By John Samples
This article mentions a photograph that appeared in publications that subscribe to the services of the Associated Press. While CHRISTIAN STANDARD purchased the rights to run the photo run with this article in our printed version, we do not have permission to post the image with the online version of this article.
According to the old adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” However, here is one picture worth several thousand words. It is a picture of seven siblings who have attained at least 50 years of marriage. The two brothers and five sisters pictured have accumulated 391 years of marriage. An eighth sibling, Joe, died just short of his 50th anniversary; if we add his years of marriage, the total for all the siblings becomes 439 years.
This picture and their story were reported in most major newspapers, and many smaller ones, in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Numerous television and radio stations also broadcast the story. It made the wire services just prior to Valentine”s Day, which is a reason it received such widespread coverage.
The significance of this story is found not just in these siblings and their 50-plus years of marriage, but in the faithfulness, mutual honor, and loving commitment of their parents. When asked about what influenced them, the seven siblings all said it had a lot to do with the example their parents had been for them. And therein is the story worth several thousand words.
A SIMPLE LIFESTYLE
The parents, Cornelius M. Estes and Minnie Dell Richardson, were married in 1917 and lived a simple lifestyle in Estill County, Kentucky. He worked to support his wife and the bounty of children that came their way. They were blessed with nine children during those years, one of whom died in infancy.
Their first child, Joe, was born in 1919 and the youngest, Sue, was born in 1939. Theirs was a fundamental Christian faith that sustained them through the difficulties of rural living, especially during the Great Depression.
“Curt” Estes, as friends and family knew him, became deeply concerned for spiritual matters and eventually felt a call to the preaching ministry. Lacking adequate resources, he could not pursue the college and seminary education needed to respond to the leading of God.
However, two men, Roy Richardson and Thaddeus Worrell, both products of the Yale Divinity School, became his advisers and tutors. They were very effective in helping him develop insights and abilities as a preacher of God”s Word. In 1934 he was ordained to the ministry by the Bethel Christian Church at Fox, Kentucky.
Brother Estes subsidized his income by working wherever he could find employment and spent several years as an evangelist, usually receiving very little remuneration. He conducted many revivals in the smaller, rural Christian churches of central Kentucky.
As pay for these revivals he would often receive fruits, vegetables, and occasionally an animal to be used for food. Some of these revivals were held in schoolhouses in communities where no church building existed.
It was at a revival in the little one-room schoolhouse in Wagersville, Kentucky, where I first heard him preach. It was also there that I met his daughter, Joyce, the girl who would become my wife a few years later.
He was well-loved and his passionate preaching often drew large crowds. No one kept records of the number of revivals he led, nor of the large number of souls who came to Christ through the influence of his preaching ministry.
A FAITHFUL MINISTRY
The opportunity came for brother Estes to give full-time to the Christian ministry at the Beaver Pond Christian Church in Estill County. In 1944 the church at Billingsville, Indiana, called him to be their minister. He went on to serve two churches near Rushville, Indiana (Andersonville and Buena Vista); one in Augusta, Georgia; and his last ministry with the Antioch Christian Church near Willisburg, Kentucky.
Through it all, he and his wife stayed faithful to their commitments to each other and to the Lord Jesus Christ. Their sacrificial ministry became a standard of life that influenced their children and led them to be committed to the Lord and to their spouses.
Love certainly filled the life of this humble man and woman. Love for each other and love for their Lord. Now the legacy of love, commitment, and faithfulness is reflected in the 50-year marriages of their seven living children.
GOLDEN ANNIVERSARIES
The youngest of the siblings, Sue Bass, completed the streak of golden anniversaries on February 9 at a celebration in Brownsburg, Indiana. She and her husband, Edwin, marked their 50 years together in a laughter-filled banquet room, surrounded by Sue”s six surviving siblings and many of her parents” grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The parents of the seven siblings have 71 direct descendants.
Joyce Samples said her parents endured hard financial times but set a loving example that she”s emulated in her 57-year marriage to John Samples, who is also a minister.
“They always showed respect for each other, which made us know that was part of marriage. There wasn”t a lot of verbal advice. You just watched them and knew how it was done,” she said.
Aside from Joyce and Sue and their husbands, the other Estes children and their spouses are: Agnes and Howard Byrd, married for 61 years; Douglas and Kathleen Estes, 60 years; Charles and Grace Estes, 57 years; Eula and L.B. Champion, 54 years; and Gladys and Bob Maple, who were married 52 years in 1997 (the empty chair in front of Gladys, honors the memory of Bob, who died in 1999).
One of the members of a Bible study I conduct also conducts several Bible studies. One of those is focused on helping men build biblical marriages. Recently he used a newspaper clipping of this story to talk about enduring hard times and of being committed to the commitment. He noticed a man in the group seemed distracted the rest of the study time. Afterwards he approached and asked if he could help the troubled fellow. “No,” he said, “you already have with that news story. I am calling my lawyer today and asking him to stop the divorce proceedings.”
How wonderful to think of the simple life and deep commitment of one humble couple impacting a generation as they lived out a life of faithfulness. How marvelous that they left children who still demonstrate the strength of Christian commitment.
John Samples retired from Standard Publishing a number of years ago to serve as part-time senior adults minister with East 91st Street Christian Church, Indianapolis, Indiana.
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