tent revival

Thankful Thursday: Digital Archivists and Classified Ads

Before Twitter, Instagram and Facebook existed, faith-healing evangelists used to announce their comings and goings in the local newspapers. And now, thanks to the digital archivists who preserved those records, I’m able to retrace my father’s footsteps along the Sawdust Trail.

Newspapers were king at the time–king-makers, too, as my father’s college classmate, Billy Graham, would later attest. Via the Los Angeles Times:

Evangelist Billy Graham recalls in his new book the pivotal point in his young ministry when, during a 1949 Los Angeles crusade, a two-word directive from publisher William Randolph Hearst to “puff Graham” made him an instant celebrity nationwide.

The sudden front-page coverage showered on Graham by Hearst newspapers in mid-October (after three weeks of little notice) was quickly matched by other newspapers and newsmagazines–literally a media circus descending on his rallies under a big tent.

My father never achieved Graham’s status, of course, but his promo pieces were printed alongside the greats. It’s like scrolling through a social media feed, but more meaningful, somehow.

 

Throwback Thursday: My Brother Roger (1943-2015)

We didn’t stay in any one place for long, nor did we ever sit for family portraits. And while revival organizers sometimes took candid snapshots of my father’s fiery sermons and the like, most of those got pitched overboard to make room for an ever-expanding family. So by the time my siblings and I reached adulthood, only a handful of personal photographs remained.

Some wayward pictures were eventually returned by my father’s associates. Some found their way ‘home’ when I reached out to estranged family members. My sister Sheryll, who shares my interest in personal genealogy, tracked down quite a few photographs on her own. Secrets oftentimes stay buried, but we encouraged more than a few hoarders to share their private stash. And as it turned out, I retrieved a good number of images by climbing into my “Nancy Drew” roadster and following my father’s tire ruts down the Sawdust Trail.

When Roger passed away this month, I felt a hollowness in the places where his voice once reverberated. So precious–then and in hindsight–the times we shared in communion, recounting the highlights of our individual and shared stories. Such treasures, the memories and pictures we’ve managed to archive, for ourselves and future generations. This doesn’t seem to me the appropriate place to write my brother’s obituary, but I’ve assembled a small number of images that bear witness to his life.

To my brothers and sisters, a love offering. That’s already printed on the dedication page of my memoir–in my mind’s eye, at least. Same with the pictures of Roger that you see here.

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Roger Suva was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1943.

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Roger’s standing next to the family dog, facing my father, who has my oldest sister Coral on his lap. A candid (?) snapshot, taken in front of my father’s revival tent in Johnson City, Tennessee.

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My brother Roger’s upper elementary school picture, taken the year I was born.

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A front-porch respite from the cramped back seat of our family car, the summer before his senior year in high school.

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Roger the Bookworm, shortly after college graduation (Wheaton Bible College, in Illinois).

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A Christmas hug from his older daughter, Esther.

Roger and Heather

Hanging out on the front porch with Heather, his younger daughter (Anaheim, California).

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An outdoor enthusiast with an irrepressible wanderlust, Roger’s pictured here in Joshua Tree, watching for Halley’s Comet.

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A vegetarian before it was fashionable, Roger espoused strong opinions about many things.

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We shared a complicated story, and a tangled family tree. Here, Roger’s (re)introducing me to Cliff, whom I’d met on a couple of other occasions but hadn’t yet realized was my brother.

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The VW bus that Roger called home for several years before he died.

#TBT: My Writing Notebook (Looking Back and Moving Forward)

For who will testify, who will accurately describe our lives if we do not do it ourselves?
–Faye Moskowitz, And the Bridge is Love

CanIGetAWitness_MockCoverSoftened

My friend Emjae created this mock book cover for me a few years back, as a loving gesture and gentle prod. “Keep writing,” she told me. “You have a story to tell, a song to sing.” I tucked one copy into an antique church bulletin display box, and slipped another into the clear front pocket of my writing notebook. I’ve spilled many tears drafts onto the page, emptied and replenished several notebooks since. Lucky me, I’m represented now by two, top-notch agents at D4EO Literary Agency, and CAN I GET A WITNESS? is under consideration by several editors. I’m so looking forward to that magical day, when the contents of my writing notebook become a published book, graced with a reinterpreted cover image!

Day 6 of Susannah Conway’s #AugustBreak2015 photography challenge. In case you haven’t yet guessed, the word of the day is notebook. In this overlaid image, my father’s revival tent serves as backdrop. I’m standing in the foreground, facing my future.

#TBT My Father’s Pentecostal Revival Tent–built of canvas, faith and grit

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My father’s tent revival meeting in Key West, Florida (Anyone recognize the street signs?)

A lesser star in the evangelical orbit, my father didn’t usually have a crew on hand to help set up his tent revival meetings, so we did everything for ourselves. It involved a lot of grunt work, with no guarantees that the crowds would come.

My father painted new signs for each location, hand-lettered without a template. While we cleared debris and smoothed the dirt, he sandpapered the scuffed edges of our portable platform. Pitching the tent was an engineering feat, in and of itself. It also required a lot of strength. My older brothers helped my father position and anchor the tent posts, and then stretch the canvas over top. Sometimes the canvas tore, whether from age or an over-energetic tug. One of the girls, myself included, would  stitch the frayed edges together, using a curved needle and stiff thread.  On our luckiest days, local church folks would volunteer their time and effort. Working in tandem, they’d help hang speakers from tent posts, string the interior and exterior lights, and sound-check the microphones. (Electricity was typically siphoned from a nearby church or charitable business). We then planted the folding chairs in tidy rows, scattered sawdust on the earthen floor, and plunked a hymnal on every seat.

Drivers slowed, gawked, and rolled on past. Sometimes they’d honk. Other times, they’d jeer. Passers-by would stop to watch our dusty, sweaty routine, would whisper among themselves as we worked. I remember my father’s fervent prayers over dinner, remember him asking God to deliver those spectators to our evening service.

#TBT: Pentecostal Revival Tent in Johnson City, Tennessee

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In this faded photograph, my father’s kneeling in front of a (heated!) revival tent, with his preaching Bible spread across an open palm. My father said his hands were anointed by God, as evidenced by the fact that when he pressed that open palm on worshippers’ foreheads, their eyes rolled back and their bodies went stiff as corpses. He called that being “slain in the Spirit.”

#TBT: Indoor revival meeting in Portland, Oregon

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Portland, Oregon Revival Meeting, August 1966

 

In researching my memoir, I oftentimes revved up my roadster and slipped into the role of my alter ego, Nancy Drew.  I’ve gathered clues from the National Archives; I’ve explored the sites of former tent revivals and churches, long since demolished; and I’ve unearthed numerous artifacts, along the Sawdust Trail.

And so it is, that on this Throwback Thursday (#TBT), I’m recalling that other blogging meme, Thankful Thursday. I unearthed this classified ad in the Portland, Oregonian archives. Like so many other treasures I’ve collected, it could’ve been lost to time and decay, were it not for for the myriad librarians, genealogists and archivists who’ve devoted their time and energies to the preservation of our individual and shared histories.

Retracing the Sawdust Trail


I spent several hours combing through the newspaper archives at the Los Angeles Central Library last Saturday. Lucky for me, they’ve digitized over a century’s worth of the L.A. Times!  Along with other artifacts, I unearthed this classified advertisement for one of my father’s tent revival meetings. It was filed among those belonging to the biggest stars in the evangelical orbit of that time period—Billy Graham and Marjoe among them.

I’m grateful today for the forward-thinking individuals who stored these images where I could find them. Thanks to their efforts, I’m able to piece together certain elements of my past. And in a larger sense, their efforts have kept the Sawdust Trail from being swept into the dustbin of history.

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Prank Contest Entry

If you believe the axiom “Idle hands are the Devil’s tools,” you’ll understand when I confess that the endless hours I spent in church pews and on the road to Revival with my evangelical father were breeding grounds for many a devilish prank. In honor of Robyn Schneider’s* BETTER THAN YESTERDAY Prank Contest, I’ll tell you one of my favorites.
 

We drove into Lake Charles, Louisiana on a sweltering summer day – several days beyond our last baths and hundreds of miles past our last meal. Around sundown, my father steered the car into the parking lot of a small, steepled church with a dilapidated sign advertising the Revival services planned for that evening. He went inside to partake of the church fellowship and Southern hospitality, leaving my mother and us six children – restless, grimy, hot and hungry – outside to fend for ourselves.

 

We took turns poking our heads inside the propped-open windows at the back of the church, hoping someone would notice us and wave us inside. Meanwhile, the pastor and my father took turns at the pulpit, whipping up the congregation with call-and-response admonitions to come to Jesus and denounce the Devil. The organist punctuated the high points of their sermon with her keyboard as the congregants raised their faces and hands to heaven, their voices to God.

 

Famished and cranky from having spent many long hours cooped up in tight quarters, we struggled mightily to behave. Those of us who were too short to peer over the windowsills swatted mosquitoes and punched each other for the slightest provocation. As sundown turned into twilight, we finally found a diversion: a swarm of frogs, croaking and hopping across the parking lot! With a wicked grin on her face, my mother scooped up a handful, dropping them through the window onto the church floor and motioning us to follow her example.  

 

Soon, several hundred frogs were making a joyful noise unto the Lord, hopping down the aisles and up the skirts of kneeling women. Worshippers, who’d been singing and dancing in the spirit only minutes before, now found themselves shouting and writhing in the aisles for an altogether different reason.  

 


Think you can compete with my story? If so, you should enter the contest yourself! The rules are simple: write a description of the best prank you ever pulled, or the best prank you ever wanted to pull,** post it in your blog along with the rules to this contest and email the link to robynschneider at yahoo dot com with the subject line “prank contest.” The contest is open NOW to US residents only and ends on February 5th at Noon EST. And yes, there are PRIZES!

 

*Full disclosure: Robyn’s my friend, but I’m confident that each contest entry will be judged on its own merits. Which, of course, means I’ll win.
**For the record: I don’t think you should be eligible unless you actually executed the idea, proving yourself clever and courageous in real life, not just in your own mind. Heh.

In Your Pants/Beneath the Sheets

Have you seen Hank Green’s Brotherhood 2.0 video entry about “In Your Pants,” the latest blog phenomenon? The gist is this: Add “in your pants” to the titles of well-known books, then…well, see if you can read them aloud without laughing. In his video, Hank provides some examples to get you going: 

 

Rabbit at Rest (in your pants)

Getting the Girl  (in your pants)

Stumbling on Happiness (in your pants)
An Abundance of Katherines (in your pants)

 

Now try this with titles from your own bookshelves (The Devil Wears Prada…Better Than Yesterday…The Meaning of Wife…).

 

Actually, I think we preachers’ kids own territorial rights, if not copyright, to the idea behind this trend. Forced to sit in the front row of marathon church services while my father preached and (repeatedly) passed the offering plate, my siblings and I would try to keep each other awake. Often, we’d do so with a high-stakes but hilarious game of “Beneath the Sheets.” 

The rules were simple: we’d open up our hymnals to a random page, point at a song title, and silently mouth the suffix, “beneath the sheets,” while trying not to laugh. Predictably, we’d dissolve into silent giggles. The consequences of out-loud laughter were fairly high: Interrupt the hellfire-and-damnation diatribe at the pulpit, and the wrath of the entire congregation would rain down mightily upon your small head. 
 

How long would you last? Give it a try:
 

Silent Night (beneath the sheets)

Amazing Grace (beneath the sheets)

Rock of Ages (beneath the sheets)

Come, Lord Jesus…well, you get the idea!


Anyone else remember playing this game?