After twenty years of service, my father’s temperament finally caught up with him. I was about one year old when he had gotten “on the wrong side of a church fight.” He refused to bow to pressure by “certain residents of Princeton” to curtail his tendency to “speak out against social injustice.”

At first the Presbytery said that his church had financial troubles. However, their investigation showed there was no misappropriation of funds. Later, after some going back and forth, they finally forced him to resign from his pastoral duties.

Pop moved us from the parsonage into a small two-story house by a dirt road. Although we fell on hard times for awhile, my father never complained. Through it all he maintained his dignity and lack of bitterness.