Saturday, June 18, 2016

The Reverend B.F. Darnell

I don't always pay attention to special days here on the Shipslog.  With Father's Day coming up my sons have already wished me a Happy Father's day.  If they didn't, I would know they meant it.  I tell my wife many times, don't expect cards and calls on every special day from your sons, neither has a 'sweetie' to tell them, "Hey your mother's birthday (etc) is in three days."


You ladies seem to have a special clock that goes off to announce special occasions.  But today it is me, I am thinking of my dad.  The best man I ever knew in every respect. He was the oldest of 9 brothers and 3 sisters. He went to the 3rd grade in formal education and then he started working full time on the family farm in the Red Hill community of North Georgia near Toccoa.

For a few years after the marriage to mama, he was a successful sharecropper, raising peanuts. He dug wells by hand and learned on his own how to handle dynamite.  Neither family, mama's or daddy's were particular religious.



(Dad & Mom early in his ministry, Shelby, NC)
Like the old song Hank Williams sang, my daddy “saw the light." He felt 'a call to preach.' He first associated with the 'Fire-Baptized Holiness' group. Studying every spare moment and working under older ministers, he was self-educated. 


(Dad & Mom on their 50th)
His parents sold their farm and moved to Lowell, NC to work in the cotton mills. Dad and some of his siblings did also.  While working at the Art Cloth He learned of a Bible School with the Church of God. He attended when he could and still hold down his job at Art Cloth.

Dad organized and built the ‘South Gastonia Church of God’. It is still one of the strongest in Western NC.  Dad loved his people.  He became known as a very good pastor. He was not a ‘ladder climber’. Most folk know even in church organizations, politics come into play. When we moved he never took a larger church than he pastored. But when he left it was much larger than when he came.

His life, his dedication instilled in his the three sons and two daughters that lived to maturity, to call him BLESSED. Though he pastored large churches and received good salaries, most of it went back into HIS church. He had no savings and a very small bank account, but at his death hundreds came, church leaders, politicians and HIS people, the cotton mill workers. In death he was RICH, because he was a child of the KING!

Daddy is now on ‘The Other Side’. Shirl and I think of him often.  Out of the family of nine, we are left.

Nite Shipslog


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 Ramblers, dad's car of choice!


9 comments:

Unknown said...

A great man in what really counts.....character. His life on this earth was too short. One day soon I'll be standing in line to give him the biggest hug ever.

Unknown said...
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Lisa said...

I can tell your dad was a good man. You are right. Rich is not what you have on you but what you have in you.
Happy Fathers day
Lisa

Mevely317 said...

Wonderful tribute, my friend. The way in which you write makes me wish I could have known your dad.

betty said...

Your dad knew where to store his treasures, lots of them in heaven. Wonderful honorable man he seemed to be.

Betty

Unknown said...

Our Dad was the greatest, He was smart and had lots of patience everybody loved him. People tell me all the time what a wonderful person he was and loved by everybody. We still miss him very much.

TARYTERRE said...

Wonderful memories of your father. A nice nod to him on this special day. HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to you too Jack.

I'm mostly known as 'MA' said...

Your dad was a wonderful man. What wonderful memories you have. Knowing that church is still standing is a tribute in itself. Not many of us can say we've left something like that as our legacy. Hope your special day was a good one there. Very hot here.

Paula said...

A wonderful tribute to your Dad. Hope your day was good yesterday. We had a nice one seeing a piece of land John's oldest son bought next to Calaveras Lake near San Antonio. Then eating out at a nice place we had never been before.