Pilgrimage of Joy . . .

MARRIED AND BROKE!
by Carl Ketcherside

By the time my thirteenth birthday arrived and summer vacation had rolled around I was scheduled for meetings in three states. This meant I would be away from home until school started again. I had already baptized several persons, most of them my age. A number of others who had “come forward” were immersed by elders who were afraid that, because of my size. I might drown them in the process, or vice versa. At least two of the meetings were in tents. This was before the time of amplifiers and loud-speakers so I had to develop my voice range which was not easy for one my age. Meetings were held all seven nights of the week and often three times on Sunday. There was not much time for respite.

It was not all serious business, and years later, older brethren would recount to my embarrassment, how, when I was preaching in a country schoolhouse or other rural setting, I would be out playing leapfrog or marbles with other boys of my age, and they would have to come out and tell me I had better stop and wash up at the pump because it was time for the meeting to begin. Since many of my engagements were in farming communities or small villages, and I stayed in a different home every night, sleeping under all sorts of conditions and eating all kinds of food, I received training which stood me in good stead later as I traveled in other parts of the world.

It would be interesting to me, but boring to you, if I were to recount the meetings in which I engaged for the next two or three years, so I will resist the urge to pursue that course. There are some places which return vividly to mind. Among them is Bonne Terre, Missouri, which took me back to within six miles of my birthplace. Here, where the remnants of the Cantwell congregation were to be found, I stayed in the home of my paternal grandparents while speaking each night to a capacity crowd. Often the building could not contain the listeners. Seventeen persons were immersed, some of whom still live and are active in the work of the Lord. The spiritual enthusiasm in the town was at a high pitch and the saints were blessed.

Another place I especially remember was a rural congregation called Walnut Hill, south of Springfield, Missouri, located near Battlefield, so designated because of the fierce Civil War battle in which the famous General Nathanael Lyons, of the Union forces, was mortally wounded. It was not historical lore which impressed the place upon my mind, but the fact that the group of saints there purchased for me my first suit with long trousers. When I went in to Springfield with one of the elders, Brother Bussard, he sprang a complete surprise on me by taking me to a clothing store on South Campbell Street where he outfitted me in a suit with a vest. The price was fifteen dollars and there was no sales tax.

Then, with two more years of high school before me, my father decided to move to Topeka,.Kansas. An elderly gentleman, Peter Griggs, offered him a contract to manage Mount Auburn Cemetery, and he found the lure of a regular income irresistible. He called me by long distance telephone and I went to Topeka where I met him and exhausted my little bank account by making a down payment on an old house outside the city limits which I thought of as “that tumble-down shack in Athlone.” It had no indoor plumbing and was in a state of decrepitude. It was all we could afford. When my mother saw it she said, “Poor people have poor ways,” and set about trying to make it livable. My father had great plans for developing it when we got on our feet. We never got there and the “dream castle” never emerged. He spent every spare minute preaching and settling squabbles at places which did not reimburse him enough to pay the grocery bill.

When I started to Highland Park High School I was in a different world than I had been in while attending the little two-teacher high school in Pearl, Illinois. But there was no speech department and when I took it upon myself to enroll in the National Oratorical Contest I had to do all of the work on the speech myself. In the elimination contest I was obviously at a disadvantage and did not even win an alternate position. First place was captured by Geroge Chumos of Topeka High School, the fluent son of a Greek immigrant. When I learned that he had been coached by Miss Carmi Wolfe, head of the Speech Department, I enrolled in Topeka High School where I had to pay my own tuition.

The following year under the expert tutelage of Miss Wolfe, I captured the city contest, the state contest, the regional contest, and lost out in the one which would have sent me to Washington to compete in the finals, held in the House of Representatives. When I graduated from high school I went to Topeka Business College on a scholarship. I studied banking and accounting and ended up taking a position with the Columbian Title and Trust Company, as a researcher for abstracts. I spent my noon hours poring over the old Indian treaties and government land grants. But after less than six months had passed, the call of the whitened fields became so great, I could not resist. I resigned my position, much against the will of the company officials and returned to traveling as an evangelist.

God was gracious unto me and my efforts were crowned with what “our brotherhood” regarded as success. There were “additions” in every meeting. New congregations were being started and when divisions occurred, as they frequently did, we were able to consolidate “the faithful ones” who “came out from among them” to preserve the doctrine in its purity.

I was nineteen years old when I went back to Flat River, Missouri, for what turned out to be one of the most eventful meetings of my life. Every evening when the bell sent its mellow tones out across this mining town the people began to surge toward the building. It was literally “standing room only” every night. I stayed with an uncle in Bonne Terre, about seven miles away but I was in Flat River daily, visiting the members and doing personal work. My song leader was Arvel Watts, one of the best I had ever known, but the greatest thing going for him, as I soon discovered, was that he was the older brother of Nellie Watts. I had always liked girls, and even at my tender age had imagined I was in love with a number of them. But that was before I saw Nell, a raven-haired brown-eyed beauty, whose simple charm swept me off my feet and left my mind reeling.

J. W. Watts, whose first initials stood for John Wesley, was reared in a home of “shouting Methodists,” as was his wife. But when he heard Daniel Sommer preach he was baptized into Christ at once and was already a member at Flat River when my father obeyed the gospel. By the time I grew up and returned to Flat River for the meeting, he and Arvel each owned a store, and Nell was working as a clerk in her father’s place of business. There were six children in the Watts family, as there were in my own father’s family, and the home was one of genuine Christian commitment, under the direction of a stern but just father whose word was law, and who tolerated no “monkey business.”

It was Nell’s mother, I think, who first suspicioned that I was ending up at the store every day just before noon, not so much because I was interested in food, but to see her daughter. When she mentioned her feelings to Nell’s father he said it was silly, and that in spite of the fact I wasn’t yet dry behind the ears, I had too much sense to marry at my age. Meanwhile I could see no indication that I was making any headway, and the meeting was fast drawing to a conclusion. One of Nell’s sisters did not help my state of depression by informing me that Nell had long ago announced that she would never marry a preacher or traveling salesman.

It was on the final afternoon of the meeting that Nell’s older sister and her fiance suggested that they would take me back to Bonne Terre after the meeting. He was the local Oldsmobile dealer and drove a new coupe with a rumble seat. As Nell and I rode along in it I extracted from her a promise that she would write to me if I wrote to her. She said she would answer any letters she received. That’s where she made her mistake.

I wrote every day. Some days I wrote twice. Four more months went by and I found a few days in which I would not be preaching. I arranged a date in advance and during those few days we agreed that we would marry. I do not think I ever made a formal proposal. We simply seemed to take it for granted that we would marry. I went on my way rejoicing but now sent every cent I could spare to Nell who placed it in a special account so that we could purchase a car and later our furniture. A few months later I returned so we could make final arrangements. I had been writing every day and printing a little sixteen page quarterly dedicated just to her, but now the days seemed to creep by.

Finally, the time came to get the license and make the final preparations, and on Sunday afternoon, we were married in the living-room of the Watts’ home, with my uncle, L.E. Ketcherside, officiating. It was a very simple ceremony, lasting but a few minutes. There were no special decorations. We left immediately enroute to Topeka, Kansas, where my folk lived. On the way we stopped overnight at Nevada, Missouri, where we had resolved to make our home.

After a few days in Topeka, we started for California, where I was scheduled for three meetings. There were no motels and most of the roads were unpaved. We expected to camp along the way and had a tent and all of the equipment with us. But the second night out, at North Platte, Nebraska, I became violently ill and developed a high fever. The next morning I drove as far as the little town of Sutherland, a distance of twenty miles, and it became apparent I could go no farther. We drove down the dusty main street until we saw the sign on a dingy little building, “Frank Shambaugh, M.D., Physician and Surgeon.” Dr. Shambaugh examined me and diagnosed my condition as appendicitis. He suggested that we get a room in the little unprepossessing two-story hotel, and he would pack me in ice in the hope that the inflammation would subside and I could return home for surgery.

After seven days in the little hotel room it was obvious there was no improvement and something would have to be done at once. In a private home converted into a three-room hospital I underwent surgery on Sunday afternoon. I was frightfully nauseated from the ether. Each morning Nell came to remain with me through the day. Each evening she went back to the hotel room by herself. When I became able to drive we took a test run out through the country and the next day started for Topeka. We were financially broke. Our last cent was gone. We were in debt and I was too weak to work. But we were both alive and we were together.

A short time later we rented our first place, a little three-room meagerly furnished apartment in an old house at Nevada, Missouri. Here the members took us to their hearts and we found real joy in sharing our lives together. The congregation continued their plan of mutual ministry, for they had never hired a preacher. The elders and other brethren of ability edified the saints. I simply took my turn with them, but it was not necessary that I be present on Sunday. I was free to go out and take the message to others.