The Elbert Factor
By Hal Haralson
[Hal Haralson practices law in Austin and is a regular contributor to Christian Ethics Today.]
There are people and places that have played a significant part of my life`s journey.
This is about one such place and two of those people.
About half-way between Olney and Throckmorton is the town of Elbert, Texas.
It has a post office, a general store, and a Baptist church. It`s population is about 20. About the size of Bethlehem.
I was a ministerial student at Hardin-Simmons University in 1956. We held weekend youth revivals in the rural churches of West Texas.
The preacher got to pick his "team." I always chose Juanelle Johnson. She was an excellent piano player and singer. She was beautiful, vivacious, and a great help when it came time for "fellowship" following the services. She became my very dear friend. Following graduation, Juanelle married Ken Wright, who became pastor of The First Presbyterian Church of Golden, Colorado. Juanelle grew up in Elbert, Texas.
Browning Ware, is six years older than I. He was my boyhood hero. He was tall, athletic, and a gifted preacher. My mother told me more than once to "be like Browning." My mother and his mother were sisters. Browning and I are first cousins.
I was on the staff t Hardin-Simmons University when I experienced my first serious bout with depression. I had returned there after one year in the seminary and two years in the Army.
A call came from a church with a history of putting young ministers through the seminary while living on the church field.
The call was accepted andmy wife and daughter and I moved into the parsonage of the
First Baptist Church of Elbert, Texas.
I preached on Sunday. The depression returned. I resigned on Wednesday night. That three-day pastorate may be the shortest on record.
Judy and Jill (our three-year-old daughter) lived on in the Elbert parsonage for six weeks. The people at Elbert didn`t understand what was going on. No matter. They just wrapped their arms of love around us and held on tight.
We then moved to San Antonio where I was treated for depression. There was a suicide attempt, 3 months in the State Hospital, and 13 shock treatments.
When I was released I went to Littlefield, Texas where Judy and Jill had been staying with her parents. Brad was born 5 days later.
I decided to leave the ministry and wrote the First Baptist Church of Loraine, Texas, where I had been ordained and asked them to revoke my ordination.
"We`ve never done that. We don`t know what to do," came back their reply.
"You are Baptists; vote on it." They did, and I became a layman.
I then spent six years in the business world before selling my business interest. Depression had come and gone over these years and I was diagnosed a manic depressive.
Since I had the money to do just about anything I wanted to do, I looked for a profession where my mental illness would not be a handicap. I decided to become a lawyer.
At age 33, with children aged 1, 5, and 10, we moved to Austin and I entered the University of Texas School of Law.
I was an "old man" of 37 when I graduated. No one wanted to hire me, so I hung out a shingle, beginning 29 years of law practice as a general practitioner in solo practice.
We became members of the First Baptist Church of Austin and the church ordained me as a Deacon. My pastor was Browning Ware.
The last trip my mother made before her death was to see her favorite nephew, Browning Ware, ordain her oldest son a Deacon.
Browning pastored First Baptist Church in Austin for 21 years. During those years, he continued to be my friend and confidant. One of those years, I served with him as chairman of the Deacons.
It was during this time that Browning and his wife Corinne divorced. The love of the people of First Baptist Church for their pastor was such that he remained as pastor for many years.
Then, several years later, Browning told me he had met someone he thought he might marry.
"Tell me about her," I said. "She`s about our age. Her husband died several years ago. She lives in Golden, Colorado. Her name is Juanelle Johnson Wright."
Incredible! My friend of over 30 years would be my pastor`s wife.
Judy and I were invited to the wedding, to be held in the church where Juanelle grew up, the First Baptist Church of Elbert, Texas.
We spent the night before the wedding in Abilene. Judy asked me if I felt anxious about returning to Elbert.
"Not a bit," I replied. I woke up during the night with red whelps all over my body. I had hives. The only time before or since. Maybe I was just a little anxious.
We figured out while driving to Elbert the next day that it had been 25 years that very week, since I was pastor at Elbert for three days.
Time has passed since my last trip to Elbert. Browning has retired, and he and Juanelle now live in Georgetown, Texas.
Judy and I will celebrate 43 years of marriage this year. She has been a psychotherapist in private practice for 20 years and I`m still a country lawyer
