On July 29th, my daddy died. I missed the memorial service and all the stories told about Daddy because I am in California still recuperating from my surgeries…so here are my thoughts on my father…please allow me this luxury.Daddy was complicated and frequently misunderstood or under-valued.
So much of Daddy re-defined how lives can be lived. He was the second child of a father who abandoned him, his mother, and brother in 1932 at the height of the depression. His mother had a 6th grade education and after a couple of years, she married Rob. The marriage was more of an oral contract than anything based on love or even mutual respect. She would clean, share his bed, cook, etc. and Rob would take care of her boys so that she would not ever have to abandon them to an orphanage.
Much of Daddy’s outlook was greatly influenced by that kind of poverty…and is something we see daily with young girls living in poverty and the decisions they make.Daddy met Mama while he was finishing his time in the military, which was a way out of poverty. He was a high school dropout and she was a college graduate from a family that valued formal education. They had a whirlwind courtship and married on 10th of October 1953…nine months later I was born.
Daddy went back to school and got the then-equivalent of a GED, a Bachelors of Arts, and a Masters of Divinity. Our family, at his last graduation, included three children. In hindsight and having a son with ADHD, I think Daddy also had ADHD. School was not easy for him and with children it took lots of work and patience, but when he decided that he needed to do something (like quit smoking after I was born) he did it. He had enormous determination when there was hope for more…I think loving Mama gave him that hope. He and Mama were married almost 62 years and they loved each other deeply all those years.
For more than 40 years Daddy was a pastor in two branches of the Presbyterian faith: Presbyterian (U.S.) and the Associate Reformed Presbyterian. He strongly believed in women being ordained and having equal participation in the church’s leadership. He strongly believed in civil rights for all.
One of his strongest held tenants of faith was that the Church should be open to all. When I was a girl the KKK came into the area where we grew up, Daddy preached against their hate (and lost members who return later while he was still the pastor). He tore down their propaganda fliers off telephone poles. He received death threats in the night by phone. One of the few times I ever saw my daddy cry was when Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated.
Later, his congregation was the first to integrate in the ARP Church since the Civil War…and it happened with him threatening to resign because “the church was to be open to all...or it was not God’s church.” He modeled for me what the Church could be…had to be, in order to be faithful.Daddy and Mama left the U.S. in their 60s to go teach English in the People’s Republic of China. I think he was happiest there. He thrived in China teaching graduate students and preparing them to go to the West to study. The students loved him, as did the university. In fact, after they left China, they found out that their portrait had been hung in a hall with local and federal communist leaders…the two Christian teachers from the West.
Daddy was not a pastor of the country club variety. He was himself…a man who grew up in poverty, who believed in openness, who welcomed all, AND who - late in life - left the known to teach in the unknown. I learned from him that being yourself was a much happier way to live one’s life - whether it was popular or not - and that taking risks could lead to joy.
As a child who got little attention, Daddy did love to be the center of attention which came easy because he was funny, a GREAT story teller, and he loved to croon old songs. Our Nicaraguan staff enjoyed the time when he and Mama came to visit. Daddy would sit in the kitchen and - in English - flirt and tease the women in the kitchen who were cooking for volunteers. They would come out of the kitchen always laughing. Daddy showed me realities in this world that shaped me. I miss him…and when I leave California to finally go to South Carolina, I dread going into that house and not hearing “Hey! Baby! Come give your daddy a kiss.” -Kathleen
