As I spent some sleepless hours the other night the thought came to me that I ought to put down in writing why I am the way I am and how and why it took so long for me to get there.
To start at the beginning a young Quaker evangelist named Inez Bachelor came to my home town of Buffalo, Iowa and held a series of evangelistic meetings in the town Turner Hall. She was a very effective minister and succeeded in converting enough people that they formed what became the Buffalo Friends Church. Those converts then in turn invited Inez Bachelor to remain as their pastor and she did and remained for several years. She also came back and visited the meeting many times. I recall some of her visits. She always carried her stringed instrument which she played as she sang. One chorus after another. She was a very gifted minister. My parents, Charles and Martha Prignitz were among those first members of this new endeavor and then I came along as what Friends called at that time a Birthright member. That terminology has long since been abandoned and Friends now refer to children of Friends as Associate members. Now that tells you how and why I became a Quaker. But there is so much more to tell you how and when I came to the point in my life where my belief system just jelled. And that didn't take place until my 91st year, believe it or not.
To go back to the early years my parents moved from Buffalo to Davenport and then to Moline before I can remember anything about those years. I do have recollections of Moline, Illinois. We lived upstairs above a Julius Peterson family for several years. The Petersons had four children Ethel was just a year or two older then me. Then came Stanley about my age, followed by Helen, who was my sister's age. Then a year or two later Waldo came along. The Petersons were very active in their church, the Swedish Baptist Church. It was located right downtown near the business district of the city. They volunteered to take me with their family to Sunday school along with their family. So it was that I attended the Swedish Baptist Sunday school during those early years of my childhood. My father would come down to get me at the close of the Sunday school hour. The Peterson family would remain for church, which was conducted in the Swedish language. One Sunday at the close of the Sunday school hour an evangelist who was holding evening protracted meetings at the Church, had a few minutes during which he invited the children gathered there to come down to the front of the room and give their lives to Christ. I was one of the many who did just that and I remember how much my mother was pleased when she learned of what I had done. I have often thought of what became of the children that grew up in that house. Of the Peterson family Ethel remained active in that Baptist church throughout her lifetime. Stanley became a minister and the last I heard served until his death in the Minnesota area. Helen married a missionary and was active in that field and Waldo was a Professor in a Seminary. In the Prignitz family my sister, Doris married a Quaker minister, Richard Newby and I became a Quaker pastor. I don't know if the house had anything to do with it or not, but I've often thought that this record was quite unusual.
In 1926 my parents moved back to Buffalo, Iowa and we became active in the Friends Church again. That move was short-lived as we returned to Moline, Illinois again in 1929. This time, however, we had better means of transportation and we went to Sunday school and Church every Sunday back in Buffalo. During this time I started teaching a class of boys who were in kindergarten. I continued to teach those boys until they were in high school. We lived in Moline for 3 years, but then the depression caught up with us and dad was out of work and unable to keep paying on 2 houses so my parents left the house in Moline go back to the bank and we returned to the house in Buffalo. During my senior year in high school I fell in love with Ethel Thompson who had already graduated the year before. We both were active in the Christian Endeavor youth group of our church and that is where it all began. So as soon as I graduated and got a job we were married - that was in 1935. It wasn't long before we started our family. We had three children - all girls. And they are the cream of the crop. They really care for our welfare as no one else could. But I'm getting ahead of my story.
In 1944, nine years after we were married and with a family to provide for I felt called to enter the ministry. It wasn't an easy decision to make and I certainly felt that I had to have the total support and encouragement of my wife. It meant leaving a good paying job and entering a field of work that has never been adequately supported financially. We sold our home that was already paid for to my mother and made the move. There I go again, getting ahead of my story. When we decided that we would proceed and see what might come of our plans, we talked to our pastor, Vernard Cox and he was enthusiastic about the idea and he then called the yearly Meeting Superintendent, Paul Barnett. Paul didn't waste any time coming to Buffalo and he met with us and told us of a meeting just 15 miles north of Oskaloosa, Iowa where we could minister and also attend classes at William Penn College at Oskaloosa. So he arranged for us to go to New Sharon and meet with the Ministry and Oversight body of the Meeting. We did that and they agreed on our coming as pastor for a salary of $1,000 for a year plus the parsonage. I would be granted permission to attend college. Thus began my new career as a minister of The Gospel and my first year of college all at once. And that wasn't an easy assignment - New Sharon had 2 services on Sunday and I was also responsible for the mid week prayer meeting as well. But we did it and I did start my college career as well, attending the 1st two years and starting the 3rd when I got sick and was really out of it for 3 or 4 weeks so I dropped college for the time being. We continued our ministry at New Sharon for 4 years. I did some carpentry work on the side to keep ahead of the game financially.
At that point in our lives we accepted an invitation from Noblesville Friends to come to Indiana as their pastor and I would be allowed to take some classes at Butler University. During our second year the Methodists were pushing a Visitation program that appealed to me so I secured their materials and used them with Friends and as a result we welcomed 65 new members into the Meeting. Then Tom Jones, President of Earlham College was seeking someone to supervise the construction of Stout Memorial Meeting House on the Earlham campus. He heard of my building experience so he came after me. When I told him that I had already promised Noblesville Meeting that I would stay another year he asked me if I cared if he talked to the Meeting about it. I approved and he got the Meeting to release me and he promised to find them another pastor.
He did that and we moved to Richmond, Indiana and I entered another phase of my pastoral career - I spent 40-44 hours working on the Meetinghouse, took 10-12 hours of classes and preached every Sunday at Williamsburg Friends Meeting, just 15 miles northwest of Richmond. Tom had promised that if I accepted the responsibility of the job that he would see me through college, which he did. Got my degree from Earlham in 1953, just 20 years after reeceiving my high school diploma.
At that time it was another move to Spiceland, Indiana. Early on there we conducted another Visitation Evangelism program and as a result we welcomed 125 new members into the meeting. We stayed at Spiceland 7 years and I always felt it was my most rewarding ministry.
We then moved to another state - further east again to Xenia, Ohio. I also began taking courses at the Earlham School of Religion at Earlham during my years at Xenia. Stayed there 4 years and planned to stay longer but the Board on Christian Education of The Five Years Meeting of Friends invited me to become their Executive Secretary. So we came back to Indiana, building a new home in Dublin, Indiana, where we lived from 1964 till 1999. I served as the Executive Secretary for 7 years until the Friends United Meeting reorganized from 7 boards to 3 commissions. Those of us in Executive posts were warned 6 months in advance that we didn't have the assurance of a job when the change came. I wasn't inclined to go back into pastoral work again, so I proceeded to start a printing operation. I got it started and it just grew and grew. Meanwhile I was offered the job of managing the Quaker Hill bookstore and Friends United Press, which was just getting started. I accepted the offer and remained at the central headquarters another 10 years.
My final years of pastoral ministry were when I was 80 years old. I took on the senior roll as pastor of Dublin Meeting and Wayne Cox was to do the youth ministry and visitation. I was serving in this capacity when the roof literally fell in. Ethel was getting ready for church one Sunday morning in the bath room and I was in my little study making final preparations for the morning worship when I heard a thud. I rushed to the bath room and found Ethel on the floor and the only 2 words she ever spoke were "I fell." She broke her neck. We rushed her to Reid hospital in Richmond. The doctor there inserted a pace maker and then took her to St Vincent in Indianapolis, where the best neurologists tended her. When after 3 days they said there was no hope for her recovery we followed her wishes and removed the life supports.
This may seem to be a long way around to getting to the point of my credo. But I wanted you to see where I have been and what and when I have reached my new conclusions. I wrestled long and hard for years with the matter of God requiring the blood of animals for human sin. It never made much sense to me. And the idea of the atonement and all of the theories associated with it really troubled my mind. And then just last year new light came that relieved my frustration. So now please read My Credo:
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