Alan T. Forbes oral history, 2010, side 1.

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[TF} OK. Getting started here. It is Wednesday,
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June 17, 2010. We are in Boca Raton, Florida.
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I am Tyler Flynn. I'm the grandson of Alan and Jane Forbes. I'm
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currently a history professor, assistant professor at Eastern
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University in St David's, Pennsylvania. I graduated from Penn State
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with a Ph D., studied under Joe Carpenter, who is an outside reader, Phil Jenkins, Sandford Schwartz
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in the English department, Gary Cross in the history department, and
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Un-cho Ng in the history department at Penn State.
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So we're here, and we're sitting in the kitchen.
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But we understand that some day--this could be a long time from now--and someone could be listening to this.
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So we understand the opportunity here. So,
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these are interviews to get at the history of the Buffalo Christian Center
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and to afford the rare opportunity to actually--for
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historians, to interview people that we study, which almost never happens for those of us in the history business.
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So what I thought we could begin with was
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interviews, an interview about your biographical information.
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And what will be helpful is just to go through and to have
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you two here together allows us a chance to
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cross-reference. How it can be that there's different versions which is bound to happen. You know memory is very malleable.
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So that there are so much interrupting as need be to just help to kind of sort
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out things. And if you can imagine, It's always helpful to
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have as much in the way of, you know, chronology and events. So what
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I'd like to start with in this first section here is just to work through.
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I figure that ladies could go first, Grandma could go first. You know, your
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life story and I will ask specific questions as we go through. And then up
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until the point when you met and then we can break. So we'll go separately and take
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a short break and then see where we are at that point. And I figure what I can do as well is
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to adapt the questions when we have these what we can maybe
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go to like I don't know maybe twenty, thirty minutes. However long this takes. And then, take a break and
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then I can kind of think through the next meeting questions. So we have a lot to cover. So it's a marathon. We will
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take it one little bite at the time, one mile at a time.
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OK! Well, Jane Forbes, would you
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tell us...I guess what we can begin with
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is If you would just give us your name and the
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date and the place of your birth. You want to start with that? [JF] My name is
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Letha Jane Forbes. Woods Forbes Thank
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you. [TF] Your first name is Letha? [JF] I'm Letha Jane. [TF] Oh, I didn't know? I thought my mother was that. [JF] I know.
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She's named right after me. [TF] OK. So you
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were originally Letha Jane Woods? [JF] Yes. I was originally Letha Jane Woods.
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My parents disagreed on what to call me. So my father called me Jane, and
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my mother called me Letha. And, so they finally agreed it would have to be
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Jane. So, I was Jane Woods. And I was born in 1922.
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[TF] Did you go by L. Jane? When the full name was always L. Jane.
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But everybody used Jane growing up. [JF] I
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was born in a little town of about five hundred people, Rushford, New York,
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about thirty- five miles from Buffalo. No, seventy miles from
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Buffalo. I am thinking of Olean. Thirty miles from Olean, New York and then. [TF] Rushford is south
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of Buffalo? in the direction of Olean? [JF] Southeast.
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My mother
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was a schoolteacher and my father was an interior decorator. And they
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were, they had gone together since they were fourteen,
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and they were married when they were twenty-four because they had
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saved enough money to get married. And then. And my mother taught all
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the grades in a little red schoolhouse, which she has taken all of my
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grandchildren, my children to see. [TF] OK. Where ... What was your mother's
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was your mother's maiden name? [JF] Tarbell. T A R B E L L.
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[TF] What's her name? What was her full name? [JF] Bernice Etta.
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Some people say Bernice. They called her
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Bernice Etta. E T T A. Her middle name was ETTA? [JF] Yes. [TF] And
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her last name? [JF] Tarbell. T A R B E L L. [TF] OK.
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What was? Where was she? Can you tell me a little bit of a brief biography of her?
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Where she's from? [JF] She was from that same area of
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Fillmore, and what were some of the other towns down there? around Rushford.
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but she did not live in Rushford ever, just other little towns in that area
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which, ... Buffalo was seventy miles from there. And then the
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town of Olean was thirty-five miles from Rushford.
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My mother's mother died when she was two years old and so
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my mother never knew her mother. And her father
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was so heartbroken that he did not give her much attention.
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So she had a very sad life. And that I won't
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go into the things that she suffered with men knowing she was alone
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in that house until she was in her sixteen and graduated.
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And that she was very bright, as was her brother, Leslie Tarbell,
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who was in New York in the stock exchange. [TF] So
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she had one brother? [JF] One brother. [TF] What was his name? [JF] Leslie Tarbell.
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I don't know the middle name. [TF] OK.
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And they lived near Rushford? They lived in Rushford? [JF] No, they didn't live in Rushford not until my
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parents were married but she was in that area. Canandaigua.
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Not Canancaigua, but there are just a lot of little towns around there. And so
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she had a very sad young life. She did have an aunt
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who took care of her in the summers. In the winters she was left alone
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to live with her brother in that house. And so her nerves were very bad and
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anyway, she became a teacher. She went to Buffalo and studied. [TF] What. Do you know
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when she was born? [AF] In March? [JF] September.
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September 1898.
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That's right. [TF] So, her education. Do you know anything about it? [AF] She went to
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normal school, but I don't know the name of the normal school. [JF] It was in Buffalo, New York.
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And she went to school. [TF] She was largely raised by her
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aunt? Yes, but only in the summers. She was left alone all winters.
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Actually, she...I realized she was very bright although she did
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not say this to me. But in the summers she went to live with her
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aunt. But in the winters, she was left alone with her brother who, when
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he became sixteen, left. And she would be with alone all winter in that house
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with men threatening and pounding on the door. Her nerves were so bad that
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when she'd take her exams in the summer to, for school,
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in June, they would just pass her because she would break into
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tears. But she was very bright. And she went to what was called the normal school
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and for teachers. [TF] How did she pay for that?
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It sounds like basically, her family wasn't very supportive for her. [AF] Tuition was very
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negligible. [JF] But I don't know how she paid for it. No. Her father might even have given
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her the money for that. Or her brother, who became very. Well, he was in the war. He was actually
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in Lindbergh's Club. [AF] When she began teaching though, Jane, she lived with the
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parents. [JF] At nineteen, she went to teach in a small town.
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And I don't know which town it was. And she would, you always lived
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with a family of the town because there was no place to rent.
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[TF] Unless married. A young woman. When she...you're saying that ... [JF] when she went as a teacher she lived with a home, in the home of
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one of the people of the
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town. [TF] Unless the teacher was married. [JF] Well, yes. No, that's what the teacher
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always did, of course. They usually weren't married. They didn't get married that young. [TF] OK. [JF] And
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so she went there and lived with this family who were Christian people.
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And they led her to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. [TF] OK so, when she grew up
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she did not attend church? [JF] Her aunt, when she was with her aunt in the summer, she
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attended church. [TF] And she stayed in her hometown with her aunt? Or she went to the aunt? [JF] She
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went to. In a town called Centerville. A very small town. [TF] Any
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idea what the denomination was? [JF] Methodist, I think. That was what was most prominent. [TF] Do
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you know anything about her
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interests and hobbies? Things that interested her? [JF] People didn't have hobbies in those days. [AF] We
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later found out that she could play piano. [JF] Never knew that.
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But I do know she was lots of fun, and she had lots of
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boyfriends. I have seen pictures of her. But in her twenties.
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And she went...she knew my father since she was fourteen. And she loved his
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mother. And I have seen pictures of her with her with lots of young people.
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So she was fun. She, at age two when her mother
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was dying, she fell on a hot stove and burned the side of her face, nobody
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there to pick her up and in spite of that burn, she was very popular. [TF] It was visible during
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her adult life? [JF] Always. But by...
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when she got older, you used make-up and nobody would realize she had it. [AF] It wasn't before,
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maybe, although it was present. {TF] What
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was the occupation of her family members in her community? Was it mostly farming?
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Was there? [JF] No, I don't think... [TF] Was it professional? [JF] I don't know what her father
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did. and I don't know if she did either, but he had money. And, my uncle was
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very successful in the...in New York in the stock market.[TF]
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Okay. In the stock market. [JF] So both my mother... [AF] ...A broker. [JF] Both my
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mother and my uncle were very bright. So she
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never knew her mother but she knew her mother's sister, who was a lovely person who I knew
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also. [TF] Any... Her mother's sister was married? [JF] Yes. [TF] And,
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any idea what their occupation... [JF] Yes, they owned a country store. A country store. [TF] OK, It
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seems like we're talking middle class then. We're really
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not talking farmers. We're talking... [JF] Oh no they weren't farmers at all. Her family. [TF] So her
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religious...she had a conversion experience. [JF] When she was
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nineteen and went to... She had apparently finished school, and she was living
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with a family, which is what you did in those days, the teachers were hired in the town
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and the family took them to live with them. [TF] OK. Can we do
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a similar description of your father? When and where he was born? [JF] He was
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born in Rushford, New York. He had a mother who knew the Lord.
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I do not... I know my grandmother. She died when I was twelve. But she had made a
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strong impression on me. [TF] What was his name, his full name?
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[AF] Walter Henry. [JF] Walter Henry Woods. She was
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Bernice, they called her Bernice but most people say Bernice Tarbell. [TF] And she..do you think she was of an English
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ethnically? Do you have any grasp, idea where? [AF] I
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think that they were second generation Americans at least. [JA] Yeah. And she.. [AF] At
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least second, and maybe third generation Americans. [JF] Right. My
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dad had German, my mother had English and Dutch. And I
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think she had a little Dutch, too. [AF] But that was way back.
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We don't know about that, we don't know about their ancestry. [TF] OK. All
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right, and your father...he was born the same year? Or? [JF] Yes. [JF] They
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were the same age. JF]They were the same age. Were they? [TF] 1898?
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And he grew up. Do you know about his family and his parents? [JF] He
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grew up and his father, in
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this small town was the highway, in charge of the highways in the
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town. And outside of the town. So he was not a typical farmer but he had
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one cow. And so they had their own milk. [AF] And we have to remember that the roads were
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were all dirt roads. And so they had a highwayman who was in charge of scraping the roads.
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and keeping them drivable. You know.
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And, that was the job he had. He was a highway superintendent. [TF] His
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father was a highway superintendent. [AF] That's right. [JF] My father was an interior
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decorator, that is he was painting and papering. [AF] He also did exterior work also. [TF] OK
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so if we could begin with your father's family, or
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at least the home he grew up in. What were his parents' names? [JF] Minnie
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and Neuman N E U M A N.
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Woods. That shows you the German background.
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The fact that Neuman is a German root. [TF] And
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about the family he grew up in? OK, we have their occupation. Were they
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religious churchgoers at all? [JF] My grandmother was. She with the church organist and I
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have only heard in the last few years that she had a beautiful singing voice. I
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never knew it, which my dad inherited. [AF] Which you inherited. [TF] Your father
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was a singer. Did not know this. Were
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they... [AF] Strictly they were amateur singers, just church singers. [TF] Were they religious? I'm sorry.
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They were religious. What denomination do you know ? [JA] Methodist. My grandmother
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played the organ in the Methodist church, and my grandfather pumped the organ in the back.
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Not many churches had organs then, but this was a pump organ with a [AF] bellows... [JF] No, pipes! Pipes! Their
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education.. Do you know, did they have a high school education or interest or...? [JF] My dad
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threw his books out of the window when he was a sophomore and said, "I've had enough school." And then he married
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my mother who became a teacher, and had all the schooling
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that was available at that time. But he went with her for ten
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years. [TF] From age fourteen to twenty-four OK.
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Did your father have siblings? [JF] Yes. One who died when my father
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was four and the sibling was ten. He drowned in the creek.
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And my dad was with him, which made it terrible impression. I mean a very
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strong impression on my father, who never wanted me to go swimming or anything. But I did, and
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mother said, "She has to learn to swim," which I did.
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Which my family has laughed at as I swam on my side all my life
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because I have a very serious sinous condition. [TF] So.
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Can you tell me then...that gives me a little background about your parents.
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Can you tell me then, you were...we...we know you were born
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in 1922. And we know, you were born in Rushford. [AF] July
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12, 1922. [TF] OK. Can you tell us about the home you
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grew up in? And your upbringing? What we're trying to get at
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is where did Buffalo Christian Center come from and what does it mean from a number of different angles, so?
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As much as you can tell us about you... You were the older of two
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children. My sister was twelve years younger
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and that when she was nineteen, she had schizophrenia.
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[TF] So you were born within the first year of your parents'? [JF] No. [TF] Marriage? [JF] No. No.
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I wasn't. I was born in twenty, nineteen twenty-four
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Weren't we've gone in 1924? [AF] Twenty-two. [TF} You were born in twenty-two. And
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I'm just doing the math. That they were 24 when they were married. [JF] My parents
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had been married several years. And I could, I would have to take time to figure it out.
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But I could figure it out. They went together ten years; they had to be twenty-four when
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they got married. So they knew each other... [AF] So, that would mean that they married
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pretty close, that you were born very close to their early marriage. If they
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were born in eighty-eight and.. ninety-eight...and twenty-four
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years later makes it twenty-two. So you were born pretty fairly soon after their marriage. [JF] Two
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years. Twenty-four. [AF] You were born in twenty-two, sweetheart. I thought you were saying I was born twenty-four. [TF] OK.
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Can you describe the world you
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grew up in? You had a sister. You were twelve years old when your sister was born. So you grew up with
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your parents alone, right? Can you just describe the atmosphere of the town,
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the home you had? Your interests, your education, what, what influences
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you felt that you had and then also what things that you cultivated that were your interests? [JF] OK.
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We only lived in that little town for two years, and my parents,
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and my father wasn't getting enough work. So they moved; of course that was a very bad time anyway
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for everybody. And they been moved to Hornel, New York, in twenty-four.
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And he found work there for two years. And then that was it. [TF] Working, painting,
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[JF] and home decorating and so forth. And then he moved, but then
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they moved to Olean, New York. [TF] Which is nearby? The same region. [AF] Olean,
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New York is a town--at that time, it was around fifteen to twenty thousand people. [TF] That's
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a large town. [JF] But then they were about thirty thousand when I really ... [AF] You are enlarging
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the town. It was a growing...it was a
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town that was near the Saint Bonaventure University. Saint Bonaventure is
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in Allegheny which was about three miles from Olean.
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[TF] And you grew up. Your mom was a teacher? [JF] My mom was a teacher even while I was growing
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up. I actually had mornings when I would leave and walk quite a long
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ways to school and get there and find my mother was my teacher. They would call her... [AF] My suggestion is a
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substitute teacher, [JF] a substitute teacher after I was born. [TF] OK now,
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were your parents? Did they bring you to church? And, what was your religious background? [JF] Oh yes. Yes. My
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mother lived with a Christian family when she was nineteen
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as a teacher. They led her to the Lord. Just asked me that question. That's
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okay, that's fine. [TF] That
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took hold for her. That was an important.
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So she. So she would be what would you describe as a believer, right? [JF] Absolutely. At
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nineteen it took. However, she had known my father since she was fourteen, and he had a
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mother who was a strong Christian, but my grandfather was not. My grandfather drank a lot.
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And... But really my father's mother had a strong impression
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on her since she was fourteen. Somehow she knew ... [TF] They adopted her to some extent?
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[JF] Well, yeah, but they didn't marry and for ten years.
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But my grandmother was saved, but my grandfather was not. My grandfather was saved when
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I was four years old. [TF] So he was a churchgoer but it never really... [JF] He wasn't even a churchgoer.
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My grandmother was from... Oh. [TF] Your grandfather. OK,
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I'm sorry. [AF] Paternal grandfather she's talking about. OK. OK. You know. I believe [TF] there's a lot of
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sorting out with anything like this, you know. [JF] Oh yeah. But I'm sure my
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grandmother had a lot of effect on my mother because my mother would
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going with my dad from fourteen. But not seriously, of course. She was not serious until she was in her twenties. [AF] I
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believe we were at the point where she was at Olean now.
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Now she's at Olean and they went, her parents went to the Evangelical United Brethren church
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and attended that regularly and were active in it, both of her parents. [TF] So
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you grew up in a Christian home. [JF] I did. Yes. [TF] And
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what kinds of things did -- what kind of religious activities? I can imagine a lot of curiosity.
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You know, where does the Center come from? Did you participate and did your parents particiate in it? [JF] Yeah, I
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was, my mother became a Sunday school teacher, of course, because she
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was a teacher, so it was very natural. And... [TF] Did they call it Sabbath School? [JF] No, no. [TF] Like a Sabbath Association? [JF] No, no. [TF] My research in Pittsburgh,
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everything, definitely through the 1920s was Sabbath School, they
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called it. [JF] No.
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I was the only young person in that church that went to Wednesday night prayer meeting with
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my mother. And the German people who had quite an accent could not get
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over that Jane would come with her mother...to prayer meeting. And.. [TF] Do you remember why you
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wanted to go? [JF] Oh yes, I wanted to hear the Word and I wanted to pray. I used to pray
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with all those people. And then
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I was musical. I took... My dad
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painted the house of a music teacher. And I
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took piano lessons from her. So
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I learned to play. And then I would... [AF] You are suggesting, Jane, that your father painted the house and he exchanged that painting work for her to have lessons. [JF] Right, because they did not have... [AF] It was a barter situation.
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[JF] This
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was during the Depression when everybody was walking the streets
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and looking for a job. So that's how I got my music. The music teacher was
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actually a pianist for a dance group, so you can see how much I learned. But I learned to
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read the music. [TF] What did you like about music so much? [JF] Well, my dad and my
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grandmother were very musical. My mother wasn't musical but
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I heard my dad singing from the time I was born. And my grandmother
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was the organist of the church. [AF] Did you have a piano in your house? [JF] No, they had
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to buy one. [AF] Yep! [JF] and we did, they bought it when I... [AF] Growing
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up you had a piano in the house? ... [JF] A player piano. [TF] A player
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piano, it's.... [JF] It plays automatically when you put rolls in...you pump, you pump the piano. [TF]
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What musical inspiration, you heard... what did
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your father sing? Why, why...did you have favorite artists, did you
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listen to... [JF] No, listen.. Did you have to get sheet music ... was it all through church that you discovered your music? [JF] We didn't have radio.. [TF] You didn't have a radio? [JF] No, and maybe w
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hen I was growing up later. But I only heard .. [AF] You're talking about radio not coming in until '28 or... [TF] Well, by
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the depression seems that
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everybody had a radio. [AF] Right. [JF] Well, no, I only heard the organist
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play in our church, but that was a very nice, very nice pipe organ in our church. And when I was 14, a friend of our family's had a daughter that was getting married, The
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daughter was a little older and mature
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and she said..her name was Alice Hibberd, she said, "Jane. I want you to play for my wedding."
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I said, "I can't play. For your wedding?" "Yes, you can. You can play that organ."
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I played for her wedding and didn't make any mistakes when I was fourteen. So
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people were pressing me to do things. And uh...when
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I first learned it..." [TF] So, you just remember liking music but having limited exposure
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to... There's a lot of music taking place in American culture at the
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time. But most of your inspiration was just the music itself... [JF] Right, and my grandmother... [TF] and
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wherever you can remember hearing it. But it's mostly a church setting that
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you... [JF] Oh yes. The church that we
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attended was small, but my mother got right into
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work in the church. And she invited a very well-known evangelist who
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she had heard on the radio. [TF] Do you remember who that was? [AF] Lehman, Louis Paul Lehman. [JF] Louie Paul Lehman is exactly right. And he was on the
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radio and she had heard him. So she said to the pastor, "I want to promote this." My mother
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was quiet; she was not a pusher. Nobody in the church would say, "
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Well, Bernice Woods goes to this church." However, she was behind the scenes always
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wanting to bring people in who could
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help us in this church. So I
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didn't realize at the time, I was just her daughter, and I went along with... [AF] Her mother had a great spirit of hospitality, is what you're saying, and she wanted to care for any visitors that came to the church. [JF] My mother always kept the evangelist that was visiting the church even though she was the new Christian. She always had that...although she didn't come up in a home that had any hospitality, except her dear aunt who took her in. But she always said...they called her Bernice instead of Bernice, well, Bernice Woods will take the evangelist.
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So we had a big influence, of a very well-known evangelist staying in our home.
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From the beginning. Since I was four years old.
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I remember. [TF] Wow. [JF] So I had that influence. And my
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grandfather who had not been saved was saved when I was four years
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old and all of this is a result of my beautiful grandmother, my grandmother was
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a beautiful lady. [TF] Your father's mother. [JF] My father's mother. My father looked like her.
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But anyway, so we had a particularly, I remember,
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a well-known Canadian evangelist came and stayed with us. And his
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wife was with us, stayed with us, and she said, "I want to take you
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for ice cream, Jane." And then in the winter. We had to walk twelve long blocks to
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the ice cream store and when we got there, I at the age of
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six, maybe, said to her, "You sit at the big table and here's my table." I would not sit at the table with the woman who took me for ice cream
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because I was a little girl. And I wasn't supposed to sit at those big tables,
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which nearly killed that woman
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with laughter. She just, they could not get over it til we got back and she said to my mother, "Well,
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we sat at different tables so we didn't talk much." [TF] That's funny! [JF] It was funny. [TF] What were the evangelists'
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presentations like, or what did people
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like about, I mean what was the content? [JF] Just like they are today. Just like they are today; excellent speakers, they were biblical, very biblical. [TF] And they
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were good rhetoricians, they could hold an audience? [JF] Oh
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yeah, well, he was on the radio, the one that I remember. Louis Paul Lehman was his name.
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Can you imagine? I've got to remember that. He was on the radio and all.
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And then this man that...his wife took me for ice cream...was Canada. [AF} Wasn't Walsh, was it? [JF} you
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knew that name at one point. He was well known Canadian speaker. [TF] About
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how many evangelists came through in the course of the year? [JF] Oh,
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no more than one. [TF] It was a big deal as it built up. And it kind of... [AF] Annual
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evangelistic series. [JF] Yeah I really like a lot of churches had. [AF] A lot of churches would set aside a
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week in which they would seek to have special evangelism and hold
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services every evening--and publicize them--publicize them. [TF] The whole week, Sunday through Sunday. [AF]
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Sunday through Sunday and morning and evening on Sunday. And on
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Saturday they often had a church dinner
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in order to invite more people in. [TF] And being once
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a year there could be a real build up to it. [AF] Absolutely! [JF] Because my
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mother always hosted those but did not come up from a family
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who ever had any company, if you can imagine. Never had a mother, it's kind of amazing.
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And she just took over, and the church knew she would always ... But she was
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never pushy. You wouldn't walk into the church and they'd say.. Oh, Bernice... They called her Bernice instead of Bernice, because somebody
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in the family wanted to call her that .. Bernice will take the evangelist, as we know. [TF] What
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other interests or what else, whatever..
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This is really helpful. It does, you can see almost a
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direct line from this experience which I never knew anything about to the Buffalo Christian Center. But
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can you talk more about other things in your life that just interested you, other contacts with the
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outside world? Are there other things that fascinated you, as like, there is something
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great out there. [JF] Well, it as always music that I was
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interested in and so I had that
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piano experience with them. [AF] Did you participate in anything in your high school? [JF] I was going
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to get there. I was far more interested in singing than playing.
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And so my parents sent me to the best known vocal teacher
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in the city. And I took from him
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and I was sent by the Olean high school to a college
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where you've spoken--very important-- [AF] Cornell--[JF] Cornell to
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represent my school. [AF] The high school gathering of all the high schools of Western New York were gathered at Cornell to have [TF] ... in Ithaca, NY? [JF] and I was sent to represent my school. Got a terrible cold. [AF] As a soloist? [JF] to sing in the choir under this great ... [AF] did your high school choir go? No, just you. [jf] Yeah! I was sent to represent my school.
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There were a hundred fifty, two hundred kids sent. And you were supposed to try
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out if you wanted a solo. Well, that isn't important. I did but I had a terrible cold.
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And the director said to me, Well if you didn't have this cold you would be the soloist. So
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I was encouraged with that. And my parents actually paid more
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for me to have voice lessons than they ever did to have piano lessons. So
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I had a lot more voice than that. Not important really ... [TF] Your sister wasn't musical? [JF] Oh yes, she was, but I don't think as much as I was.
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It was nineteen when she got that... No
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she was following in my footsteps. She went to Philadelphia to live
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and worked In some guys who'd grown up with Percy Crawford, and she went. [AF] Remember, Jane was a teenager by the time that baby came. I was twelve. [AF] See she would have been 14 when that baby was two. [JF] Well, the point was I was sixteen when I graduated ([AF] She would have been six.) and I left home at that point. {TF] Before we get to some of the chronology of school and how you two met, did you like Christianity? [JF] Oh yes,
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Oh yeah. I immediately took to it. my mother would come In at the
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wee hours of the morning and say, "Turn off your light and go to sleep." I was always reading my Bible. [TF] Why
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did you like Christianity? Not everybody has to become a strong Christian. [JF] I,
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I just loved Jesus Christ! [AF] But when were you converted?
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and how? [JF] I supposed I knew I was converted when I was 12 years old, but if an evangelist came and
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gave an invitation I would go forward I wanted to be sure I was saved. [TF] Why? [JF] Because I wanted to be sure I was saved.
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[AF] The Methodist approach to evangelism is to secure your salvation and the eternal security doctrine was not in Methodism, as you know. They could lose their salvation. [JF] I was not a Methodist. [AF] In order to assure their status they would often go forward to confirm a decision they made earlier. No? [JF] I was not in a
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Methodist church and this pastor did not, this German pastor did not press us to go forward.
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Maybe
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I just remember one day when I was twelve and I made sure and I was finished going then after twelve. [AF] I'd
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like to explain this church was really an evangelical church as a denomination, an evangelical denomination and was not a Methodist church. Later on, that denomination
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combined
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with the United Brethren denomination so it became the Evangelical United Brethren Church. But most of the time while Jane was growing up that church was strictly evangelical. [JF] However,
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let me say
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that I had the influence of the Baptist church and the Christian and Missionary Alliance because
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I would, I had friends in these two churches from
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school and I was always being asked to sing, and sing with
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some of the girls in that Alliance church; there were two sisters I sang with and we had a trio. So this is when I was from twelve on, I was singing with them. And
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then I went to the Baptist church often and got to watch and know that organist. And that's why I
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took over the organ in our Evangelical church. [AF] For
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the purposes of your research. you
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can see that she was open to a non-denominational frame of mind.
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She felt comfortable wherever the gospel message was preached. [JF] Yeah. [TF] When
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you looked around so, when I
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asked, You know why you wanted to become a Christian because your career is defined by conditioning
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Christianity as the gift that God has given to humanity. Jesus is a gift.
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So I'm curious. When you look, when you look around as
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a child, as a young adult forming your own
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identity and discovering what you believed in, when you looked around the world, when you looked around your town, you
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looked at your family, you looked at American society or whatever it was, what made
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you believe that Christianity was worth being so devoted to? [JF] Just because
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I saw what was in it. I was in high school and the young people even at
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that time, some of the guys were getting drunk, and there were things happening.
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It was a big high school It was Olean High, it was a big beautiful new high school and I just refused...
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the girls went to the dances and so forth but it kind of scared me the things I would hear went on... [TF] Do you mind sharing? Like
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just a lot of sexual activity or a smugness toward life or... [JF] No, I didn't
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know about... [AF] May I suggest that it was the moral purity of Christianity that
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appealed to her. [JF] Yeah. The moral purity of Christianity's doctrine is what appealed to her and she accepted it.
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[JF] When I was twelve years old I had a girlfriend at school. And I led her to the Lord. And I remember
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asking...walking out of church and asking her if she would like to accept the Lord. And
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she said yes. This after .... and I remember walking alone there. And the interesting thing, when
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my parents were alive, before they died, she
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said, My mother asked me to come down and she said, We
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have somebody here who wants to see you. And it was that
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girl. She was still living in Olean and married. And she... my
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mother was then friends with her, but she was my age. And I saw that girl, and that was
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the first girl I ever led to the Lord, when I just twelve. [TF] One of the defining features
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of the 1920s and 30s that historians talk about, one of the major changes, after World War II, WW I,
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is the modern values
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of personal fulfillment. And part of that is sexual liberation. The 1920s is defined by speakeasys and drinking. The
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rate of women drinking was up
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a lot in the twentys with prohibition. It became this thing. And we think of the 20s as
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pretty wanton, a direct attack on all things Victorian, sort of
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Christian culture. And it was. It was overtly and there's tremendous
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evidence. And there was also an enormous dance craze that... One of the
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big themes in the twentys and into the thirtys as well a period through World War two and one of the
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major themes and we have plenty of pictures and plenty of research to indicate this was just this kind of
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like liberation. You know, Freud's ideas had begun to kind of
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Maybe Freud was expressing something that was a shift already taking place, the slow death of Victorianism
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and the rise of the modern mindset of, I'm going to do what makes me feel good. Does
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that resonate at all with your, the appeal of moral purity,
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that you're watching things, you know, people who live a certain kinds of way
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and that you said that that's just... Is there a negative that, you just looked around world
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and said I don't want to be like that. Was there an experience, an image, a moment.. [JF] My
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grandfather being a drunkard. [TB] OK. [JF] Until I was
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four years, but it was such a strong impression on me when my grandmother
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walked into our house, and I was four, and she said, "Grandpa has accepted
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the Lord!" and my dad began to cry! And
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I just remember the reaction at four. I know because we moved
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from that house. I just remember her walking in that front door and saying
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that. And I knew there were a lot of the bad things that
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happen when you got drunk. [TF] OK, that is very very helpful. Did
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he, was he an alcoholic, do you think? [JF] Well he was able to stop. [TB] He stopped drinking, he did? OK. [JF] And
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then was a wonderful grandfather. [AF] His conversion allowed him to "cold turkey". [JF]
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But I think probably my grandmother had a lot to do
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with it all. But I never thought about it as much as I have now.
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She was a beautiful lady. Everybody loved her and I have heard
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more about her being able to sing from my girl
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friend Betty Ann, who was my closest girlfriend all my life. And her mother
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told Betty Anne. And then. Betty Ann told me. She said, Oh your mother, your grandmother, had a beautiful voice. I knew she was an organist, but
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I didn't know that. So that was kind of a
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shock to me. And then my dad could sing, of course, he should have had training. But he loved to sing with Alan. [TF] So
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in your
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childhood experience, the world was a place with the potential, there was darkness. Would you
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say that, there was something wrong in the world. I don't want to put worlds in your mouth. This is your
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story, there was sin in society... [JF] I didn't think
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about that, but I just knew the stories I heard from the girls when they went to the dance
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and then they went out afterwards. I didn't hear terrible things. I had no desire to go. [AF] Young people
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didn't have know what color you are but that led to the small children
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calling you. But the. [TF] But you did. I mean we're looking back. And
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interpreting, but you did see... It's a significant thing for thousands of people
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that you have the childhood experience that you did, that somewhere in there you became convinced that Christianity was
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something to promote and to share with joy, and with energy.
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There's naturally curiosity about how in the world does this happen? This is one of the dlominant questions in
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religious history, is why in the world do people put themselves in tremendously uncomfortable, inconvenient
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circumstances... I've seen your salary; it was very low your entire career. People do
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this. And WHY is the driving question. So what you describe does help--your grandfather.
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But if there anything else you can shed light, other than what, you know... These things aren't automatic,
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you know. I mean where does this come from? [JF] Well, i have to tell you also that my uncle,
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when I was still high school, brought a man from New York to see me. My uncle would have
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put his money on me.
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And he brought him. And I remember them setting me down in the living
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room, and he's saying, "Now play for him and sing." So I did. my
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uncle who seemed to be so far apart from anything about us, living
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in New York in a very high style of life.. And so
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I did that. And then later I was in Binghamton Bible School for a year... [AF] Jane, finish the story. [JF] I am, and he brought another man to see me.
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They
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took me out to dinner. My uncle left, went to the bathroom, and this
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man, "Do you realize what your uncle can do for you? He can put you on the stage, Wouldn't
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you like that?" And I said, "No, I don't think I would. That's
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not what I want to do." And that was my last chance. [TF] By the stage, you mean entertaining
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people, and ended up in the world of entertainment-- [AF] Secular entertainment. [TF] Secular entertainment... [JF] He had all the
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connections, and brought--twice--the men who could do that. [AF] She had no ambition to use her musical talents in a secular field. She wanted to be used within the Christian context. [JF] And
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I knew
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it very firmly. I did not realize that much when I was in high school when he brought that man.
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I didn't really realize what he was doing. And
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probably my mother did. But then when he came to Binghamton Bible School, of course, I was
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very well aware of what he could do. So that
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was it. I really was very
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impressed by the Lord in the Christian life, so that I really never even had a longing
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to do anything. [TF] Other than some of your family members. Did you have role models
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that you look to and said I want to be like that person, some of the revivalists that came through? It was very local? [JF] I
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didn't because I was a small town girl. There wasn't television. [TB] And
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radio wasn't a big part of your life? [JF] No. But we
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did listen to it, that's where my mother heard this Louis Paul Lehman and
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brought him. And I knew that there were people out there, on radio. But, no. I never
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had any idea of being anything. [AF] Remember, there were no Christian radio as such at that time. [TF] Did
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you ever listen to the Charles Fuller Gospel Hour?
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[JF] Well, sure, later. [TF] In the later 30s, was that? [JF] But not when I was in high school. [TF] OK. Now can
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you help us with some chronology of ... that you
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went to elementary school and middle school years and then high
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school all in Olean? [JF] No. We had to move back to Rushford.
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When there was terrible, what did we call it? No money? [AF] Depression. [JF] Depression. During the depression, my grandmother
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died and my
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grandfather had nobody to take care of him. My dad said... [TF] The grandfather who had converted from drinking? [JF] Yeah.
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I never knew my other grandfather. I saw him once... that abandoned
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my mother and ... what did you ask me? [TF] So you went back ... [JF] So we went back for three years and
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lived with my grandfather. [TF] Maybe you were thirteen or fourteen? [AF] How old were you then? [JF] I went back when
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I was twelve. Then when I... [TF] Same time as when your sister was born? [JF]
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Yeah. She was born at the same time. Right. And then when I
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was fourteen, we moved back and I went into sophomore year:
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thirteen, fifteen, sixteen. And I went back to Olean. My
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mother refused to live in Rushford any more which was very ... [AF] Jane, it was during those three years when
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you developed your strong personal relationship with Betty Ann, during those three years. [JF] Yes. Yeah, although I had
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always been...I knew her when
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she was eight months and I was born. Our parents were
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friends. Betty Ann Hardy, the doctor's daughter, and
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the doctor's wife. And she stood up with me. She came to Philly and stood up with
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me in my wedding. [TF] She was your age? [JF] Yeah, exactly. Eight months
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older. [TF] And she was in Rushford? [JF] And then she became a teacher.
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And she married another doctor. [TF] When you moved back did you finish high school in Olean? [JF] Right, three years. [TF] So
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you two guys remained friends even though you ... [JF] All our lives, all our lives. [TF] Where is she now? [JF] In heaven. [TF] OK [AF] Jane, you
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didn't take any high school in Rushford at all, did you? [JF] First year. [AF] First year..in Rushford? OK. [JF] And Betty Ann and I because
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she was the wealthiest girl in town--her father was a doctor-- And so
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we were little devils in school. [TF] What does that mean? [JF] And my
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teacher and my mother's good friend there... [AF] Mischievous is the word. [JF] was the teacher of us when we were in
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seventh grade and eighth grade. She had seventh and eighth grade. They
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dreaded to see us coming because we were rascals. [TF] So
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you were a godly, pious, singing rascal. [JF] Yeah,
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we were. [TF] So you had a raving rascal without getting into a lot of the
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worldly partying and drinking and the sexual activity. [JF] We were little rascals, and
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here she was the doctor's daughter in town. [AF] But she was not musical at all. [JF] Well, she played the clarinet. Her
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father was the director of the Rushford band. [AF] OK,
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that's what you need to tell. [JF] And Lois, Betty Ann's sister, became a
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teacher of flute in Houghton College. [TF] So
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you
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finish high school in Olean. You graduated in what? 1940? [JF] I was sixteen. No, '39. [TF] 1939. You were
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probably aware of world events taking place. Everybody was,
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probably. And then you went
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to Houghton College. [JF] My uncle supplied
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the money... [TF] Uncle from New York ... [JF] for that first year. And then [TF] Your mother's
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brother, the stock broker. [JF] And then he wanted to
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influence me. [TF] Get you back on the stage. {JF] And then
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the second year, because he couldn't, he had lost the money.
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So after I went to Houghton for the first semester of my second
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year, my mother called him and said, "We're out of money." You have to come home. [TF] So you
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completed two years... [JF] No, I didn't. A year and a half. And Dr. Payne, the president called me in and he said, "You've got to continue, you've just to continue." I said, "I can't." I knew my parents would not ever borrow money or go into debt.
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[TF] So what happened? [JF] Well, the Lord's will was for me to go home.
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I got a job. I didn't resent it at all. I understood ... [TF] You went back to Olean? [JF] I went back
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to Olean and I got a job working in a grocery store
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and also when they had a store. An evangelist came to our church, and
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he had graduated from Binghamton
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Bible School, and I heard about that school. And just as a
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result, I went in the next September to Binghamton Bible School. [AF] Well,
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actually, the neighborhood school was Practical Bible School. [JF] Yeah, Binghamton Practical Bible School, which
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is still going. [TF] So you were home for several months or a year? [JF] Not
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a year. I was home from February to September. [TF] And
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then you completed... [JF] And I had a job. [TF] And, so you graduated from
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there... with like a? [JF] I just went a year to that bible school because I met Grandpa. [AF]
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Graduated from neither place, neither Houghton nor Practical. She came down and met me and that's the other phase of her life. [TF] At Houghton it was
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a liberal arts degree that you were getting? [JF] Right, right. [TF] Then the bible school
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was ... and voice as well at Houghton? [JF] Oh yeah I was a voice major at Houghton. [TF] And
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what did you study the bible... [JF] I had one
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year of fantastic teachers that just gave a
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picture of the basis of the bible which is absolutely tremendous. [TF] theological not musical. [JF] No, no [TF] It
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was all theological [TF] Religious training [JF] And two teachers, Dr. Lowe and
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I can't remember the other one. But
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the basis teaching of the Bible and of writers and
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so forth. And had a tremendous effect upon me. I just drank it in. And
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I took Greek for a year. Big joke! [TF] OK I'm going to press a little
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further. What was so attractive--besides being saved--and
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besides seeing the transformation in your grandfather, in the moral purity,
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What was so attractive for you about studying the Bible?
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Can you... [JF] Well I guess the fact that Christ came
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to save the world. At fourteen I would be reading my Bible til all hours
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in the morning. my mother would come in and say, 'Turn your light off and go to sleep." So I
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only wanted to study the Bible. [TF] That's funny, the image of parents knocking, "I've had enough of you in
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there reading that bible. You go to sleep! You stop that behavior. Enough of
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that prayer and bible of yours. Next thing you'll be helping people and talking...
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[JF] I think my mother was glad, but she knew I had to get my rest. But I was
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just always drawn and fascinated by... [TF] So it was an instinctual, intuitive power;
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it was just almost beyond you. [JF] I was just drawn to it. [TF] I'm
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curious. We have a few more
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minutes on this side of the tape. What was life like in
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small town America? You, in your lifetime, have seen cities grow dramatically and
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the suburbs--in people's ability to drive and travel with
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ease. I came down here. Almost like it was nothing. And then we lived with an Internet world
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we're constantly getting news from around the world. What was it like to live in a world that was so local and
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Where your main worldview was shaped by, you know, I don't know, six, seven
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square miles or a limited region... [JF] But don't forget my mother was a teacher.
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So that her view wasn't that small. And that even though she
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had had this horrible young life, I think my father's mother
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had a tremendous, was a wonderful mother to her.
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And just sort of took over. See, my grandmother died when I was twelve, so
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how much do you take in at that time. But I have known since she was apparently a very influential, quiet person in this town. And a strong Christian, a
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nd had a lot to do with the church. I never knew she sang.
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And my friend Betty Anne's mother, who was the doctor's wife, said, "Oh, she had a gorgeous voice." I never knew that until five
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years ago when my friend Betty Ann said that to me. What do you mean? Oh, she said, she had a beauiful voice.
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[TF] Was the best thing about living / growing up in Olean and Rockford and what was the worst thing? [JF] Rushford. [TF] Rushford, sorry. What
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was the best thing what was the worst thing? [JF] I
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didn't...well, I loved being back in Rushford. Yeah. I
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was glad to go back to Rushford because my best friend was there. And my
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teachers were friends of my parents. It was such a small town, see? {TF} So there was a sense of familiarity and comfort and accountability. [JF] I
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never
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resented having to move back. But I aIso hated to leave my friends
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but I was glad to go back to Olean. I didn't have a choice, I didn't have strong feelings ... [TF] But small town, being
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in a small town like, you know, it's a dying
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institution, it's a dying thing--Main Street America. And a lot of my challenge with students is to
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try to recreate it. Because during the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, it was...it was how
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Americans lived their lives. It was what it meant to be an American was to be part of a neighborly community. And nowadays
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it's just completely different. It's suburbs, it's impersonal. [JF] You don't know
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your neighbors. [TF] The houses are set up so that your whole world is a self-created private, world. I'm
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just curious. We think of Sinclair Lewis's 1920 book Mainstreet
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and he just lambasts small communities as gossipy
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and provincial and narrow-minded and mean. And bigoted. So
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one of the debates I'm always having the students--this is a little off topic--but you did grown up in a
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small town to Buffalo, a fairly large world--with
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a radio ministry and this enormous constant influx of national
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figures, or at least regional figures, in through the Buffalo Christian Center. And from
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small town to hear the radio show to come into ... I remember looking
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through your documents and seeing these, you know, twenty-fifth anniversary. And it seemed like people
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from small towns sort of off by--but they had the Center as a touch stone from
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the local--and perhaps a little lonely--to the metropolitan,
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the city and a large community. A sense of connectedness. And I'm just curious.
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So there is that interest but I'm also just curious, what was it like to live in this lost world? You
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can still live in small towns but it's harder today. Did you
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find in stifling, like Sinclair Lewis did? He hated small towns and he just cut them to pieces. [JF] I left it when I was 16, and... [TF] Were you glad to leave? [AF] You're
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forgetting that after the
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bible schooling experience. She met me, and then had seven full
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years in Philadelphia before we ever went to, to Buffalo. So
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in a sense, Buffalo was a smaller town than Philadelphia. [TF] Well, I'm just curious.. [AF] It's a process, it's a process. [TB] But
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it is interesting
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to speak to someone who grew up in, you know,
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in a rural setting to a big league city. [TB]
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who then went on to be somewhat well known. You know, fairly very well-known.
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That's an interesting transition and. Some people like Sinclair Lewis
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couldn't wait to get out. He went straight to the city; he couldn't wait to get out. He hated small towns, and he spent his whole
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career lambasting every everything related to it: the family, m
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aterialism, religion. One thing after another. [JF] Don't forget that my mother was large minded.
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She was a teacher and a possibility thinker. She didn't preach
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to me or anything but she lived it before
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me. She was always reading the papers. She was totally
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interested in the government,which is what I get laughed at because of my
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interest in the government.

In collections

Details

Title: Alan T. Forbes oral history, 2010, side 1.
Description: Alan T. Forbes and Jane Forbes in conversation with their grandson Tyler Flynn, Jr., about their life and work in the Buffalo Christian Center. Alan T. Forbes was a Baptist minister in Buffalo, N.Y., longtime director of the Buffalo Christian Center. He was born November 28, 1922, and married Letha Jane Woods on May 23, 1943. Forbes was ordained by an independent group of Western New York Baptist ministers in 1948 and became the first full-time director of the Youthtime Evangelism Fellowship at the Buffalo Christian Center. Forbes was active in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, participated in Billy Graham's crusades, hosted a radio program on WDCX "Good News at Noon," and helped organize a "baseball chapel" featuring members of the Toronto Blue Jays. He retired in 1992 and died in 2010.
Creator: Forbes, Alan T., 1922-2010. (interviewee)
Forbes, Letha Jane. (interviewee)
Flynn, Tyler, Jr. (interviewer)
Date: 2010
Type of resource: sound recording-nonmusical
Genre: oral histories
interviews
sound recordings
Form: audiocassettes
Extent: 1 audio cassette, 1-7/8 ips
Language: English
Subject names: Buffalo Christian Center (Buffalo, N.Y.)
Forbes, Alan T., 1922-2010.
Geographic subjects: North and Central America--United States--Buffalo--New York--Erie
Buffalo (N.Y.)
Rights status: Contact repository for more information
Rights status: IN COPYRIGHT; http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Physical location: ARCHIVES 14-0945; Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, PA
Related item: Alan T. Forbes papers, 1950s-2010.--http://prestohost68.inmagic.com/Presto/content/Detail.aspx?ctID=Y2RiNWNk...
Identifier (local): 14-0945_forbes_2010_side1
PID (Persistent Identifier): islandora:116384