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Part 11
Comings and Goings
Steve Dennie
March 1987
"I like to go back to Michigan, but I don't think I would be happy living there," says Ruth Boggs. "This is home. I love the people. It's been wonderful."
Ruth grew up in the Colwood UB church in Caro, Michigan. She read articles in the Missionary Monthly about Laurel Mission, and in 11th grade felt God calling her to go there. A message by Miss Snyder at the Carson City campground clinched it.
Ruth went in May 1943, after two years at Huntington College. She intended to leave at summer's end, but stayed after Miss Snyder presented the crucial need for schoolteachers. She and Caroline Lucas, a minister's daughter from Kansas, taught at schools two miles apart. On weekends, Miss Snyder picked them up for services at the mission.
"It was tiring," Ruth recalls. "We walked from Cedar Chapel to Abner's Branch for Sunday school, and part of the time we walked another two and a half hours to hold an afternoon Sunday school at a logging camp. Then we walked back to the mission. It was pretty hard to start out teaching again on Monday."
That lasted a year. Ruth didn't teach the next year, but then taught school two more years at Cedar Chapel. Alvin joined the mission staff upon returning from the army in the spring of 1946, and they were married in August. Except for two-year stints at Kentucky Mountain Bible Institute and Huntington College, Alvin and Ruth worked fulltime for Laurel Mission until 1955.
In the mission's early years, the workers cared for many children--some orphans, others from broken homes. Miss Snyder started it by taking in three children. The next week, a man who had just buried his wife came to the mission. "I can't work and keep my family, and I can't keep my family unless I work," he told Miss Snyder. "Would you take them?"
He had seven children. The oldest boys already knew how to work their dad's still; the youngest was just a few months old. Miss Snyder took them all. Over the years, she took in 50-some children, many of whom found Christ.
Up to 18 lived in the mission house at onetime, sleeping in little wooden beds stacked four or five high. Alvin helped provide meat for this large "family" by butchering rabbits, spearing frogs, and "jarring" fish--"You hit a big boulder with a sledgehammer, and fish come out belly up." Jarring was illegal, but practiced in the community. A few people even used dynamite.
Ruth's sister, Rose, and her husband Paul Lehner came to Laurel Mission in 1947 and stayed seven years. Paul lost his sight to glaucoma in 1949, but remained. He pastored the Abner's Branch church and, in 1952, organized an afternoon Sunday school at Lewis Creek.
"Paul was a tutor for me--an excellent handyman," says Alvin. In 1952, they installed a new bathroom in the mission house at Little Laurel, where Alvin lived. "I'd never put in a bathroom or septic tank, but Paul had back in Michigan. Since then, I've helped 15-20 people on this creek put in bathrooms. He's the best teacher lever had."
Paul was also a master mechanic. "He overhauled my old '49 Chevy after he went blind. He'd feet the pieces and tell me exactly what he needed."
This love for Paul is one reason Alvin left Laurel Mission.
In March 1955, Bishop Ezra Funk came for a visit. "There couldn't have been a better man, a better bishop, than Ezra Funk," Alvin told me. He had baptized Alvin in 1946, and his daughter Erma later served as a missionary at Laurel Mission.
But on this visit, Bishop Funk brought bad news. He delivered a letter from the WMA which said Paul was being removed from the mission staff as of April I. Alvin was to assume Paul's duties at Abner's Branch and Lewis Creek, in addition to his own pastorate at Little Laurel and a UB Sunday school at the snake church.
In December, the WMA had voted to employ just one pastor, rather than two. This resulted from, in the words of WMA minutes, "a general feeling that a large investment was being made in a small area." They had chosen Alvin over Paul. Bishop Funk was astonished that neither had been informed.
Alvin was heartbroken. He refused to have anything to do with it.
"Two couples from Abner's Branch came while I was milking our cow. They loved Paul and Rose, and accused me of turning against him. That hurt deeply. Paul was closer to me than either one of my brothers. He was the best friend I'd ever had."
Paul and Rose packed their belongings and left (a few years ago, Paul retired after many years as a pastor in Michigan Conference). Alvin stayed until October. Then he and Ruth also left--remained in the area, but never again served on the mission staff.
Laurel Mission fell on hard times.
Miss Snyder had already lessened her direct involvement. In 1951, she became superintendent of nurses of the 18-bed Pine Mountain Hospital, working there part-time and at Laurel Mission part-time. She resigned as mission superintendent in 1953, but continued as the mission's business manager and the WMA's representative.
That year, the mission staff included eight persons: Miss Snyder (superintendent), Alvin and Ruth Boggs, Naomi Lucas, Paul and Rose Lehner, Ella Mullen, and David Harris. Within a few years, their ranks were decimated, and Miss Snyder struggled with poor health.
The Lewis Creek outreach was discontinued when the Lehners left. Alvin's departure brought an end to services at Little Laurel, and the house was offered for sale. For a while, Miss Snyder led Cedar Chapel and Ella Mullen led Abner's Branch. When Miss Mullen returned to California for "a much-needed rest," Abner's Branch closed.
Cedar Chapel was revived under Rev. Leo Kiser, who came from West Virginia to pastor the church. The W MA was thinking of selling Cedar Chapel, but dropped the idea after seeing how well things were going--attendance running in the 50's, with 8 recent converts. Also, new coal mines were about to open, which would supposedly bring new people to the area.
However, Rev. Kiser left in 1957.
And then Miss Snyder left.
Rev. Orion Fuller led Laurel Mission until 1959, when health problems forced him to step down. Unable to find anyone to replace the Fullers, the oversight committee turned to Alvin.
"Will you go back?" they asked him.
At the time, Alvin was working at Pine Mountain Settlement School. He said he would resign and become mission superintendent...under certain conditions. He wanted to start a mission school. He wanted the freedom to select his own workers. He wanted to begin a youth program. And he wanted a summer camp meeting.
"That would be great," they responded. "But we can't afford it."
Alvin told them, "Do it right, or get out."
But then they found someone: Rev. Raymond Gant, who had been associated with the mission for many years, preaching revival meetings as far back as 1946. The Gants stayed 11 years, keeping Laurel Mission alive and earning the love and respect of the people. One of his many admirers was Alvin Boggs.
When the Gants left in 1970, Alvin was again asked to take over the mission. As before, he agreed to do so, if....It wasn't to be.
The 1970's brought great change to Laurel Mission.
In 1970, a study committee recommended that Laurel Mission be attached to Auglaize-Scioto Conference. That idea became reality in 1973, when a three-way merger produced the new Central Conference--a combination of Auglaize-Scioto and White River conferences, with the entire state of Kentucky thrown in.
The WMA had stopped supervising Laurel Mission in 1965, when it merged with the Parent Board of Missions. Until 1973, the single Board of Missions administered the work. A joint committee from the Missions board and Central Conference oversaw Laurel Mission until 1977, when the conference assumed full administrative responsibility. The understanding was that Central Conference would take full financial responsibility as well, but the conference wasn't able to handle that.
Alvin says he has seen the mission go through many ups and downs over the years. "There have been times when it looked like the mission had no possibility, but then someone would come and it would spring to life."
One such person was M. E. Burkett, the third mission director of the 1970's. Under his ministry, Laurel Mission sprang to life. "He did beautiful work--a good man, a go-getter," Alvin says.
Burkett forged ahead with vision and energy, and the mountain people loved him dearly. By the end of the decade, four churches were again functioning, and they were considering planting a church in Harlan, where a number of area people had moved. In addition, a $30,000 gift from the Board of Missions financed construction of the Hodgeboom Memorial Home.
So the decade ended with some good years--a high period in the continuing cycle of ups and downs which Alvin has witnessed.
However, money and manpower shortages extracted their price. The mountain people wrote to Huntington, pleading for help which Central Conference couldn't afford. But in the end, Rev. Burkett left, and Laurel Mission began descending into another low period en route to an inevitable, but as yet unreached and unseen, high.
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