Baptist Boy: A Spiritual Autobiography
My great-great-grandfather Green was a devout lay Methodist who founded Sunday Schools wherever he went. He founded Green's chapel in north Alabama, which was my grandfather's and father's home church. My paternal grandfather, Papa Green, was a gentleman and a scholar, retired businessman, and farmer who kept a Bible and newspaper on the table by his rocker. My mother's grandfather donated land for a Baptist church down the hill from his house in central Alabama, where her father and mother, were pillars of the church and sustained a one-room school, also on family land. Grandaddy worked road maintenance in addition to farming to send my mother to Montevallo, the nearby women’s teacher’s college. Mother and Daddy were the first college graduates in their families. Both became teachers and settled in Auburn, Alabama. I grew up in a house just a few blocks from the university and within sight of one of the best public schools in the state. Daddy had converted t...