Preface

The journal you are about to read was written by Ellis Whitfield Wade over a period of several years. He wrote it mostly for me since he knew how very much I enjoyed history and in particular the history of our family. Various sections of the journal were written during some of the most difficult times of his life as his dear wife, my mother, Rosedyne Langford Wade, was dying of cancer. That was reflected in some of the writings as he would go through these sad times.

As he wrote, his life was not always rosy. You will read of his difficult childhood and early years through this journal. You will not read about his life after World War II except in his letters to his beloved children, myself, Danny and Joy.

Ellis Whitfield Wade was born on November 6, 1919 in Latch, Upshur County, Texas, the son of Harvey Surestus Wade and Emma Maud Salter. He married Rosedyne on March 16, 1945 in Dallas at the end of the war.

After a short time farming on Rosedyne's parents farm near Hopewell they moved to Dallas where he attended training to become an upholsterer. I never saw anyone in my life better suited for his chosen profession. He was an artist as he could quickly lay out, cut and sew various types of cloth, leather and plastic into beautiful coverings for automobile seat covers, headliners, carpet, as well as furniture. I sat always in amazement as he would sew a four foot section of cloth in a matter of seconds. I can still hear the beautiful, to me, rat-a-tat-tat of the powerful commercial sewing machine. I also remember how panic-stricken the whole family was when that sewing machine would break down as I grew up. Without that machine there was no income for the family. I could see and feel the anxiety in Daddy's face as he would frantically call the repair services in Dallas and Fort Worth to see if he could bring the machine to them the following day and wait for it to be repaired. And often I rode up with him to have the repairs completed and perhaps go by one of the many suppliers he bought from to pick up rolls of material needed for his next seat cover job. I loved the smell of that material all rolled up tightly in brown paper.

He was indeed an artist at his job but as a businessman his heart was always too big to succeed as he might have. Hundreds of times I can remember when someone would do a job for him or sell him something and he would say "oh, that's not enough" and hand them another ten or twenty dollars which he really needed himself. I've caught myself doing this at times. He would never think of cheating a person.

Danny, Joy and I all helped out in the shop to some degree although only when he needed company I suspect. I used to really get upset when Daddy would ask me to help and all I would do was hand him nails one at a time, or tacks or a tool. I know he was lonely and I realize now this was his way to get his children to be with him.

He taught his honest ways to his children always. When we removed the heavy big seats from the vehicles he was replacing the seat covers on most times a small handful of change would fall to the floor of his shop and we always knew to gather it up and put it on the dashboard of the car it came from. Many times I picked up big silver dollars and put them on that dashboard. He would never even consider keeping a cent he didn't make honestly.

Daddy's Christian experience was real. He lived it daily and as he helped organize the Gilmer Nazarene Church the year I was born in 1950. He strongly believed in tithing and always gave his 10% plus much more to the church. He helped build the church and remarked how much a pleasure it was for him to do so, as he helped his brother-in-law, the Rev. Oris Petty Langford, with the church. Uncle Oris was a very large man and couldn't do much in the building process but again was the nail-hander for Daddy as they and Papa "J.C. Cliff" Langford raised the walls and put on the roof of the church which they would belong to as long as they lived. Daddy was its first Sunday School Superintendent and its only one for decades as well as always on the church board, every committee and a Sunday School teacher. He would spend hours in preparation for teaching his class of adults. He loved to teach all of my life.

After the death of Papa Langford, Daddy was led by God into a nursing home ministry which continued until just a few weeks before his death. Each and every Sunday he conducted services at both of Gilmer's nursing homes, leading the singing when one of his family couldn't help out, teaching the residents and visiting them for hours each week. He was indeed their own pastor and often-times members of the families of nursing home residents would ask him to conduct their loved one's funerals.

Daddy loved to sing even if he was no great singer. However, he and Mother, when they sang together produced beautiful music. Later it was the Wade Family Singers as all his children joined in with him. His music timing wasn't always quite right but the nursing home residents loved it as he sang "An Old Rugged Cross." I guess his favorite in later years was "Because He Lives" by Bill Gaither.

In my life there was never anyone who encouraged me more to succeed than Daddy. There was never any doubt in his mind that his boy could do it--whatever it was. At the lowest times in my life he was there to put a positive spin on it and encourage me.

Unlike many men, Daddy recognized his failures in life and you will read about some of those. He often-times felt he was a failure as a father, husband and provider. But as a child I always thought I was one of the richest kids at school. It was only

when I started applying for college loans and had to list his income did I realize that all that time we were living on poverty wages. Indeed we were rich!

Now Daddy was not much for handling family matters such as buying Christmas or birthday gifts. He was busy working to earn the wages so Mother could go out and do so. We were never deprived of anything I can think of as children. Mother and Daddy did without always so we could have.

My entire life Daddy would go to work about 8:00 AM until Noon, take an hour for lunch and a nap, and return to work until 5:00 when we would eat supper. Then another hour or two to rest and back to work with his sewing machine whirring until sometimes ten or eleven at night and often times later with good gospel music always playing on the stereo in the background. He believed in having every gadget possible to produce good stereo sound and had speakers hanging from hooks all around his sewing machine. He never took off a Saturday but insisted that no one bother him on Sunday which was his day of rest--even if he spent all of it at church in the morning and night and the nursing homes in between.

I have never known anyone who enjoyed life as much as Daddy unless it is myself. He enjoyed life despite the many difficulties in his life. We are a lot alike I think. But he was so much better a person than I ever will be. He saw beauty in everything, especially in nature.

Every time we would drive down a road we would see a rusty barn and he would see a well-crafted masterpiece. We would see a field of weeds and he would see the beautiful flowers in the field and point out the trees and remark how beautiful those would be this fall.

Like his mother, he loved beautiful flowers and even though around our house we always had tons of clutter he always had huge areas behind the house of beautiful flowers of every variety. And trees he set out all over his 3 1/2 acres. He didn't mind that they grew around an assortment of cast-offs from our family life.

Daddy just didn't like to throw things away--in a lifetime of doing without he always envisioned that he might need that old broken wheelbarrow or those ten broken lawnmowers or those piles of used lumber, but Mother made certain it was always out of the house or behind it.

Daddy was an accomplished carpenter, plumber, electrician--you name it. He could do it. Or at least he tried. He built our house we grew up in 2 1/2 miles south of Gilmer on Highway 271 by hand with the help of Papa Langford. And the house was never finished as we grew up. Always a new room to add on for me and Danny and later Joy. No matter that he might never get around to finishing all the electrical plugs he had wires hanging out of holes for. Or that bathroom in his bedroom he always wanted.

Never, ever did Daddy try to discourage me from trying to do whatever I wanted in life. As I said, he was always THE encourager in my life.

Daddy seldom ever punished his kids. I only remember one brief swat on the bottom in my life after I punched my brother, Danny, in the face for interrupting the 1964 Republican National Convention on television when I was 13 and Danny was 9.

Daddy's final years included total devotion to his nursing home ministry. He was accredited as a Chaplain in the Nazarene Church and the area nursing home ministry in Longview. His services were a real production. He would haul an entire pickup load of material to the services. The elderly couldn't hear him speak so he bought a public address system which was later replaced by a big professional system bought by Danny and his wife Dinah. He would haul in the speakers, which were five feet tall, on a heavy dolly along with amplifiers, and four microphones to be used by our family. Or he would hand a microphone to several of the nursing home residents and have them sing along with him. There was also his recording devices since he recorded every service to use as a learning tool for himself. And he knew how important it was to save the voices of my grandparents, and other family members who helped out in the services. And then there were his briefcases full of songsheets, as well as thirty hymnals he purchased for the residents to use. But he loved it and the residents of the homes loved it and him. His ministry has been continued since his death by his brother, Truman, who moved next to Daddy a short time before his death. His beloved wife was stricken with cancer in 1987 and until her death in 1989 he was her nurse and provider. Despite pain so severe he had to take medicine which made him hardly able to walk, he would set his alarm to get up and change Mother's feeding tubes all night. He was totally devoted to her care and would himself succumb to cancer the following year, but not before he spent a year working in his little garden daily, visiting the nursing homes and hospitals to visit the sick, lonely and forgotten.

Just as his father and grandfather had extraordinary deathbed experiences, Daddy's last day on earth was remarkable. We kids had been called near 4:00 AM by the hospital that he was near death. We quickly went to the hospital and he was indeed near death and experiencing terrible pain.

He knew pain well. He endured unbelievable pain as a result of his service in World War II. He always said it broke his health and he was never able to overcome it completely. Yet despite everything he clung to life and over and over I would say "It is Well" and he would respond "With My Soul," a reference to not only one of our favorite Christian songs but his own Christian experience. For a lifetime he told everyone who would listen "there is reality in salvation." That was his creed--the foundation his life was built upon.

As life was draining from his body and he could scarcely open his eyes through the blinding pain suddenly he sat upright on the bed, his eyes wide open and shining bright and with a smile I cannot describe and pointing above my head said in a clear strong voice "The Lord is Here!" And then he fell to his pillow to speak no more on this earth.

Yes, his life was full of sorrows but his life was one of purpose. I will never be the man my Daddy was. His life's experiences and the hand of his Master and Lord had produced a unique person on this earth. Yes, Daddy, I know there is reality in salvation.

Read Daddy's journal with all this in mind. Despite all the difficulties you will read about and all the difficult times you are reading about the life of an overcomer. The life of a man who made a difference on this earth.

His journal was richly illustrated with family photos and illustrations cut from magazines which helped him tell his story. I've included some of these for the same purpose.