, at that time, why they'd have the meeting and you'd preach in chapel as well. And I, it was, it was one morning

01:43:22.009 - 01:43:39.979

that I preached in chapel and had 84 responses in the, in Evelyn in se in. So that's the most I've ever had. I had, I think, I believe baptisms and all, 100 and 31 in that meeting. But, uh, um, a lot of these, of course, were

01:43:39.990 - 01:43:55.589

kids. I just happened to, uh, to, to speak on a lesson that, uh, that touched a whole group of them and, and I never, when the invitations song started here, they began to come and I decided, well, I'm not gonna say a thing I don't want,

01:43:55.600 - 01:44:09.830

I don't want to over persuade these kids. So they came and, and they just kept singing and they kept coming. And I never, I never interrupted the society before and never had that, never made an appeal. There were some baptisms in the group and then there

01:44:09.839 - 01:44:22.859

were some that uh the majority of them of course, had come to, to be prayed for. Do you know which years you have been one of the featured speakers in Abilene and you have been on other than that year in six years, I've been, I've been,

01:44:22.870 - 01:44:39.500

I don't know, I, I'd have to go back and check through that. Uh You know, uh Were you ever in the years, 49 to 63 in the years that you actually taught? Yeah. On your meeting at, at uh Lumber at Broadway, you had a lot. Remember

01:44:39.509 - 01:45:00.209

that was one of the biggest meetings they'd ever had before we went before we um I was on the program, uh giving a less known worship. Uh One of those early years when we were still in Seoul. But it's your memory that when you stood up

01:45:00.220 - 01:45:14.930

to preach that night at the sports arena, you probably had not addressed a larger crowd up to that point. And then has there been one larger since then? Because the one in 68 at Abilene, it, it would have been if they'd all been in one auditorium.

01:45:14.939 - 01:45:32.890

But I think that was the year of the split. They were still having split service and they did that. Now, the year 62 I don't have a photograph unless you do. Of the year you spoke in the 43 in 63. I have the photograph of the

01:45:32.899 - 01:45:47.009

night George Pepperdine was wheeled in in 62 and I think Ir or, or bats, one of those two was speaking that year and of course, that I, that's the famous, I see a lot of those in our archives. Is there any picture of the night you

01:45:47.020 - 01:46:04.859

spoke? I don't know whether it is or not. They took a picture and I don't know where it is uh of the uh Fred Davis. He was, he was uh running the elector at that time, Fred Davis and uh and Nol and me and uh maybe

01:46:04.870 - 01:46:23.200

some others uh outside of the, of the sports arena. Yes, just, just a photograph in the afternoon. But um, II I think that I have it someplace but I don't know where it is. We've got to get the, uh, pictures together. That's the last thing I

01:46:23.209 - 01:46:36.939

wanted to do was if we could lift these on the table, if you tell me what they are while we still have some tape, we, it's three o'clock and I know that if I don't beat that going home, we have a house church on Wednesday night.

01:46:37.620 - 01:46:53.339

I said we don't really know what you, what you might want. See. So, I don't know what those would go through you. Oh, yeah, we can make slides of this. That's great. And I didn't know. Did you say you wanted some, uh, childhood pictures of his?

01:46:53.629 - 01:47:05.689

You saw what I did? Well, you didn't get to see all of it. What I did with Howard last year. But, yes, well, here are two of my brother and I see that's where I am now. Which, uh, let me take this one first. Which one

01:47:05.700 - 01:47:22.310

is you here? You're the older? See? This is older. Uh, so this is you here? Uh huh. And, and this is you, these are younger pictures than that one there, see? Yeah. And this is my brother here. Uh, so Charles as he's called today that he's

01:47:22.319 - 01:47:35.049

one that he's the new audience one. You see this two, look how he was taking the same day. That's right. And then this one's a little bit late. That's right. Ok. What I'd like to do is, is what I did with arthritis, make slides of these

01:47:35.060 - 01:47:49.604

and then return these two. And, yeah. Do you have, if you have any more of these? I ended up running about six of these, of Howard of various gospel meetings that he, I don't know, he has something in here that I don't know whether that fold

01:47:49.615 - 01:48:00.904

will do well or not. And it's not too good a picture of me but I want the founder. Oh, yeah. Winner of founders. Oh, and here's the heading. Oh, this would come out. Well, and the date. Yeah, that's the one you know that you told about.

01:48:01.875 - 01:48:17.040

Of course, I have that slide. I already have that one made but I need this. I see we could make a slide of the half page. Might be. Yeah. Yeah. Now this of course, is the picture where you and all of us were together with true

01:48:17.049 - 01:48:37.689

blood. I don't know it in that. Now, this one is an interesting one because there's good speed and there's Carwell. Oh, and this is, this is what I have been looking to see which one is good, good speed is here. And uh uh Carwell came and

01:48:37.700 - 01:48:55.720

gave the graduation. This is Car, that car. That right. That's when he was president University of Chicago. And WB was a close friend to him and of course, Goodspeed, that's Joe White and that's Billy. Billy was a, was a student at UN tut he's dead. Is

01:48:55.729 - 01:49:16.709

this Ralph Wilbur. Ralph Wilbur there? That's, of course LD Webb. I just can't think of his name, but he's the one that baptized Mel Powell. I can tell you. Is there a date on this? It says, well, it's, uh, could have been 1947. It says I'm

01:49:16.720 - 01:49:37.229

not sure whether it's 47 or 48 in there. Um, and the occasion again was good speed lecturing on campus. No, the occasion was the graduation. It was the graduation time of of uh uh and Calwell came to deliver the graduation address and Goodspeed was invited. See,

01:49:37.240 - 01:49:57.270

Goodspeed was living out here. You see. Yes. And in fact, uh I got to visit with Goodspeed in his home. Uh And then uh about this time, Goodspeed was given a memorial, uh an honorary uh Well, there was an academic procession in his honor. It, it

01:49:57.279 - 01:50:11.600

was connected with his Bible and first Baptist church down here gave it to him and then his wife became very ill. And so he wasn't able to be there, but we all went and academically gave you and everything and uh and had uh from the various

01:50:11.609 - 01:50:31.200

schools. The procession, didn't he come over and speak in chapel ever could speak? Well, he probably did. I don't remember all about that. Well, this is the one uh these are some pictures taken in class. What is this with Kenny? This is from Abilene. I think

01:50:31.209 - 01:50:47.259

these pictures are I just thought he was, oh, the day he spoke in champ recently because I make faces. You know, now these are you lecturing at a, at Abilene? I just thought that, you know, now these, I don't know whether you wanted something of us

01:50:47.270 - 01:51:05.890

and do you know we cannot find our picture. Like do you have, is, is this your wedding shot? This is Abilene. This is gonna have wedding shots. Oh, these are good. Now, is this early fifties? Yes, that would be early fifties. That's good to Frank. But

01:51:05.899 - 01:51:24.979

I don't know what you would do about me being asleep. So, well, I, I'd invent a story this Fall Banquet of 61. This is the, uh, this was, uh, this was at the outside of the Burbank building after we married. We can, that's pretty early. That

01:51:24.990 - 01:51:39.129

wouldn't have been too long after you married. Now. That's right. Now. This is, uh, this is, I don't know. Um, well, yeah, they're coming apart. I think that, uh, we don't know what that is and you may not want it. I just, it just together and

01:51:39.140 - 01:51:56.040

stuff. Now, I didn't know what you'd want to take one of the, if you wanted that picture of her ankle. But, uh, let's see if this is the same as this. It is OK. It isn't. Yes, it is the same. But as I say, this one

01:51:56.089 - 01:52:11.720

is a little light, these two are lighter. This will uh let me give you this one back. These two will make slides better. There's a little more light on your face. Let me get down here to be clear. Let's see. This is one that came out

01:52:11.729 - 01:52:29.270

in the paper from ab we were sitting in our, at north side in our house there and we can, oh, I've seen this picture now. This was taken by a photographer from the Abilene reporter now. So, and what was the occasion? Well, uh, uh was that

01:52:29.279 - 01:52:44.080

the occasion when we, when we made a gift to the school when it was or something? I'm not sure. Do you know who that was? And I didn't want it done. No, I don't remember. In fact, I don't know who this is over here. Let's go.

01:52:45.819 - 01:53:02.419

This is, I don't think he'd want that either unless he blacked them out. It's kind of good at you sideways. What is the occasion of you in the s oh, that's Pandora again. 1960. Yeah, this is the, this boy was from, from Redlands over here and

01:53:02.430 - 01:53:19.700

they married, they were both Tulsa and they, that's was a, I'll say that was the waiting done. But here's ours. Now, here's, here is one of our wedding pictures. You may not want those at all. Now you had, you ended up reshooting, didn't you? You didn't

01:53:19.709 - 01:53:41.310

like your first batch. But this of course was Frank's pants. Were this that one? But you don't want that by myself. But this is now the date of the wedding again was June 22nd. June 2 2. This one is the, here are these 20, yes, it's

01:53:41.319 - 01:53:58.089

the same. Yeah, it's the same shot. The larger one will, will, uh, have more light, it will do that. You can do what you want, you want. Which one do you want? I'm gonna take this one. I didn't know about these but I saw them and

01:53:58.100 - 01:54:14.009

I thought they might have looked at him way back. Yeah, that's when I was, uh, that was when I was in Chattanooga preaching. Yes. And I went to New York, uh, Walter King, you know, Walter King. Walter King's daddy had me to come to New York

01:54:14.020 - 01:54:30.009

and hold a meeting in their, in their hat shop. And, uh, he got a friend to make these pictures of me. I think maybe this might be the better shot than any of these. But then I think I, either one of them, I think I take

01:54:30.020 - 01:54:47.589

each of these because they're all different poses and, uh, you know, they can add a little more light when they, uh, they can leave the exposure. So this would have been late thirties now, Jerry, I'm just as sorry as I can be because I'm as sure

01:54:47.600 - 01:55:03.759

as I'm sitting here that we have a smaller one of this. Oh, this is the 10, I think this will be. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Now this one you may not want to use. But the first, well, the year that Pepperdine opened Frank and I were

01:55:03.770 - 01:55:15.399

both supposed to go to Africa. You know, we knew that and teach, I, at the last minute I, at the last minute decided I can't do that because I've got all these student teachers and, you know, and the head of the department, I said, I just

01:55:15.410 - 01:55:27.979

can't do it. It was terrible. He went and they took this picture and sent it to me and I think it's somebody snapped out of me and I don't know, just went, but it's out there by the Bible school, the South African Bible school. I mean,

01:55:27.990 - 01:55:45.819

you've got your camera around your shoulder. So I grabbed my, the wind. Does this remind me of a shot this summer? You and I in front of Coventry Cathedral, do you remember how wind it was? Your tie is this thing? It's out this way and up

01:55:45.919 - 01:56:00.060

and uh, and our, our hair is we're blown straight back but it's as clear as it can be. It's a great photo. I've got it in my script. I think these are funny. In other words, they're taken of me while I'm talking and you're making faces

01:56:00.069 - 01:56:14.509

like nobody's business. That's Don Morris behind. That's Morris. Is that at one of the lectures? Yes. It was at one of the lectures, I guess. Here's the other one. This is, this is another one of don, I mean, this one, I think, 20th century Christian. This

01:56:14.689 - 01:56:34.479

is, this is at the lectureship, you see. And, uh, oh, and, uh, John, that's not, is it that, that, that's at the, at the, some, some band? And I don't know what it was. Yeah. Now this is a little later and as I said, you don't,

01:56:34.609 - 01:56:51.359

you know any of these you don't want. Oh, this is good. Oh, this was the year for such a time as this. That's the 78 of this. Well, I don't know, is back there. In other words, I'm getting less and less hair as you can. Is

01:56:51.370 - 01:57:12.319

that clear on the kind of document there? Did you see that one? I think you've got one already down there. Well, but not uh let's see. No, see this is a full body. Let me take both of now. This is the Oh yeah, I arranged that

01:57:12.470 - 01:57:31.979

when we honor Tommy Phillips. So that's uh that's uh these, this is just pictures he had made that. I don't think that's and I don't think that's too good. Do you? Well, uh I, I have another one like this. I already have that one but I

01:57:31.990 - 01:57:48.529

want, I do want several mug shots that can be it then. Yeah. Well, now in the book portion, we'll see when they lay it all out. This may be the only photograph we end up with, but I'm trying to talk them into a little four page

01:57:48.540 - 01:58:06.930

thing. But the night of the, uh, of the slide presentation, I want to use each of these. I don't know what that is. Well, that's the, that's the thing we had at the Wilshire Christian church and she sent me, but I don't know. Did you know

01:58:06.939 - 01:58:27.589

I was in, I was with ST, you were ST and he was, uh, John Smith. Now, these five are the same. So, let me just make sure I get one with good light. I could OK for that. And uh that's the, that's the committee down there.

01:58:27.600 - 01:58:55.069

Yeah. Yeah, that's a different one. Oh, and this is the handshake. That's the handshake. So you were stone and he was Raccoons and who played Smith um the, the preacher Pearson Pearson, the pastor at Wilshire and Christian and then a communion. I shot. Oh, great. Keep

01:58:55.080 - 01:59:13.129

going. And then I'll, well, you don't have to use all of those for the night, for the night of the slides. I will, I just got what I could find. And so, well, I had a few things because uh some of the Howard White things overlapped

01:59:13.140 - 01:59:29.520

with. It may be that there's some things in the archives, you know, that's uh I have a shot of the Bible faculty in 1946. The Pepperdine Bible in that there's eight of you and every one of you has your uh is your leg crossed just like

01:59:29.529 - 01:59:44.810

this. Well, I mean, it's a group of penguins or something, right? 88 guys. And they're, they're just prem is proper and they've all got their legs crossed the same. We were probably instructed, but it almost looked like the June Taylor dancers or something. It looked like

01:59:44.819 - 01:59:59.509

you had just finished a dance camp. Here are these eight distinguished bible teachers that all had that leg kicked over it. And I thought I'd show that one, but I like it so funny. Anyway, you know, when you see the differences, this whole stack here and

01:59:59.520 - 02:00:14.220

these were the ones I was, I'm taking and making the, I was weeding out the ones we had two of that. Now, there's not any shot that you know, of, of you. Well, there's a couple here of uh you in the uh in the pulpit at

02:00:14.229 - 02:00:31.370

north side or Culver or anywhere, uh actually preaching. So I don't know of, of any of that's been taking a cover. Do you? What about in the book preaching for modern Man? Did you and Prince have a preaching? I don't think, let's see, I can check.

02:00:32.879 - 02:00:55.439

I don't believe there's a picture in there and you didn't see the whole thing of uh Howard Howard. Did you? What's all? Well, that you could get you the, the uh agonizing. You were so wonderful that night I knew that you must have been ready to,

02:00:55.700 - 02:01:12.049

well, there won't be any goof this year, but I don't think there were Frank. Do you want to go in the front bedroom and bring that sack? Yeah, I guess I'll go ahead and this is a few minutes away. I'll go ahead and stop it.