My father was born on July 21, 1911 in Greenwood, SC. His name was John Kemp Durst III. He was the youngest of four sons. His father died, when he was 13. His mother was a schoolteacher and never remarried. His mother was very strict, but she paid for three out of four sons to attend college. They all went to Clemson.
Daddy majored in Architecture, which came in handy later in life. He was called into the ministry while at Clemson, but he taught school in Greenville after graduation to save some money to go to seminary. In 1934, he set out for Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, TX by train. The train went through Arcadia, LA, where he saw the bodies of Bonnie and Clyde laid out in front of a funeral home. Daddy majored in Religious Education and graduated with a master's degree from seminary. He also met my mother there, as she was also in the education program. They were married on May 25, 1937 in Heflin, AL, where she was from.
He worked in churches in Spartanburg SC, Houston TX, Atlanta GA, Asheville NC and Richmond VA. He was the first full-time paid Minister of Education in a local church in the Southern Baptist Convention. He then became an Associate Professor of Religious Education at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and got his doctorate in Religious Education from Southwestern in 1956. He was very proud to have an earned doctor's degree than an honorary one, like a lot of people did.
In 1958, he became the director of the Sunday School Department for the South Carolina Baptist Convention. He was also their Church Architecture Consultant, using what he learned in college. He stayed in that position until his retirement in 1976.
As I was growing up in that environment, I knew my father as Daddy. I also knew he had a lot of friends who were big in the ministry, but I just knew them as his friends. When we would go on vacation, the trips were usually centered around his work. We spent two weeks every summer in the mountains of NC at Ridgecrest, while he was leading Sunday School conferences. We spent a couple of weeks in NM at Glorieta, which was just outside Santa Fe. He led conferences there. We would go to the Southern Baptist Convention in places like Houston, Atlantic City and Philadelphia. He was there for work. We were there on vacation. He would try and expand our trips to see the sites. One of those trips took us to California by way of the Old West. We were supposed to meet up with Roy Rogers in California. He was one of my father's friends. That didn't work out, but we did get to go to Disneyland.
Daddy was away a lot with his work. He did Sunday School campaigns in Alaska, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Hong Kong and Macao. He used to say that travel broadens one. During that time, Mother raised us more than Daddy did. If he was home, he would sit in his chair to watch TV and fall asleep. He would never talk about his work. He was very humble and very strict. My brother and I had to play cards under a sheet with a flashlight at night. When I was 16, I talked back to Daddy, and he slapped me across the face. Spanking was a regular occurrence growing up.
It wasn't until about two years before he died that I made him tell me about his work. I knew a lot of it already, but I didn't know about all of the stuff I took for granted. Things like his work in developing a curriculum for Sunday School teachers from Children through Adults. His working with Education Ministers around the state to create opportunities for witnessing to others. His reputation in the country and around the world in Religious Education. He was the humblest man I ever knew. He never did his work for the fame. He did it for God's glory. Daddy died on September 28, 1999 in Laurens, SC. His heart gave out on him. In many ways, his influence has carried on beyond his death. I have a growing respect for him, and his humbleness has been transferred to me. Osmosis is a bizarre thing. I am grateful to have had a father who taught me to be humble.
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