Speaks about his early days in America (notes taken by Kermit Bierbaum)
Kermit Bierbaum’s home in St. Louis, Missouri Monday, October 29, 1973
Today was a big and special day. Charles Steffen brought George Walker to the Kermit and Margaret Bierbaum home in St. Louis. Four sister workers also came: Olive Sloan, Ruth Sundermeyer, Susan Peter, and Doris Coleman. Susan and Doris are new in the work. Doris just started in the work this afternoon. All had dinner together and George told us of his first days in America. His memory of dates, places, and people, and their relations is most remarkable.
Coming to the U.S. – September 1903
George and a couple of others arrived in New York harbor on September 14, 1903. They were required to go to Ellis Island to go through Immigration. To his knowledge, there were no friends or workers in America prior to this time. The wait for questioning at the Island was long. They arrived about 10:00 a.m. and didn’t get through until 4:00 p.m. No lunch was served. Women with children and elderly people had a very hard day standing in line waiting.
One of the friends in Ireland had a relative that lived in New York, a young lady, Mrs. McIntire. She and her husband had received a letter from this saint lady in Ireland asking them if they would meet George’s boat. In later days, the McIntires told how that they had been of a mind not to go and meet the boat. But a voice seemed to urge Mrs. McIntire to go. So she and her husband went and stood calling out the name “George Walker!” from behind a fence there at Ellis Island until George heard them. They took them home for the night. Later on, the McIntires professed. They were the first in America to profess (that George knew of).
Bridgeport, Connecticut
It wasn’t long before George went to Bridgeport, Connecticut to look up a lady he had met on the boat. This lady’s father was a high class Presbyterian preacher. He seemed reluctant to ask George to go along to his fancy church since George was of a questionable financial status. So he suggested that George go to a nearby tent meeting. George said that he preferred that anyway.
The tent meeting was a “Holiness” group. After the Sunday morning service, George looked up the leader because he knew him to be from Ireland. After they talked a while, the man asked if George would like to preach the afternoon service. This opportunity was taken. Afterward, the man asked him to speak in the evening service also. George thought this indicated a need for a preacher in the group–which he had filled that day. So his first Sunday in America he spoke to 300 or 400 people.
Springfield, Massachusetts
From Bridgeport, Connecticut George went to Springfield, Massachusetts. They were around Springfield for only a couple of weeks, but they made many friends. Later, workers went back there and were received by those people, and many of them professed. Hugh Mathers was one that went back at this later time. George said that 100 people professed at one time in Hugh’s meetings.
Philadelphia
George went on to Philadelphia from Springfield, Massachusetts and got a bed in a Salvation Army place for 15 cents. The next morning he saw the company he had been keeping (and the bugs) and decided it might be best to move on.
He looked up another man that he had met on the boat [Horace Burgess puts this at about two years after landing at Ellis]. In the course of their conversation he asked George where he had spent the night. When he replied, “The Salvation Army,” the man was horrified. He took George to a better place and paid a week’s board for him. This man was Mr. McKee. George said that he had looked him up as a “last resort” contact because the man had told George that he had plans to become a Baptist minister. Besides that, the man had reminded George of an old companion of his that had turned back. This man later professed. George said, “You just cannot tell who the Truth will claim.” Beyond that, Mr. McKee worked for Andrew Abernethy’s uncle. When George was introduced to Mrs. Abernethy, Andrew was a small child crawling on the floor. (Andrew passed away in October, 1988 after many helpful years in the work.) This was the day after Christmas of 1903.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
From Philadelphia, George went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and was able to have meetings in mission halls and speak for mission groups. It was a common thing in those days for people to preach for mission groups.
May 1904
In May 1904 Jack Carrol, Sara Rogers, Jean Weir, and. several others arrived in this country. Again, in December, 1904 a group including Jack Jackson, Willie Weir, Dave Linnis and others came.
Willie Weir’s Early Ministry
Willie Weir started out preaching in mission halls as a guest preacher also. After one meeting the following August, a man expressed great interest in what Willie had said and asked Willie to finance a place for him to stay the night. Willie had only 14 cents. But he gave the man a dime and went on. Willie hadn’t eaten all day. Toward evening he found a telephone pole and decided that this might be as good a place as another to spend the night. He lay down in the grass beneath it, and looking up that pole, he sang this old hymn before falling asleep:
“I Can Sleep Anywhere With Jesus Watching Over Me.”
Verse 1:
Anywhere with Jesus, I can safely go
Anywhere He leads me in this world below.
Anywhere without Him, dearest joys would fade.
Anywhere with Jesus I am not afraid.
Chorus:
Anywhere, anywhere. Fear I cannot know.
Anywhere with Jesus, I can safely go.
Verse 5:
Anywhere with Jesus, I can go to sleep
When the darkest shadows round about me creep
Knowing I shall waken never more to roam
Anywhere with Jesus will be “Home Sweet Home.”
Willie spent the next day walking and looking about until he came upon a boy playing outside a bread store. Since his Scottish pride wouldn’t allow him to go in and buy only four cents worth of bread, he asked this little fellow if he would go in and buy it for him. The little boy agreed to bring out the merchandise, and in a little bit he presented Willie with four penny chocolates. Willie gobbled them down without sharing. It was his first meal in three days.
That night, while he was trying to unfasten a gate to go in and sleep in a cornfield, the farmer saw him and asked him what he was doing. When he told the farmer, the farmer was “obliging” enough–he let Willie go in and sleep in the cornfield. The next day he was feeling very hungry. He asked a farmer if he needed some help with work. The farmer put him to work sorting apples, but first he asked Willie if he’d had lunch. Willie replied, “No.” He was then given some dinner scraps, which were heartily received. He then went to work sorting apples in the barns. He also wrote out a penny post card, which he sent off to Dave Linnis. Dave, upon receiving it, bicycled about 20 miles to look Willie up. When he inquired at the farmhouse, no one knew the “apple man’s” name. Dave went back to the barn and placed his hand on Willie’s shoulder. Willie slowly turned around and said, “I suppose you’ll be saying, ‘What doest thou here, Elijah?’”
First Conventions in North America 1906-07
The first convention in North America was held in Toronto in Ontario, Canada in 1906. A l5 x 40-foot tent and a rented house were used. This was the only convention that year. In 1907 the rented house had rented beddings, so the women spent only one night there. Meeting, dining, and the men’s sleeping quarters were all in the tent. The first convention in Illinois was held in Chicago in 1907. That convention took in all of the Midwest, and there were about 60 people that attended.
Some while later I asked George about the two men which came with him in 1903. [Kermit Bierbaum is probably speaking here.] They were William Ervin and Ervin Weir. Sadly, both men got off on the wrong track. George said that Ervin Weir had a weakness for the “divine healing” doctrine, and that later on in his life he even wrote his sister that nothing could hurt him because he served God. Before she even received the letter he had an accident and fell off a ladder. He rose up and said, “I’m all right,” and then fell over and died. He had said at one point that some of the friends that had gotten killed could not have been doing God’s will.
GEORGE said, “I have been left alone in many things.”
Letter received from HORACE BURGESS in December, 1981: [HORACE spent many helpful years in the WORK.]
The Mclntires lived in a 4-room apartment. So they rented another apartment for the workers for two weeks for $4. They took those workers to their home and fed them and then took them to the apartment they rented for them. Mr. McIntire had taken the day off from work in order to be able to go and meet the workers when they’d arrived at Ellis Island.
It was Tom and John Tuft’s [later workers] parents that lived in Bridgeport, Connecticut where GEORGE had gone next.
Mr. Tuft was a staunch Presbyterian and later said, “I have always believed in Jesus as ourSaviour.”
George said, “Your idea of a Presbyterian preacher is not the kind of preacher Jesus was.”
Mr. Tuft replied, “Why, I’m a good Presbyterian!”
George simply said, “There is no such thing.” It was like hitting him with a hammer.
Mrs. Tuft had professed in Ireland but had been engaged to this man so had gone ahead and married him. Later on, Mr. Tuft went to a convention, and during testimonies, he got to his feet and just said, “I will arise and go to my Father.” George said that many would not have thought much about those words, but he knew that Mr. Tuftmeant just that. It was the way that he made his choice. The Tufts only had two sons and both of them went into the work. Tom was killed in an accident in Detroit, Michigan on December 9, 1953.
The man in Philadelphia that George had met was a Baptist preacher that he had met on the boat coming over. Every night (on the boat) they had “preaching.” When George spoke to the crowd, some of the Catholics would tackle them. But this Baptist preacher took up for George and gave him his address. He told him that if he was ever in Philadelphia to look him up. He was the one who went and rented a room for George for a week. From what I understand though, this would have been about two years after he had met him on the boat.
George came to Horace Burgess’ home when Horace was about seven years old.
Only one of Christ’s apostles died a natural death:
Andrew died on the cross
Bartholomew was flayed alive (Mark 3)
James (the son of Alphaeus) was beaten to death
Thomas was run through with a lance
Matthias was stoned, then beheaded
Matthew was slain by the sword
Peter was crucified head downward
Thaddeus was shot to death with arrows
Phillip was hanged
James (brother of John) was slain by the sword
Simon (Zelotes)
Paul was beheaded at Rome
Judas committed suicide
Only John escaped this type of martyrdom (history tells us that only those who survived having hot oil poured over them or being dipped in hot oil, were sent in exile to the Island of Patmos).
They had many obstacles in their way—it’s the same way today.
Drinking From The Saucer
I’ve never made a fortune,
And I’ll never make one now.
But it really doesn’t matter
‘Cause I’m happy anyhow!
All the way along life’s pathway
I’ve reaped better than I’ve sown.
I am drinking from the saucer
‘Cause my cup has over flown.
I don’t have a lot of riches,
And sometimes the going’s rough.
But when I have my friends to love,
I think I’m rich enough!
I thank God for all His blessings
That His mercy He’s bestowed.
I am drinking from the saucer
‘Cause my cup has overflowed.
Editorial Note:
I believe these last two items were added by Kermit Bierbaum before he began circulating his notes on George’s visit. We didn’t profess until two years after this visit (and were in this same field), but we knew all of the folks mentioned here and heard about this meeting from them personally as well as receiving additional remembrances from Harry Reed, another one of the friends who was present at this meeting.
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