{"id":9549,"date":"2014-06-18T23:07:03","date_gmt":"2014-06-19T06:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/?p=9549"},"modified":"2014-06-19T07:06:19","modified_gmt":"2014-06-19T14:06:19","slug":"moms-story-her-dad-the-unlikely-pastor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/2014\/06\/18\/moms-story-her-dad-the-unlikely-pastor\/","title":{"rendered":"Mom’s Story, Her Dad the (unlikely) Pastor"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

The following is excerpted from a letter from Mom to her younger brother Jim, whose knowledge of their parents’ early story was even more sketchy than hers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Grandpa-in-front-of-Church\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That’s my mother’s parents and two of her brothers, Rolland and Jim, along with my Dad\u00a0about the time he was joining the family.<\/h6>\n

Our parents never said too much about the Allison side of the family.\u00a0I do remember\u00a0Daddy mentioning his time at the Elim Bible College in Rochester, New York.\u00a0We had a picture of him and a few other young men in waiter’s outfits, standing\u00a0in a row with large serving trays held high, in front of the college. I think that might have been\u00a0in some pictures that were stolen.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

That was when we lived in Pueblo, Colorado. We had to move and the folks arranged to rent a house not far from where we lived. They started taking some things to it. Later when they moved\u00a0more over they found the first things had been removed. That’s how they lost all of Daddy’s early pictures, and a\u00a0fine set of tools.\u00a0Ironically\u00a0they never did move into that house.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

I don’t know how long Daddy went to that Bible College . . . it might have been only a year or so.\u00a0Also\u00a0I don’t know\u00a0when our parents met.\u00a0I think the two families knew each other for years.\u00a0Sure\u00a0wish\u00a0I knew more.\u00a0\u00a0My mother was not fond of the Allisons, so anything I heard was colored with her attitude.\u00a0I remember her saying that\u00a0Daddy was sent off to school TO STRAIGHTEN HIM OUT. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I do know he was pretty much self-taught.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

At one time, much later, when the\u00a0United Brethren denomination was establishing some rules for education of the pastors,\u00a0Daddy got in under the grandfather clause. He was\u00a0allowed to keep his position\u00a0even though he had not gone to seminary.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I remember the system of filing sermons he developed when we lived in Yuma.\u00a0One category\u00a0was called “Sermons Preached at Yuma.” A second category was, “Sermons Preached at\u00a0Yuma and\u00a0Pleasant Valley.” That\u00a0was the\u00a0country church north of\u00a0Yuma.\u00a0Then the third category was named “Sermons Preached at Yuma, Pleasant\u00a0Valley and [Another].” \u00a0I can’t remember the name of where he preached on Sunday afternoons. We kids were not required to go to that church as we went to the other two.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Many years later, during one of my parents’ extended visits from Wisconsin to our house in California,\u00a0I got a telephone call from a man\u00a0who said he knew Daddy WAY BACK WHEN.\u00a0I have no idea how he knew the folks were with us or how he found out who we were. They were out so he talked with me, wanting to know\u00a0about\u00a0Daddy. When\u00a0I told him he was a preacher, he just HOOTED,” John Allison a PREACHER?”\u00a0His attitude gave me the idea that he\u00a0had known Daddy when he was\u00a0in his rebellious days and could not\u00a0believe that he\u00a0was any different from when he knew him.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

When they got home I gave Daddy the name and phone number but did not mention the man’s crude remarks.\u00a0Daddy seemed a little ill at ease and\u00a0I don’t think he ever returned the call. I wish I had\u00a0saved that number, but didn’t feel\u00a0I had the right to follow through on that.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He told me once he felt he was always “catching up.” Starting with just little of the formal kind is one way to ensure life-long learning. And the result can surprise your early friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9549"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9549"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9572,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9549\/revisions\/9572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}