THE SALVATION ARMY

I mentioned previously that as far back as I can remember, my parents attended The Salvation Army.  There was an abundance of music and special music in The Salvation Army.  It was the expected thing that every boy would learn to play a brass instrument and the girls would learn to sing.  There was a girls singing group called The Singing Company.  There was also a boys band.  The boys band didn't have any fancy name like the girls singing group.  We were simply called the boys band.
 

 The Chatham Salvation Army 

When I was nine years old, my Dad put a trumpet in my hands and said, "On Saturday you are going to Mr. Midgley's to learn how to play the trumpet."  I don't remember whether I had a choice or had expressed an interest, I simply remember my Dad's words of instruction.  That was February 1941.  At a Mother's Day program three months later, presented by the Sunday School, I played my first trumpet solo.  Within a few months I became a member of the boys band.  One night each week we would go over to George Dunkley's home for a boys band practice.  He was a very patient man with us boys and we learned how to play hymn tunes.  Since The Salvation Army provided the instruments, I played a cornet in the band which was similar to a trumpet.

I should interject here that at one Christmas program, put on by the Sunday School, the boys band was slated to play a number or two.  There was just a few of us and most of the boy's fathers were members of the senior band.  Our fathers thought that we needed a little help so they were off stage in the Officer's (pastor's) office and they were going to make us sound better by playing along with us.  All went well at the beginning but soon the fathers, who were backing us up, lagged behind.  They were not able to see Mr. Dunkley, our leader.  When the audience realized what was happening they demanded that the fathers come show their faces and join with us.  It was a crazy night but one that I remember well.  That has to be at least 75 years ago or more.

When I reached my 13th birthday, my Uncle Charlie Jones, who was the bandmaster for the senior band, invited my cousin Fred and me to join the senior band.  Fred declined but I accepted.  Around the time that I became a member of the senior band I switched from playing a cornet to playing a baritone horn.  I was still in grade school when I became a member of the senior band and continued throughout all of my high school years until I left Chatham to go to Bible School.  My weekends became extremely busy.

I worked in meat markets and groceries stores during those same years and even though working until 6:30pm on Saturdays for most of my high school years, I still got ready to go to the first of three weekend street meetings, Saturday at 8:00pm.  Saturday night was a big shopping night in Chatham and every Saturday the band would gather around the cenotaph play hymns, share testimonies and The Salvation Army officer, or someone else so designated, would give a brief message.

 

Cenotaph

Sunday mornings at 10:15am the band would gather in some residential area or near one of the hospitals and have the second street meeting of the weekend.  The 11:00am meeting was called the Holiness Meeting.  The band provided the accompaniment for the congregational singing.  There was no organ and the piano was used only for special musical numbers, including the Songsters (choir).

Every other Sunday there was a live one half hour radio broadcast at 2:00pm from the Citadel.  The band and songsters were always there.  My Mom & Dad were each soloists and often sang a solo or duet on the radio as well as in the services.  I remember on one occasion giving a testimony on the radio broadcast.  I was encouraged on Monday when I went to school that one of my teachers, who had listened to the broadcast, complimented me and encouraged me.  Prior to playing in the senior band and having to be present for the broadcasts because my parents were involved, I used to sit in the officer's office where Bob Foreman operated the controls for the broadcast and connected with the radio station.  Bob would often let me listen on the head set.  It was there in that office, as a pre-teen, that the seed was sown for my love for radio.  I'll have more to say at a later date about radio and my involvement in the same.

Well, two street meetings, a morning service, a radio broadcast and I was barely half-way through my weekend activities.  After the radio broadcast finished at 2:30pm, Sunday School began at 2:45pm.  Fortunately the radio broadcast was only every other Sunday.  Following a one hour Sunday School class, we once again walked home.  We did not have such a thing as a fast food restaurant.  We went home for lunch and supper.  Oh yes, Dad didn't have a car for about ten years, from the time that I was eleven until I was returning to Bible school for my senior year.  We walked or rode a bicycle.  There were times, especially rainy days or wintry days when a fellow soldier (member) would give us a ride.

So after a quick dash home, (we lived about a mile from the citadel) we were back on King Street West at 6:15pm for our third street meeting.  Since the citadel was in the center of the down town area we would always get in formation at the end of our street meeting and march to the citadel playing hymns as we marched.  The most distant street meeting in the down town area was about six or seven blocks away.  Some nights we were closer.

Once back at the citadel, we prepared for the evening service, which had a larger attendance than the morning.  This was at 7:00pm and was known as The Salvation Meeting.  Once again the band accompanied the congregational singing.  The sermon was usually a salvation message.  I should say here that The Salvation Army's teaching was Arminianism.  This meant that you could lose your salvation and so some of the same people, one in particular, prayed to receive Christ quite often.  I'll say more later, but because of this I struggled throughout my teen years with the assurance of salvation.

I don't recall being burdened down with all of this weekend  ministry,  I rather enjoyed the same.  The hours that we were home on a Sunday, the radio was always on to the various Christian broadcasts of the day.  There was the Radio Bible Class with Dr. M. R. deHaan.  RBC first started on a small 250 watt station, WEXL in Royal Oak, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit.  The folks listened to it in their early years and it was originally known as the Detroit Bible Class.  That was changed when Dr. deHaan moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan.  That was one of the morning broadcasts we listened to before leaving for the first street meeting.  Another morning broadcast was Your Worship Hour with Quinton J.Everest.  At noon, when we didn't have to rush back to the bi-weekly radio broadcast we listened to The Toledo Gospel Tabernacle (C&MA), Toledo, Ohio and also The Cadle Tabernacle from Indianapolis, Indiana with Pastor Dr. B. R. Lakin.  He was one of my favorite radio preachers of the day.  It was a privilege for Leona and me to have Dr. Lakin in our home for dinner about 25 or 30 years later.  I have his autograph, along with dozens and dozens of other preachers and missionaries and they are preserved, as part of my keepsakes, in the potpourri section of Papa's Papers. 
  

Between Sunday School and the evening activities we listened to Dr. Percy B. Crawford on the Young Peoples Church of the Air.  Joe Springer was the bass soloist on that broadcast.  At one of our  Youth For Christ rallies in Chatham, Joe Springer came and sang.  I was privileged to share a piano bench with him after that rally as we gathered in the Ford home for refreshments.  He later became a missionary with HCJB radio station in Quito, Ecuador and we used to listen to him on short-wave radio.  Somewhere during the day we listened to the Old Fashioned Revival Hour and Charles E. Fuller from Long Beach, California.

 

Well, to round out the Sunday evening, it was always a treat to go to Grandma and Grandpa Goldsmith's for a cup of tea.  One of the uncles, who had a car, usually gave us a ride there.  Mom or Dad would phone for a taxi to take us home.  The distance to home from Grandma and Grandpa's was a fraction over two miles. As it concerns the taxi, it cost twenty-five cents to go anywhere in the city.  Grandma and Grandpa were a good long block outside the city limits.   Whoever made the call would ask the cab driver to  meet us in about 15 minutes at the corner of Park Avenue and O'Neil Street.  We would walk the block, in the dark, no street lights, so that we were just inside the city limits.  If the cab driver had driven the extra block it would have cost fifty cents.  That was a lot of money.  I worked one whole hour in a grocery store to make fifty cents.

When we went home at the end of a Sunday, if we weren't at the grandparents, we listened to Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse on the Bible Study Hour, airing from his church in Philadelphia.  The folks found a very interesting program on WCFL Chicago, called Songs In The Night.  By the way, that broadcast is still being aired by Moody Church in Chicago and the present speaker is Dr Erwin Lutzer who was born and raised just out of Regina, Saskatchewan.  Songs In The Night aired at 10:30pm (Chatham time) Sunday nights from The Village Church in Western Springs, Illinois.  The young pastor, in his early twenties, was a pastor by the name of Billy Graham.  About 35 or 40 years ago I sat and talked with Dr. L. L. King, who later became the president of the Christian & Missionary Alliance in the United States.  He told me that Billy Graham was first licensed to preach with the C&MA.  Dr. King was on the committee that interviewed Graham before granting him recognition with the Alliance.

Sometimes, after everyone else in the family had gone to bed, I would sit close to the radio and have it up just loud enough for me to hear The Old Time Religion broadcast.  This was broadcast over WEXL Royal Oak, Michigan.  The owner of that station was originally from Chatham.  One of his brothers had built the brick house next door when I was about eight years old. I used to sit by the window and watch them.  Jacob B. Sparks was the owner of the station and he conducted a live radio broadcast from the chapel of a funeral home, which he also owned and operated.  No pun intended, but it was live from the funeral home.  Let me assure you, I had no problem in those days going to sleep.  Monday mornings and every week day morning I would be awakened by the radio at 7:15am which was tuned to The Nation's Family Prayer Period, once again the voice of Dr. B. R. Lakin, live from The Cadle Tabernacle in Indianapolis, Indiana and broadcast over WLW Cincinnati, Ohio.

I should add that Mom listened to several programs during the week.  One that came on before we left for school was a C&MA pastor from Royal Oak. I remember his name but don't have a clue as to how to spell it. Our cue for leaving for McKeough School was when Radio Revival came on at 8:45am.  We knew we had 15 minutes in which to walk to school.  There were two speakers originally, alternating days on Radio Revival, Tom Malone and Jimmy Mercer, both Baptist pastors in the Pontiac, Michigan area.  When Jimmy left for full time evangelism, Malone then had all six days.  Another five day a week broadcast which Mom listened to was Dr. Ralph Neighbour who was the founding pastor of a church in Elyria, Ohio.  Mom would often share tidbits with us and some of the teaching of these pastors when we gathered for lunch or supper.  There was a pastor who had a weekly broadcast at 10:00pm from Ohio.  His ministry started after I went to Prairie Bible Institute but I listened to him, along with the folks during my summers at home.

Last but not least, and I've probably forgotten some, but Echoes of  Truth with Rev. M. F. Cornelius broadcast at 2:30pm Monday to Friday on CFCO Chatham.  His radio ministry started when he was pastor of Evangel Tabernacle.  Eventually he resigned the pastoral ministry and went full time with the radio ministry.