Elmer Mulhausen was raised and educated in Oklahoma City during the Great Depression. After serving in the Marines, Elmer married Evelyn Crow in 1947. Their loving fifty year marr...view moreElmer Mulhausen was raised and educated in Oklahoma City during the Great Depression. After serving in the Marines, Elmer married Evelyn Crow in 1947. Their loving fifty year marriage produced four children, nine grandchildren and, to date, four great grandchildren.
After Evelyn’s death, Elmer, at age 70, married Jo Ann Albright who had three children. And at age 80, Elmer grew his family even more when he and Jo Ann adopted a teenage daughter. In 2001, in order to accommodate gatherings of their large combined family, they justified buying a large home on beautiful Lake Whitney in the central part of Texas and began operating Lakehaven Bed and Breakfast Retreat. (www.lakehavenbandb.com)
Elmer’s first career was installing telephone central offices for Western Electric. At 31, he left the security of Western Electric to build a State Farm Insurance agency. He retired after thirty-four years as an agent, agency manager and agency executive. He retired in Dallas in 1993 where he directed State Farm’s agency operations.
Elmer’s spiritual journey started very young. His mother, Ruth, was a devout Christian and taught her children about God from their earliest memories. After early conversion, baptism and active Christian life and study, Elmer had a period of teen rebellion. He returned to active church membership, worship and service as a young adult. He was passionate about independent Bible study and research. He and Evelyn taught and worked with high school students, although they were not much older than the students.
In middle age, Elmer and Evelyn had a period of burn out. They slowly drifted away from service, then active church membership. When Evelyn suddenly died, they were not active members in any church. That was a wake-up call for Elmer who rededicated his life, joined a church and became active in worship and service. In addition to classes and sermons in church, Elmer resumed independent Bible study and research.
As a result of participating in a grief seminar after Evelyn’s death, Elmer developed a hobby of writing poetry. At the insistence of his family and friends who did not want Elmer’s poems and life memories to be lost, Elmer wrote his first book, “Something Funny Happened on the way to my 80th Birthday”, published by Authorhouse in 2009. While Elmer had planned on writing a sequel book of his new poetry and memories of life after 80, God had another plan for the use of Elmer’s talents and life experiences. Inspired by God’s nudging, at age 83 Elmer wrote The Twelve Foundation Stones of the Scriptures.
Like many Christians, Elmer experienced a sometimes winding and rocky road in his spiritual journey. In writing this book, Elmer lays out a road map to help others study and understand the Bible. Written from a laymen’s view rather than from a scholarly view point, he gives a “wide-angle” view of the whole Bible and how all of the books from Genesis to Revelation relate to each other, and he identifies, simplifies and demystifies twelve core foundations stones of the scriptures that support the Christian faith and beliefs.view less