The Jokes My Dad Told

Growing Up with a Preacher Man

Rev. William "Lester" Howard (1929-2021)
Mary Eulalie McLean Howard (1933-2021)

The Jokes My Dad Told
____________________

by Carolyn Ann Howard

My father loved to tell jokes. He loved to read jokes and have jokes told to him. In general, he just liked to laugh. The problem was, Dad had no comedic timing. He always told a joke to start a sermon, thinking that the laughter would put his parishioners at ease. We would all hold our breath during the joke hoping we would be able to laugh after it was over, nervous laughter if nothing else. We always laughed, though, and proud of himself for having pulled off yet another one, he would begin his sermon.

After Dad's funeral, I went to clean out his house. That man loved paper. He had a ton of those plastic Sterilite 3-drawer carts, and they were filled with paper. Old bills, bulletins, programs... anything made of paper, you name it. One of those drawers was filled with jokes that he had cut out of newspapers, books, magazines, or from the internet. Scraps and scraps of paper with nothing but jokes on them.

He also had a whole bunch of flash drives with documents on them. He kept detailed records of everything including his medical records, information about his cars, his life story, lists and lists of members of his various churches, relative's emails and phone numbers, and people for whom he was saying prayers for and on what day he said them. One of the files on one of the flash drives was entitled "Illustrations and Jokes."

Here are some highlights:

A small plane with an instructor and student on board hit the runway and bounced repeatedly until it came to a stop. The instructor turned to the student and said, "That was a very bad landing you just made."

"Me?" asked the student. "I thought you were the one doing the landing!"

Medical student to a nurse: "Every time I breath, someone dies."

Nurse: "Why don't you try Listerine?"

Two guys were standing by the side of the road holding up signs that said, “The end is near! Turn around before it’s too late!” A short while later a car whizzed by. The people in the car sneered at the guys and yelled, “Leave us alone, you religious nuts!”

A few seconds later, the guys heard the sound of screeching tires and then, a splash. The one guy turned to the other and said, “Do you think we should change our signs to say ‘Bridge Out Ahead’ instead?”

Restaurant server to guest, "How did you find your steak?

Guest: "Quite by accident. I moved the slice of tomato and there it was, underneath!"

A man from the town of Normal married a woman from the town named Oblong. The headline: "Normal Boy Marries Oblong Girl."

And finally:

Two people traveling together can't decide if their next city's name is pronounced Louis-ville or Louey-ville. So they decide to settle it by asking at the first burger joint they find after entering the town. "Hi," they told the worker. "We're from out-of-town and have a bet about how locals pronounce this place. Can you let us know how? Slowly, please? The worker responded slowly, saying, "Burger King."

#yukyukyuk

© 2022 by December Moonlight Publishing, LLC

My Parent's Lifelong Love of Megachurch Pastors

 Growing Up with a Preacher Man

Rev. William "Lester" Howard (1929-2021)
Mary Eulalie McLean Howard (1933-2021)

My Parent's Lifelong Love of Megachurch Pastors
____________________

by Carolyn Ann Howard

Most people don't believe me when I tell them we had cable television growing up in Monticello, Indiana, in the 1960s and 70s. I'm not sure when it was installed, but we had a cable box outside right there by the mailbox. We got about 13 channels. Channel 3 was the Kaiser Broadcasting System out of Chicago. Channel 4 was out of Indianapolis, and I enjoyed watching Cowboy Bob everyday around noon. Channel 9 was also out of Chicago and, beginning at 6:00 pm, ran their Comedy Tonight, which featured  The Honeymooners, which I did not like, I Love Lucy, which I did not like, Green Acres, which I adored, and that timeless classic The Dick Van Dyke Show.

My parents didn't watch much TV at that time in their lives, so the TV was pretty much mine. There was a time, however, when my mother did have the TV on, and that was Sunday mornings while we got ready for church. Every Sunday morning, Rex Humbard preached to us from his megachurch in Akron, Ohio, arguably one of the first megas in the United States. I doubt that I paid much attention to it. I just knew it was on. It was just part of the normal. Click on photos to enlarge

Rex Humbard
Public Domain via Wikipedia

My dad, of course, was not at home while Rex Humbard was preaching to us from his Cathedral of Tomorrow. I don't know what time Dad walked over to the church for Sunday morning, but I'm sure it was very early. He was a pastor through-and-through and devoted most of his waking hours to the church.

My father was more in awe of Billy Graham and all those people he evangelized back in the day. My father thought evangelism was the best way to minister - that is, bringing people into the church by telling them about Christ. (My father's words.) And once a part of the church, Dad would put them to work as Sunday school teachers, scripture readers, prayer givers, cooks for potlucks, etc. Our church in Monticello was BUSY and a lot of people wanted to be a part of that success.

Dad held Billy Graham and his sidekick, George Beverly Shea, on very high pedestals. Mom and I watched Billy Graham's Crusades when I was growing up, and it was confusing. I didn't like all the chaos of those thousands of people going forward to pray at Billy Graham's alter. For a Baptist, public confession is an important part of the doctrine. That is probably why I've been baptized three times, to make sure the public confession did the trick given all the "backsliding" I've done throughout my life. Thankfully when I converted to Lutheranism, no re-baptism was required.

Vincent Norman Peale, although not a televangelist, was another man my dad held up on a pedestal. Peale's book, The Power of Positive Thinking, became my father's mantra. I strove to take that mantra myself, but failed. My outlook on life is great now, but as a child... well, let's just say my childhood was pretty rough.

The megachurch pastor who may have planted that early seed in my father's head that he should become a mega pastor might have been Robert Schuller in Los Angeles. Dad marveled on many occasions how Schuller started his Garden Grove Community Church using a drive-in movie theater. Dad was so in awe of this.

Robert Schuller
Creative Commons via Wikipedia

Garden Grove Community Church, 1961
Robert J. Boser, Creative Commons, via Wikipedia

Mom as well was in awe of Robert Schuller, sending him monetary gifts on a regular basis. As I grew to adulthood, she began to share with me how much Robert Schuller's teachings meant to her and how he helped her with her growing depression. As a gift, the Schuller organization once sent her a clock as a thank you for her donations. The clock became one of her prized possessions. Talking with my daughter, the story brought a glimmer to her eye. She remembered the bird clock well and agreed that it had been indeed a prized possession of her grandmother.

Mom's bird clock
Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection

Dad always said that it was a roommate of his that planted the megachurch idea in his head. He had attended a conference, and this man loaned him a book on how to start a megachurch. This was when I was 16, and my father's tone noticeably changed. He kept telling me about a recurring dream he was having about a huge barn filled with an extraordinary amount of tools. He just kept telling this to me. He said the barn was a huge church and the tools inside were all the people who attended that church.

I look back now and realize that this was his way of pleading with me to be okay with moving to Evansville, Indiana, as a high-schooler. A high-schooler, by the way, who was getting ready to be the accompanist of the coveted singing group The Golden Throats, a goal I had been working for my whole life, really. My tenure would be the last two years of my high school career, and then I had planned to enroll at The University of Evansville as a piano performance major. Our move to Evansville in 1977 would crush all of that, nor would Dad get his megachurch.

We moved to Evansville, Indiana, when I was 17, and I was unable to pivot. Dad was intent on building his megachurch, no matter what, using the now defunct East Side Baptist Church as his foundation. Well, that idea didn't go over very well with his new parishioners. In the meantime, the parishioners we had left behind in Monticello were devastated. I think they're doing okay now, 45 years later, but they did lose their prestigious Day Care Center because of our move.

Dad also floundered after our move. His mega church was not to be, and he felt so defeated. With the permission of the American Baptist Convention, he decided to start a new church in Newburgh, Indiana. This church was successful, definitely no mega, but successful. Then, something weird happened. He turned 65 and retired. I don't believe this was his choice, though. I think my mom was behind this. I don't know what her motivation was, but she so needed to live up to the status quo. Dad lived to make Mom happy, so he retired. After that, I watched him sink into a terrible depression as he watched in dread as his Newburgh church also became defunct.

I was working at a Methodist Church myself at this time, and so I went to the pastor of that church and asked if there was anything he could do to help Dad get back into the ministry. This pastor went to the District Superintendent of our area, and an appointment was set up for my dad to meet with him. The Methodists gave Dad a teeny church outside of Mount Vernon, Indiana. It was located on a little country road in the middle of nowhere! But Dad was so happy to be back in the ministry.

He didn't turn this church into a mega, either, but he did save them from becoming defunct. He used everything he had learned in his ministry to save this church and to bring new people in. Black's Chapel, as they were then called, now have a very nice property on one of the main roads in Mt. Vernon, closer to town, and they are flourishing. A nice group of them came to Dad's funeral, gratefully, and they told me that yes, Dad saved their church. I worked there the last three years of my Dad's ministry in Mt. Vernon, and I can say that actually, they saved Dad.

Mt. Vernon Community Church (Black's Chapel)
Google Maps
Proper Attribution Given

In his final years, Dad was enveloped in regret and grief for leaving Monticello; a lot of it probably from his dementia. He also realized how much he interrupted the plans that I had for myself. I tried to let him off the hook, because I'm very happy and very successful. But it was not to be.

The most important thing to Dad, however, more than anything else, including his own family, was reaching people for Christ, as he would always say. He was victorious in that endeavor.

In loving memory of my parents, Rev. William "Lester" and Mary Howard.

© 2022 by December Moonlight Publishing, LLC

Edythe Louise "Edie" Marquess Miller (1911-1988)

 Growing Up with a Preacher Man

Rev. William "Lester" Howard (1929-2021)
Mary Eulalie McLean Howard (1933-2021)

Edythe Louise Marquess Miller (1911-1988)
____________________

by Carolyn Ann Howard

Listen... I'll be honest. I didn't like Edie Miller. Maybe I should say I was jealous. I felt growing up that she and my father spent way too much time together. What were they talking about together at the church all the time? I don't know. In hindsight, I'm sorry I didn't like her. I realize now that she was a fine, fine person. Still, my dad rarely was at home, and I hold that in my heart still to this day. Click on photos to enlarge

Edie Miller's college yearbook photo
Courtesy Ancestry
Fair Use

Dad tried to establish family night at one point, but I was a teenager by that time, and it was too late. I said no, and he threw his hands up immediately and said "okay." And then he tricked me by starting a youth group instead. Joke was on me.

Our first youth group in Monticello
Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection

When I was just 15 years old, for whatever reason, I decided to throw my parents a surprise 25th wedding anniversary party at the church. I recruited the church's secretary to help me plan the event. I did not, however, recruit Edie Miller. But there she was with her hands in the midst of it. In retrospect, she was the best person for the job!

My parents at their 25th party
Edie Miller in the background
Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection

Edie Miller was born Edythe Louis Marquess in Crawfordsville, Indiana, to Frank Marquess and Florence Green. She attended Butler University in Indianapolis for at least a year. She married Myron Miller in 1937 in Indianapolis, and they later moved to Monticello, Indiana.

Myron was a pharmacist, and he is the one who filled the "diet pill" prescription my mother had become addicted to. My mother was an enigma. If Mr. Miller questioned the validity of whatever these amphetamines were, this prescription was for Mrs. Howard, the wife of Rev. Howard. That meant it was perfectly fine. After we moved to Evansville, the pharmacist here said "no" when she presented her prescription to him.

I can't gain access to the Monticello, Indiana, newspapers, which would be so helpful. Mr. Miller worked at one of the pharmacies in downtown Monticello. After school, my friends and I would sometimes stop into the soda fountain at the pharmacy for a Coca-Cola. I still remember the wood floors in those old buildings, and how they creaked when someone walked on them. Mr. Miller always was cordial, not overly friendly, but nice. I also remember my friend, Kathy Olson, telling me to try a cherry coke. I was not a fan.

The reason to honor this woman, however, was that she honored me as a teenager, and I'll forever be grateful to her for this. In 1974, Monticello endured an F4 tornado that, according to Wikipedia, "produced the longest damage path recorded during the 1974 Super Outbreak." The destruction of this tornado was great. The area in which we lived including the parsonage, the church, and Loucille Cole's home, were fairly undamaged in comparison. We lived in a sort of valley with the Tippecanoe River being just a block further downhill. A ridge rose on the opposite side of the river where a "National Homes" subdivision was located. It was destroyed, and its numerous belongings were blown down into our large yard.

After the tornado, my mother was inconsolable, begging Dad to move to Newburgh, Indiana, so she could be with her family. She was yelling at my father, through her tears, to move. This was a mistake, because only a few years later, we moved to Evansville, Indiana, close to Newburgh. My mother never got over the move from Monticello.

Back to the tornado and its aftermath... My father, Rev. Howard, decided that he needed to be there for his parishioners. That's fair. And we had lost power to the house, and I believe it got pretty cold outside afterward. I don't know where my mother went, but they shipped me off to someone who worked at the church's day care. I became very sick that evening, so I caused a lot of trouble to this person. Once to this person's home, I started throwing up at one end with diarrhea on the other. She had to clean up one mess of body fluids after another. And, to top it off, I wet the bed that night. This person threw me into her car the next morning and took me back to 407 Beach Drive and washed her hands of me. I never saw her or her family again after that.

Myron and Edie Miller
Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection

After that, I was shipped to.... Edie Miller. I don't think Mrs. Miller knew my feelings for her. Perhaps she felt like I was struggling after seeing my hometown destroyed. She would have been right. I was devastated after the tornado. We all were. She told me I was suffering from malnutrition, and she made me dry toast and poached eggs for dinner. I ate them. She really tried to take care of me that night. She brought out board games for us to play together. I don't think I was rude, and I hope I wasn't. But she is the one who saved me. I was healthy and well when I left her care.

It was two years later that I planned that surprise 25th wedding anniversary for my parents. Thankfully, Mrs. Miller stepped in to help. I could not have pulled it off without her.

Ruth Kretchmar, Sharon Tolley, Edie Miller
1976 surprise party for my parents
Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection

© 2022 by December Moonlight Publishing, LLC

My Parents' Back Story - WIlliam Lester Howard and Mary Eulalie McLean

Growing Up with a Preacher Man 

Rev. William "Lester" Howard (1929-2021)
Mary Eulalie McLean Howard (1933-2021)

My Parent's Backstory
____________________

by Carolyn Ann Howard

After my father graduated from the high school in Alfordsville, Indiana, in 1947, he went to Indianapolis to hang out with his brother, my Uncle Willis. They lived in a boarding house together, and my father got a job at a cardboard factory making 55 cents an hour.  After only a year, he stated he "received the call." This is how at least Baptist pastors say how they know that God is "calling" them to the ministry. Uncle Willis and Dad next got jobs at a Christian Church doing construction for an expansion, paying $1.17 an hour, but that job ended when the summer ended. After that, my father got a job at Standard Brands. 

My father at this point wasn't quite Baptist yet. He grew up in the Methodist Church there at Alfordsville, infused with an unhealthy dose of "holiness." I'm pretty sure some of the Methodist doctrine has changed since the late 1940s, but I know that all the rules my father felt like he had to follow were not part of that doctrine.

After a year in Indianapolis, my father had saved up enough to attend Taylor University. This school continues to this day as a nondenominational Christian college and is located in Upland, Indiana. He attended for one year before his savings ran out. He loved it at Taylor University, and I'm sorry he let money make the decision for him that he could not afford to continue there. That was The Silent Generation. Hard-working, thrifty, loyal. That was my father. 

After the year at Taylor was over, he went back to Alfordsville to live with his brother John, sister Esther, and his mom. Not knowing what else to do, he wrote to the District Superintendent (D.S.) in Evansville and asked if there were any jobs open for a student pastorate. The D.S. gave him the Methodist churches of Gentryville and Buffaloville. Dad was 19, and the pay was $20 a week. A woman in Gentryville by the name of Kate Pittman fixed all his meals for $3.00 a week. They were very good company for each other. He lived in the parsonage at Gentryville. Click on photos to enlarge

In or around 1948
Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection

Yankeetown sanctuary, now razed
Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection

After a year, the D.S. felt Dad should be closer to Evansville, since he had made the decision to enroll at Evansville College. His churches at that time were in Warrick County, Indiana and included Yankeetown, Pelzer, Union, and Oak Grove Methodist Churches. It was common at that time for young Methodist pastors in rural areas to have two or more churches.

Dad wasn't happy at Evansville College, though. He didn't like their liberal outlook towards religion, and he thought, again, it was just too much money. Therefore, after two quarters, he decided to transfer to Oakland City College.

My mother went to the Yankeetown church with her family when Dad was pastor there. Dad told stories of eating Sunday dinner at my grandparent's house each week. I'm sure it was my grandparent's plan all along to set my father up with my mother. And my mother was happy for the arrangement. Although she dearly loved her parents and, after they passed, idolized them, at that point in time, she wanted out of their house more than anything else. She was 17. My father was 21.

11 Jul 1951
Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection

After Dad married my mother in 1951, the D. S. transferred my father to Selvin, Folsomville, Garrison Chapel, and Mt. Pleasant Methodist Churches. It was here that Dad decided to switch from the Methodist Church to the American Baptist Church. He never liked infant baptism, believing that people should make their own decision for Christ and then be baptized, making a public confession at that time. He also thought that communism was infiltrating the Methodist Church, and that concerned my father greatly. As someone remarked to me after Dad died, "So... McCarthyism got to him?" Um, that would be a yes.

Once this decision was made, he quit the Methodist Church, which meant The Methodist Church was no longer there to give him employment. Because of that, my parents moved from Selvin into an apartment on Governor Street in Evansville. My dad got into a lot of debt at this time, buying appliances and other things to set up the household. He felt that he had to work, so he got a job at Briggs, which made Plymouth bodies for the Chrysler Factory that was in Evansville at that time. This was at the corner of Columbia and Evans. He got out of debt, but the schedule was grueling. He worked second shift, and then would drive to Oakland City College, and then would come home and do school work, and then go back to work. My mother, in the meantime, worked at Mead Johnson on their secretarial staff.

Briggs Manufacturing
USI Special Collections via Historic Evansville

Once my father graduated Oakland City College in 1954, he enrolled at Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, leaving my mother to live in her parent's garage. She hated this, and one thing Dad was good at was *trying* to make Mom happy. It wasn't long, then, that she was living with Dad in Louisville in seminary housing. It was here that she learned to sew. It was also here that she gave birth to a son, Wayne, whose namesake was after a man my father would never see again. My namesake is similar.

In or around 1951

1956
Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection

After his graduation from Southern Baptist Seminary in 1958, Dad took a job at Hills Baptist Church in Kirklin, Indiana. American Baptist Churches are different from the Methodists in that the individual churches form search committees to look for a pastor. The pastor applies for the job, and then the search committee decides whether to hire the candidate or not. 

Graduation Photo
Louisville, KY

In 1961, I was born in nearby Noblesville, Indiana as Kirklin didn't have a hospital.

Me at 3 months with unknown neighbor
This is definitely not my mother

From Hills, Dad bounced to Centerville and, stating to me later that he didn't care for Southern Indiana, he jumped at the chance to move his family to Northern Indiana.

At Centerville
In or around 1963

My father evidently forgot about his dislike of Southern Indiana, because 14 years after the move to Monticello, Indiana, we moved back to Evansville, Indiana, which is located on the southern border of the state. Can't get more south in Indiana than Evansville.

© 2022 by December Moonlight Publishing, LLC

Our Arrival at Monticello, IN - 1963

Growing Up with a Preacher Man

Rev. William "Lester" Howard (1929-2021)
Mary Eulalie McLean Howard (1933-2021)

Our Arrival at Monticello, IN - 1963
____________________

by Carolyn Ann Howard

My first memory, whether planted or real, was on moving day, 1963. I was 2 years old. The memory I have is clutching my black velvet purse and probably my doll, Billy, who had apparently been given to me as a gift. Billy was a Madame Alexander knock-off, and she was my best friend. I was closer to that doll than to anyone else. In this memory, I was walking on a sidewalk, heading toward our car. We didn't have car seats in 1963 or seatbelts in the back seat. I made it out alive, though.

The second memory, whether planted or real, is that of Bill and Ruth Kretchmar showing us around the house we were going to move into. It was located on Beach Drive in Monticello, Indiana.  My father had taken the position there as pastor for the American Baptist Church in this small resort town. The church had been started about five years prior, and they were meeting in a store front on the east side of Monticello. My father's mission, and he accepted it, was to build a church there on Beach Drive that would become The First American Baptist Church of Monticello.

I don't remember anything else after that until they were ready to begin preparations for building the church. The first project was moving our house back from the street to make room for the church and its parking lot. My only memory was of Moving Day. This was in 1965. I was 4 years old. I was crying - bawling - looking for perhaps my mother. I don't know what was wrong, but I'm sure I was clutching Billy. It might have been Mr. Mann who found me. Someone who wasn't my mother calmed me that day. Click on photos to enlarge

Moving that house was genius. My father was very good at building things. He and the church members built a basement that the house would stand on. This made our house huge. One of the additional rooms added - that would eventually become my bedroom when I got older - was big enough for a bed, desk, chest of drawers, dresser, perfume table, cedar chest, and a rocking chair. Even with all that, there was still plenty of room for me to sit on the floor and play cards - an activity that got me through the stress of being "Rev. Howard's daughter". But... I'm getting ahead of myself here!

After moving day, our house also had enough room for a playroom for me and a huge bedroom for my brother. We had a shower room and laundry room in the basement. We also had a living room in the basement with dark wood paneling. In the evenings, when the sun was setting and the wind was blowing through our many trees, it would shine into the window, casting moving shadows onto the wood paneling. To make things even better, someone had put a plastic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in the sill.

Mom sitting in our green chair in the downstairs living room
Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection

The rest of the walk-out basement contained a huge kitchen and dining room with cabinets all around. And a pantry! Upstairs were three bedrooms, a piano room for me, a full bathroom, my mother's beauty shop and a formal living room. I always remembered that this house was one of those with two front doors. The first front door allowed visitors into the formal living room without letting them into the rest of the house. So the house could be a mess, except for the formal living room, and visitors would never know it was a mess! But our house was never a mess. My mother kept it tidy and clean, almost obsessively so. As for the memory of the two front doors, it is a false memory. Clearly the pictures above show just one front door.

We also had a large attic that had a real walkable floor - probably installed by my handyman father. And it was tall enough to stand in. This was my dad's space that he called his "study". He kept all his books there and, looking back, all his mess. I have been told that men like to have all their stuff out where they can see it. In this space, my father could have all his stuff out. His papers, his booklets, his books, his brochures, and his pictures. A plus for me, there was a small roof outside the attic where I could sunbathe and no one could see me. I don't remember if my mother ever went up to the attic to clean or otherwise, but I don't think she did.

My mom in the back of our big house
Notice the windows above in the attic
Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection

We lived on 7 acres of land PLUS behind the home was a large, wooded area and behind that, the old, huge Monticello City Cemetery. It was heaven living on that property. I would spend most of my time in the woods and in that cemetery. It is probably why I became a genealogist. I would walk through the cemetery and study the stones and wonder what their stories were. I still do that today.

I lived in Monticello with my family for 14 years and enjoyed all the pleasures of living in a resort town that featured twin lakes - Lake Shafer and Lake Freeman. It was here that I experienced so much pain and suffering, joy and sorrow, fun and happiness. My experiences here, growing up as a preacher's kid, gave shape to my entire life. That life in the end is very happy and satisfying and fun. But it took a while to get there.

© 2022 by December Moonlight Publishing, LLC