Talk:Harshmanites

[Untitled]
Frank Kirk youtube interview transcripts for future reference:

You grew up a Harshmanite. I grew up a Harshmanite. Being a Harshmanite meant we didn’t swear, we didn’t drink, we didn’t smoke, we turned the extra cheek, we didn’t serve any other God but our God so we didn’t serve in the military and whatnot, and we were good and righteous, but most important, we were the only ones to go to Heaven. All the rest of the world was lost to sin., degradation, and the Devil. We had two examples of what happened if you, if you lost the edge on your faith. One was Herschel…Herschel was a grandson of S.R., I think. Herschel had a chemical problem in his brain. Herschel was brilliant and crazy. He spent most of his life in an institution, and once in a while, they would dope him up with something or other, and bring him to Church, and he would get up in Church to testify, yeah, it was one of those churches where you witness or testify, you’d get up and you’d tell your story. And Herschel would get up and get going, and going, and going, and uh part of it makes sense and part of it makes no sense whatsoever, and everybody is very uncomfortable, and finally somebody would get Herschel back down in his seat again, and we’d all breathe a little easier. Herschel is an example of what happens if you don’t live right. The other example is Luke Parker. Luke Parker. Luke Parker, interesting guy, worked with him for some period of time. Luke was a person who was both gifted, and on the far edge. So – Luke was a little bit crazy and he was a little bit wonderful – all at the same time. But Luke from time to time he he needed to be in the institution also. So he was a second example of what happens if you’re not a good good Harshmanite. So – we were the Chosen, we were the People, we were the ones to keep pure, and upright, and have no bad thoughts and beat yourself over the back for any time you thought about a girl or whatever. I I accepted all of that when I grew up, all the way up to uh roughly my 17th, 18th year or so…and I began to ask questions around the dining room table at night about why do we, Harshmanites, believe in this, why do we Harshmanites believe in that. I I I I can’t explain why my brothers and sisters didn’t uh have the same kind of questions that I had at that time, but we did uh with my parents and discussed those things as some liked the round the around the dining room table as the meal was over. It was never uh, it was never totally satisfying to my mind and the answers that I got. I worked at that time at the candy factory and my job was…you believe this…lift 44 tons of candy per day onto an endless belt that went down to packaging. And- a lot of the time I was in this room by myself. Lifted up, dumped the trays, lifted up, dumped the trays, lifted up, dumped the trays, so your mind has a lot of time to work over things, because you’re not doing anything else. And there were older women who worked there at that time, who’d grown up there…and I said to them, why do we believe this? And they said, well you know they tried to woof it through as best they could, but they didn’t really understand it, so it wasn’t very satisfying, but those same women, on Saturdays, would go over and clean Aunt Leah’s house, stem to stern. It was one of their duties. And, when they were over there, they also had learned to pass off the news about what’s going on in the community. I didn’t know at first that I became news. Francis is asking about – their interpretation of my question with their inflection and whatnot. ..which was a little bit disturbing (laughs) in their translation of that to Aunt Leah. If she had just said…well, ya know, have him come over – have him talk to me…she didn’t. Instead, she snuck a paragraph or two into her sermon that was directly related to what I had asked about. It was recognizable. And then it was more than two paragraphs, it was a page. And then it was a sermon. Get your house in order, young man. Not by name, but by the (unintelligible)…and I thought – shee…

And how old were you as you were? I was now 19 years old. I did not… And you had been promised that you would be given a farm eventually with the church… Oh yes. The Church had a farm and uh, and I had taken care of that farm for a long time…loved it…appreciate it…a whole lot And you were looking forward to being the farmer. The farmer for the Church. And I was out-maneuvered. One of the guys came to her and said – he’s doing a terrible job out there – I’m older – I understand what needs to be done – and what we need to do is – get him off of there – and do it right. So – she said – okay, tell him he’s off of there. So he called me over to his chicken coop – God damn chicken coop with 300 chickens in there – walkin’ down, where are ya, Paul, where are ya, Paul? Uhovheah! Aunt Leah says you’re off the farm - you’re done. You’re out. Whaddya mean? She said you’re done – you’re out – I’m takin’ over. And he did. She continued to address me in sermons, and I continued to have a rougher and rougher time reconciling who I was, who she was, what we’re supposed to believe in. And the idea was, that all the rest of the world is evil – only here. I couldn’t really accept that. I went to work on a Monday at the candy factory, and I thought about being shunned now… Shunned… Shunned. Nobody would talk to me any longer. Cause I was poison. They all knew I was poison. And so I said to myself…this is not a way to live. As bad as Luke Parker, and Herschel is…I need to go and find out about the rest of the world. I came home after work on Monday…with my mind made up. ..to pack my suitcase…one of those strange old suitcases from the past when Samsonite first invented this strong stuff, that had been given to me by a, for an 8th grade graduation present and I packed that suitcase, I think Leon was the first one in and he said what are you doing? I said – I am leavin’ here. And he said – where ya goin’? I said first but outta town. ..where ever. He said ya got enough money? I said no. He said here’s some more. He gave me some money. And uh, he went and got my Dad and said uh Francis is thinkin’ about leavin’ here – uh not today, tonight. My Dad said well, y’know, tell him to come over here and talk to me. So I went over there to my Dad and he said ahh…these things blow over. ..ahh, give it some time, it’ll blow over. I said, uh, Daddy, I’m not content with that. I’ve got to find out…what else is there., so I’ll uh…I’ll letcha know. Leon gave me a ride up to the bus station – Greyhound bus station in Sullivan, Illinois. About uh…five or six in the after…(video ends).

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You were raised a Harshmanite. That’s right. What are Harshmanites? Why are they called Harshmanites? Why did you fall out with the Harshmanite Church? In about 1880, long before I came on the scene, was a Methodist minister, by the name of Samuel Rufus Harshman. S.R. Harsman. S. R. Harshman. And – he had a different take on things than the standard Methodist Church that he was ordained in at that time. I’m not sure what all of his differences were. But uh one of his differences was conscientious objection to war and service in the military and whatnot. And uh he had a whole lot of other things that were on the line of kind of fiundamental Christian…but he had a way with words…that was pretty captivating at that time. So, uh, he began to travel around through Iowa, Indiana, and then on into Illinois basically as a tent preacher, and as a tent preacher he uh would hold these meetings. And he would get some converts, and it kept him goin, and then he would move onto the next town and get some converts and get some money and whatnot. After a while, the moving around and whatnot became too difficult. He had uh, he musta had eight or ten kids. And so he decided to settle down and work out of one location. The location he selected was Sullivan, Illinois, and uh, he settled down there with a dairy business, where he had milking cows, sold milk, did a little bit of farming on the side, and did preaching. And once in a while he took to the road to go maybe uh maybe 100 miles away or so, and do another stint to get some more converts. He gathered a bunch of converts, uh Hagermans and Polands and various other people to do uh be uh members who followed him, believed in him, and thought that he taught the true Word. And so they also, came to Sullivan, Illinois and settled in and made an enclave in the uh south of the town. And in about 1905 or so, he had a brick Church built there, called the Church of Jesus Christ, but in common language, it was called by his last name, Harshmanites. And uh, he taught there and ministered there, and took occasional trips, up until about uh the teens years and then he passed on. There was a big struggle for power within the Church. And in that struggle for power, a whole bunch of people thought that they should be the ones that took over after he passed on. I wasn’t there for the struggle, but in the end, one of his daughters named Leah was the one who came forth as the True Calling of the Church at that time. Although there was still some dissenters. So she came to power in the teens, and uh by the time that I was around there, uh first there as a baby in the 30’s, she was a well-established minister to that enclave of people. And she was called Aunt Leah. She was called Aunt Leah. In those days it was common to call your respected elders by “Aunt” and “Uncle.” And so nearly everybody in that particular community had the name “Aunt” so and so,  or “Uncle” so and so, whether they were or were not blood-related in any way. She not only took over the Church, which she operated effectively, up into the 30’s, she uh, because of job discrimination and whatnot, decided that she would call upon her congregation for significant money contributions to start a business. This was about 1939 or 40, and the war in Europe was beginning to weigh heavily on America, and our people, O-U-R people in the Church were losing their jobs, because we were conscientious objectors. Because Harshmanites wouldn’t obey to a draft…in World War II. And this was World War II. So Harshmanite boys went to jail? Harshmanites were conscientious objectors. ...and there was uh…a bit later there was a Conservation Corps for conscientious objectors. Nonetheless, it was very unpopular in our town. And so, the rowdies would come out at night, and they had a way of filing open a lightbulb in a – I understand this, I never tried it…in a bucket of paint so the lightbulb would fill itself with yellow paint. And they would come by our Church, and they would throw these lightbulbs filled with paint, yellow paint, and they would splash and drip down all the sides of the Church, with uh, this yellow paint, and uh since the Church was brick, it was hard to get out there and get the yellow paint off. They also flattened a few tires and, you know, just general harassment like that. So she decided to start this work program with people in the Church, and she started what was called Community Industries. Community Industries had three divisions, one for the women, and it made clothing, under the title of Felicity Fashion, and they had umpteen numteen sewing machines up there and cutting boards and whatnot, cut the fabric, they’d put it together and they marketed the result. And they had uh another division called Lucy Ellen Candies. Lucy Ellen Candies was named after the two people who had made candy successfully, Lucy, and Ellen, and they put this chocolate factory together. And then the third division was called George Tractor, and they put together lawn tractors for working around the lawn and the garden. Those were the three divisions, and she got a notion, I don’t know how, to put up the concrete building, and Portland Cement was terribly interested in this, so they did a bit of the underwriting, and they put up a concrete building that made the architectural magazines and whatnot all over the place as one of the first you know big commercial concrete buildings. Built about 1940. Three divisions moved in there, each one of ‘em doin’ there own thing. As the Americans became involved in the War, uh, each division was converted – uh George Tractor division was converted to building uh valves of various kinds for submarines and ships. And so they build a heck of a lot of valves. Uh Lucy Ellen Candies was uh into developing part of the inflamous K-rations that went to the troops. And Felicity Fashions turned into developing the quote two man pup tent. Those were the wartime jobs of those three industries. Uh…my Dad at that time worked at Atlas Diesel in Mattoon, and they developed the shell casings, brass shell casings, for the great big uh projectiles from the battleships, and the shell casings were shipped somewhere else, loaded and went on, and so my Dad had an e-pin, I think I gave it to you. Uh huh. From extraordinary effort in WWII. He was gone all the time.Oldsmobile (talk) 06:00, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Books by or about Rev. Harshman
Teachings:

"Christian Citizenship" (1902) archive.org/details/christiancitizen00hars

Biography:

"Memoirs of Samuel Rufus Harshman" (1914) archive.org/details/memoirsofsamuelr00hars — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.175.139.253 (talk) 15:18, 17 September 2018 (UTC)