Page 160 - Winterling's Chasing the Wind

Several of us airmen, including Brian Cason, were invited for fellowship at a girl’s
house whose family had flooded the backyard to create a skating rink. This was
something I could never find in Florida! I was at Elmendorf AFB only a month before
being sent to Shemya Island near the end of the Aleutian Chain.

There were no worship services there, although there was a chapel with a Hammond
organ in one wing of our living quarters. I decided to place a notice on the bulletin
board that I would conduct services on Sunday at 11 AM. Around 20 airmen showed up
as I started the service playing a few hymns and leading singing. I went up to the pulpit,
read a short passage of scripture, and gave a brief talk, hardly a sermon. A few months
afterward, a Chaplain visited around once a month to conduct services. I received a
Citation for my service to the servicemen there by the Office of the Chaplain in
Anchorage.

In 1953, after being discharged from the Air Force and returning to Jacksonville, I
visited Riverside Park Baptist Church where Bobby Carter introduced me to his sister,
Virginia.
We were attracted to each other so much that some people thought we were brother and
sister. We loved children and worked in Sunday School and the Training Union with
Junior age kids, mainly 9-year-olds. We were married by Rev. Hubert Taylor there and
we and the Taylor family were very close friends for many years later; in fact, Hubert
Taylor married our daughter Wendy to Bob Schwank in our living room about 30 years
later.

When we moved to Tallahassee and FSU in 1955, we attended First Baptist Church
where Dr. Harold Sanders was pastor, and renowned singer Frank Boggs was Music
Director. We loved the evening song services where we were often taught a new
chorus, such as “I Know A Place” and “I Know the Lord Will Make a Way for Me”.
When Virginia was expecting our first baby, she came home to live with her parents. I
would drive to Jacksonville each weekend and Riverside Park Baptist Church offered
to pay me 25 dollars to clean the buildings and play the piano. Congregational singing
sounded great in the church because it was a square, wooden building that amplified
and blended all the voices.

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