He Knows

By Frank Payton and Yvonne Payton

It was a chilly misty morning as our ship, the Mormacsea, approached
the port of Buenos Aires. We had been traveling on her for five weeks and
undoubtedly were anxious to arrive. Without a doubt there were questions
on our minds as the tall buildings of this great metropolis gradually came
into view through an overcast sky or perhaps, we were so innocent we
didn’t know what questions to ask. This really was the beginning of a great
adventure and we had absolutely no idea what was before us. However, God
knew. He knew all along why He was sending us to this new land, this
new language, this new culture and yes, this new to us Salvation Army. As
we write this we can look back and are grateful that God had a long-term
plan for us. It is a good thing that we didn’t know then what God knew. We
would probably have shrunk from what He had in mind. But because He
knew, He gradually prepared us step by step and didn’t require from us
anything until He had prepared us for it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664145672

Book preview

HE KNOWS

Frank and Yvonne Payton

Copyright © 2020 by Frank and Yvonne Payton.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 12/09/2020

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

812881

Books by members of the Payton Family

Triunfarán – English

Triunfarán – Spanish

Frank and Yvonne

It is Appointed Unto Men

Ernest, George Harold, Frank and Margaret

Keep on Believing

Ernest, George, Frank and

Margaret

Coming Soon

Much that I Needed to Know I Learned from my Children

George

CONTENTS

Dedication

God Knows

Chapter 1    Yvonne’s Family And Early Life

Chapter 2    Frank’s Early Years

Chapter 3    The International Youth Congress,

London, England 1950

Chapter 4    Why I Became A Salvation Army Officer

Chapter 5    Frank’s Early Officership

Chapter 6    Going Overseas

Chapter 7    Buenos Aires Patricios Corps

Chapter 8    Arroyito Corps – Rosario, Argentina

Chapter 9    Returning Home

Chapter 10    The New York Bronx Tremont Corps

Chapter 11    Ponce, Puerto Rico Corps Ii

Chapter 12    An Altogether New Adventure

Chapter 13    September 19, 1985

Chapter 14    Chief Secretary

Chapter 15    The Caribbean Territory

Chapter 16    South America East Territory

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20    Retirement

Chapter 21    Home

Acknowledgements

Appendix I

DEDICATION

We first dedicate our story to God who in His kindness first of all forgave us of our sin and set us on a path that brought us together and blessed us during over sixty years. Secondly, we recognize the positive influence from our parents, Edwin and Elsie Payton and Walter and Wilhelmina Guldenschuh. They loved us and through their examples of doing what was right, even in times when doing the right thing required confidence that God was in charge and would resolve what might appear to be an insurmountable problem. During our lives, God put people in our paths who were to become encouragers and prayer supporters without whom we could not have fulfilled our calling. You will meet some of them throughout this narration. Finally, we also dedicate this story to our children, Linda, Mark, Deborah, Karen and Victoria, who supported us even when they sometimes found it unpleasant to accept the fact that they had to move to a different country so that we could follow the Lord’s will for our lives and ministry.

The theme of this song represents our feelings when it comes to our lives individually and together.

1) I know my heav’nly Father knows

The storms that would my way oppose;

But He can drive the clouds away,

And turn the darkness into day.

Chorus

He knows, He knows

The storms that would my way oppose;

He knows, He knows,

And tempers every wind that blows.

2) I know my heav’nly Father knows

The balm I need to soothe my woes;

And with His touch of love divine

He heals this wounded heart of mine.

3) I know my heav’nly knows

How frail I am to meet my foes;

But He my cause will e’er defend,

Uphold and keep me to the end.

The Spanish version is not an exact translation:

1) Es fiel mi Padre celestial

Y cuando esté en la oscuridad,

Sin que yo sepa a donde ir,

Sabrá mis pasos dirigir.

Coro

El sabe bien,

Si ruge el viento o brama el mar;

El sabe bien,

Mi padre siempre cerca está.

2) Es fiel mi Padre celestial,

Se fija en mi perplejidad,

Aun cuando es grande mi aflicción,

Sabrá cambiarla en bendición.

3) Es fiel mi Padre celestial,

El diablo no podrá tentar

Ni prueba alguna afligir

Más de lo que podré sufrir.

Sarepta M. I Henry 1897

GOD KNOWS

It was a chilly misty morning as our ship, the Mormacsea, approached the port of Buenos Aires. We had been traveling on her for five weeks and undoubtedly were anxious to arrive. Without a doubt there were questions on our minds as the tall buildings of this great metropolis gradually came into view through an overcast sky or perhaps, we were so innocent we didn’t know what questions to ask. This really was the beginning of a great adventure and we had absolutely no idea what was before us. However, God knew. He knew all along why He was sending us to this new land, this new language, this new culture and yes, this new to us Salvation Army. As we write this we can look back and are grateful that God had a long-term plan for us. It is a good thing that we didn’t know then what God knew. We would probably have shrunk from what He had in mind. But because He knew, He gradually prepared us step by step and didn’t require from us anything until He had prepared us for it.

¡A DIOS SEA LA GLORIA!

CHAPTER ONE

Yvonne’s Family and Early Life

We are the product of many experiences but most importantly our parents and grandparents have had a tremendous influence on what we became. Both of us are grateful for those who came before us and helped to mold us in to the people we became. The story of Frank’s forefathers has been extensively shared through two books, It is Appointed Unto Men, and Keep On Believing. For this reason, we will limit this first chapter to Yvonne’s family story.

Yvonne’s story

May 26, 1937 was a momentous date in my life. I was born! This happened at the Wilson Memorial Hospital in Johnson City, NY My parents were Walter and Wilhelmina (Berkhoudt) Guldenschuh. I had one older sibling, Grace, who was one month short of her third birthday. We lived in Binghamton (right next door to Johnson City, which was right next door to Endicott- the Triple Cities they were called).

To be absolutely truthful, I have NO memories the first few years of my life.

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The first house I remember us living in was the third of my lifetime. Then we were living in Kirkwood, NY, near Great Bend, PA. Dad had, at that time, a Model A Ford. I remember after Christmas when I had received a doll with shoes and socks and losing one of the shoes in the snow one night when we came home from church – The Salvation Army Corps in Binghamton. I was heartbroken. One other memory I have is discovering French Toast. I had wandered over to a neighbor’s house at breakfast time and she was fixing French Toast and gave me some. I ran home to tell my mother all about it and was quite disappointed to learn that she already knew how to make it. Then I remember a little neighbor boy bit my brother (Walter is eighteen months younger than I.) while he was in the playpen in the back yard. My Mom was so angry that she bit the other boy who ran home screaming. Uncle John came to live with us as he had recently been separated from his wife. He wanted to be near his daughters who lived nearby.

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Grace, Walter and Yvonne

We moved back to the city and lived in a duplex apartment on Shubert Street. It was just across the street from Thomas Jefferson elementary school where I started Kindergarten. We moved again to 4 Park Street but we still went to the same school. We had a large yard and Daddy built us a skating rink in the winter by piling snow around a large circle and filling it with water which froze and we skated. We were there until half way through my second grade when we moved to College Street. We went to the Horace Mann elementary school, just two blocks from the house. One of Binghamton’s parks with free merry -go-rounds was just beyond the school. We were often there.

By this time, I was reading a lot. My first chapter book was Heidi which I read in second grade. That was followed by Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates. I am not sure of the order but I went through Louisa Mae Alcott’s books, Nancy Drew mysteries, and by Jr. High had progressed to Grace Livingston Hill romances. I got a library card somewhere between second and fourth grades and used it well.

After World War II when the servicemen were returning home, our landlord wanted our house for one of his sons so we moved again. My parents were tired of always having to move from one rented place to another and decided to buy some land and build their own house. This happened in Vestal, NY where my Uncle Art (Dad’s brother) and my Grandma and Grandpa Guldenschuh lived. They purchased over 100 acres (much of it woods and what had been a farm. I think the house was already gone but Dad built on the basement of what had been a house. We went to stay with my grandparents while Dad worked on the house. We moved in when it was little more than a frame – no water, no furnace. The partitions for the rooms upstairs weren’t in yet. I think it was March. There was a spring in the field next to the house and Dad carried buckets of water in every day for our use. At first, we had an outhouse for a toilet. Fortunately, they had a well drilled pretty soon. For heat we had a lovely fireplace in the living room and a coal/wood stove in the kitchen.

In Vestal I spent more time outdoors, especially in the winter. I loved sledding and one year for Christmas we got a toboggan. That was fun. In the summer I climbed trees and jumped from the neighbors’ hay loft into piles of hay. Still spent a lot of time reading. We were in Vestal for my grades four through eight.

With all these moves we were all active in the Salvation Army Corps in Binghamton. Most of my friends were at the corps. (I did have one good friend in Vestal.) I was a Sunbeam and went to Sunbeam Camp one year. (I hated it.) My very best friend for as long as I can remember was Ann Marie Cole (later MacMurdo). We took turns spending Saturday nights at each other’s house. Her sister Ruth married my cousin Art. I remember their wedding. Her other sister, Doris, is still our friend today.

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When I was about to enter High School and Grace was going into her Senior year, Mom and Dad went back into the work and became Salvation Army officers again. We moved to Elmira for a year. Rochester for a year, and then Newark, NJ for two years. That was my High School career. I was Valedictorian of my graduating class and had every intention of becoming a teacher.

I entered Buffalo State Teacher’s College in 1955 and enjoyed all of it except swimming which I have never mastered. My Freshman year at Buffalo State, I lived with the Corps Officers—Bill and Dorothy Waiksnoris. I babysat the kids—Bill in 7th grade, Shari in 6th, and Ron in 1st. They all remember that I introduced them to pizza. I also ran off the Sunday Holiness Mtg program on the mimeograph and led Jr. Legion one day a week after school. For my second year I moved in with my Uncle John and Aunt Mary who lived about a half block away from the Buffalo Citadel Corps where I sang in the Songsters.

I think I will go back now and relate more about my parents and grandparents.

GRANDPARENTS:

GULDENSCHUH

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Great, Great Grandma Guldenschuh

Charles Paul Guldenschuh, my grandfather, was one of twelve children. His father died before he was a teenager and his mother, unable to care for such a large family on her own, sent the older ones off to seek their fortunes on their own. Grandpa G. was one of them. He was twelve years old. He didn’t lose track of his family because I have been told that there are pictures of his mother visiting his family (my Dad and siblings) years later.

I have to insert here that we owe a great deal to Nita Smith (daughter of my cousin Ruth Guldenschuh Smith) for much of the information we have on the Guldenschuh side of the family. She has spent many years and lately again many hours researching our family. This picture we believe was my grandfather’s mother. It was found in an old photo album her grandparents had.

The Guldenschuh family are originally from the Alsace-Lorraine area of France. This is an area which was sometimes contested by Germany and was part of Germany for a time. An obituary of Jacob Guldenschuh (great, great grandfather) mentions that he was a part of Napoleon’s army before he came to the States. My Dad said that his ancestors came from France to England to the U.S.A. I have no idea on the timing of that. According to what we have been able to decipher, Jacob’s son Isaac was our great grandfather.

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My grandmother, Anna Bristol Guldenschuh’s background we have a bit more information on but not a total. Her mother was a Vanderpool. That family’s ancestry can be traced back to 1702 in this country – before it was a country. They lived in what is now N.Y. State, at that time still a Dutch colony. Dutch settlers (?) Anyway, her father was Shepherd Bristol, native of PA. They lived in Towanda, PA. Somewhere, I am thinking on the Bristol side, some Native American blood joined the mix. We were told that Grandma G. was part Indian. Never knew which part or what percentage. She looked like that was true and so did my Uncle Art and my Dad. I know the area that Grandma Guldenschuh was from and, it is near Towanda. There is a Sequin village about a few miles up the road from Towanda on the other side of the river. The Sequin village was the Iroquois nation Seneca tribe. It was at the end of a trail that went the whole length of upper Pennsylvania. They couldn’t find her on whatever roll that was researched; Anything else is pure speculation.

At any rate my grandparents met in Towanda, married young, and had seven children. Only five of those children survived beyond infancy – Frank, Arthur, Walter, Carrie and Grace. Somewhere in their early years they met The Salvation Army, got converted and were faithful followers of the Lord they rest of their lives. Sometimes in Towanda, others in Binghamton and Vestal.

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Grace, Walter, Grandpa and Grandma, Arthur, Frank and

Carrie on their occasion of the fiftieth anniversary

Just so you know that we had plenty of cousins, here’s the list:

Frank and Eva (Cowans) had 5 girls-Doris

Ruth

Jane

Daisy

Emily (closest to me in age-about a year older)

Art and Viola had 6 boys and 1 girl

Art (worked for IBM, was transferred to California)

Ed (became a Methodist minister)

Don (these three served in World War II)

Chuck (spent almost his entire adult life in the US Army)

Bob (also served in the U. S. Army, became a Methodist minister)

George (born a few weeks after me- was CSM of Corps in Kingston, NY until he retired and moved into Sr.Citizen housing)

Donna Lee (born when I was about 7. Now living in Iowa)

Walter and Wihelmina had the 3 of us Grace Eileen

Yvonne Faith

Walter Frank

Carrie and Vernon Teeter had 3also—Dick

Grace (Pete to us)

Fred

Grace and Bernard Sampson had 4—Barbara (about my age)

Nancy

2 boys whose name I do not know.

That’s 22 cousins on the Guldenschuh side.

BERKHOUDT

My mother’s lineage goes back to Holland. While we have discovered very little about her mother – Wilhelmina – she obviously met my grandfather when they were young. I know they were married in 1900 because we had a big 50th wedding anniversary celebration in 1950. They lived in the city of Utrecht which I have visited three times.

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What we do know about my grandfather’s youth was that he attended a Sunday School class in a mission in a rather poor neighborhood of Utrecht. His teacher was young man named Gerritt Govaars. Govaars was a linguist who spoke several languages and a friend of his had traveled to France and met The Salvation Army there. He would send the French language Army publication to Govaars and they were both intrigued by the Army’s mission. Govaars decided that Holland needed The Salvation Army so he traveled to London to speak to the Founder. In his interview with William Booth he told him that Holland needed The Salvation Army. Booth’s response was, I have no one to send. You start it.

Upon returning to his Sunday School class he reportedly told the boys, We are now The Salvation Army. So, Grandpa, at age fourteen became one of the first Salvationists in Holland.

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Grandpa Berkhoudt is the drummer on the left.

Apparently, a few years after their marriage, Grandpa decided that his family would have a better life in America. I have no idea what kind of job he might have had in Utrecht. I do know that as a teen he had drawing lessons and he had a real talent in that. However, married with six children (my mother the only girl) life was not easy for them. Grandpa came to America, I’m not sure the year. He came over as an indentured servant. Some business man over here paid for his passage and he had to work for that person for a certain length of time until it was paid back. Then he could go off on his own if he wanted to and get a job. The person that paid his way over, his last name was Allis. He was a farmer. Grandpa was a city boy and he was scared to death of the horses, but he had to take care of the horses and cows. I don’t know how long it took for him to finish his work with Mr. Allis.

Following that, he went to Buffalo and got a job as a painter in an office building. He lived in a boarding house and saved all he could of his salary and sent it to Grandma. In 1914, just before the beginning of the First World War, (they were not aware of that, of course) they left Utrecht and set out for America. I know from my Uncle Henry that at their farewell service from the Corps in Utrecht they had gathered all the family up on the platform prayed with them and sang, No Never Alone. This became the Berkhoudt anthem. I don’t think my Mother ever said anything about it. On their journey they came upon a very bad storm and Grandma gathered all of the kids around her and they sang, No Never Alone, and prayed. The ship was off course because of the storm and they ended up landing in Canada. When the ship did not come in to New York where it was supposed to, my Grandfather didn’t know where they were. Uncle Henry shared this story as well. He would have been about four or five years old when this happened. One Sunday morning, while at an open-air meeting on the street in Buffalo, up the street comes my Grandmother and six kids. Somehow, she got down from Canada. I don’t know if Grandpa already had the house on George Street or got it later. Anyway, until they died, they lived in that little house on George Street. It came down many years later. We all visited there. Grandpa painted the wall with Dutch scenes to make it feel like home. What he did one time, when he went back to Holland years later, he bought a tapestry of a Dutch market scene and he tacked it on the living room wall and then he finished the scene painting around it over the whole wall. There was a very small driveway between their house and the neighbor’s. He offered to paint the neighbor’s house one time with the agreement that he could paint a Dutch scene on the side that faced theirs’. The garage door had a Dutch scene, and his garbage cans also.

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Mommy was not quite ten when the arrived in the States. They went to school. They learned English. Grandma and Grandpa learned English using their Dutch/English Bible. They would read it in Dutch and then in English. Their English was a bit broken.

Mommy grew up from the age of almost ten until she went to Training College from the Buffalo Citadel Corps. She worked at D. H. Q. there before she went to Training at eighteen. Her twin brother John also became a cadet that same year. She was made a cadet sergeant when she was commissioned which meant that she would stay the next year on the staff. However, one day she and some of the other women cadets were at an ice cream shop around the corner from the Training College some men cadets walked in. Men cadets and women cadets were not to be together. Some officer on the staff saw her and for that reason she was not kept for the next year on the staff. This was probably just as well as my Father was in the next year. Anyway, she was sent to Buffalo in Western New York division. I don’t know what corps she was in but I know that a year or so before she and my Dad married, she was in Seneca Falls which is at the top of Cayuga Lake. Seneca Falls is the town that the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, is based on. Her siblings from the oldest were, Herman who married Alice. A few years ago, I saw their wedding picture and they were in uniform.

I never ever saw my Aunt Alice in uniform. I think that she was from Canada. (I wouldn’t swear to that.) They had five kids. Uncle Herman died young at the age of forty-five. He had gone to the hospital for something in his ear, the