To Walk a Crooked Road

By Haider Y. Sameh

There was one of those dear ladies who was attending one of my revival meetings. She was a young lady who was married to a cowboy, a man with a hard and heavy heart, a very jealous man who did not believe in the salvation of Jesus Christ-who, as a matter of fact, did not believe that his young wife needed to be out in public where other men maybe about, especially around a fifteen-year-old preacher such as me! She had attended my services every night from the beginning since it started and, of course, unbeknownst to me, had nothing but praises for me as a young evangelist and my wonderful sermons. Well, after one of those services, her husband decided to stay up and wait for her return. He immediately confronted her as soon as she stepped into the house and said, "If you ever go back to that evangelist service again, I'm going to do something terrible to that evangelist of yours, something that you will regret for the rest of your life, do you understand?" Later on that week, she decided to go back to our revival meeting, even though she knew that it would cause a terrible confrontation with her husband. It was on a Thursday or Friday night when she showed up at our revival meeting, and unbeknownst to her, her husband had followed her to the meeting place. In the middle of the service, he came up next to her and sat down beside her. Of course, all this was going on without my knowledge! Apparently, he had determined that when I stood up to preach, he would use his six-shooter revolver-which was fully loaded with six bullets and belted in a side-strapped, tie-down holster-to put some holes into me! As I stood up to start my sermon, he stood up next to his wife, pulled his six-shooter out, aimed it at me, and started pulling the trigger.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781640790810

Book preview

A Christian Business Prayer to Honor God

Gilman & Gary Hanson—12/7/2013

You know, O Lord, You are the Great Author, and I pray, O Lord, to bless the words in this book and make them living and vital and supportive of the world, the missions, and the financial situations that I have dealt with, with the many wonderful, blessed businesspeople in my ministry.

With this book, I comply now to my son, Gary’s, wishes to place my life’s story, my ministry, and my work for God into print. I pray, O Lord, to reveal all the events You want revealed as they need to be revealed and as I remember them for Your glory alone!

We give all the glory and praise to You, O God! Amen!

Reverend Gilman Arthur Hanson

Preface

In reviewing Reverend Hanson’s life, including those of his father, mother, sister, wife, and his children, one can only begin to imagine how critically important God’s will was to Reverend Hanson, how it shaped his way of life all the way from his early beginnings as a child in Oklahoma on January 2, 1921, to his death on February 6, 2014, in Fontana, California.

As I sit here, typing this book, I’m reviewing all the numerous tapes that my father-in-law, Reverend Hanson, compiled, including all the many letters that his son, Gary K. Hanson, transcribed from his dad’s stories and words as it was told to him. I am just so overwhelmed by all the trials, tribulations, and hardships Reverend Hanson and his family had to endure throughout their lifetimes, and yet there was also so much joy and fulfilment in their lives that was brought to them by the grace of God and the will of the Holy Spirit. Reverend Hanson and his family prevailed and prospered with their undying and unwavering love and faith in the Almighty God, amen.

I also want to give credit and thanks to all his family members who helped fill in some of the voids and gaps and contributed to his story as some of the important details may have been missed by Reverend Hanson in telling his story. But are all based on true events as witnessed by our family members.

And last but not least, I would like to list all those who contributed to his story and helped me write this book: his son Gary Keith Hanson, his daughter Bonita Joyce Sameh (Hanson), his daughter Darlene Carol Morse (Hanson), and his son-in-law Kenneth Morse.

Chapter 1

It was 1921, and I was born in a small town in Fairview, Oklahoma, on the second day of January. I was born just one hour shy of making the deadline for being that special New Year’s baby that everyone talks about. Little did I know that my life would change, and I would still be talked about for years to come! As I sit here writing about my life’s memories—thanks to my son, Gary Hanson, for convincing me to do just that—I began to recall details of my life that some would find impossible.

First, I want to talk about my parents. My mother, Anna Ruby Ewbank, was born June 16, 1900, in Fairview, Oklahoma, and was twenty-two years younger than my dad. My dad’s name was Bennett Gary Hanson, and he was born June 10, 1878, in Blanchardville, Wisconsin. My mother’s side was English, and my father’s side Norwegian.

All my uncles on my dad’s side were born in Norway, except for one uncle, Uncle Henry Hanson, who was also born in Blanchardville, Wisconsin.

Before my mom and dad met, my dad went to Montana looking for work and found himself in the logging business. This was also the same place where my mom’s brother, Uncle George Ewbank, was working at; and as it so happened, my dad and my uncle met, struck up a bond, and became really close friends.

As things happened, they decided to share living quarters together while working as loggers, and soon, one of my uncle’s sisters, Mary Hannah Ewbank, came over to their cabin to visit with her brother George and, of course, met my dad. One thing led to another, and my dad and Mary were married on June 6, 1916, in Lewistown, Montana.

Ben Hanson & Anna Ewbank (Hanson) Wedding Day

This was my dad’s first marriage. Everything seemed to be going well. Mary became pregnant, and as they were expecting their baby, the big flu pandemic of 1918 hit, and Mary became very ill with the flu. On December 3, 1918, while Mary was still suffering with the flu, she gave birth to a baby girl, my half-sister Letta Florence Hanson. My dad’s wife, Mary, passed away soon after giving birth to my sister Letta on December 31, 1918.

Unfortunately, my half-sister Letta suffered from a severe brain disease at birth that she had contracted through her mother’s illness and soon, because of her severe mental illness, had to be institutionalized at a mental hospital, where she died on September 8, 1939, at the age of twenty.

My mother, Anna Ruby Ewbank, came to stay with her sister Mary and my dad during Mary’s illness to help out her sister during this devastating illness and the birth of Letta. After Mary passed away, my dad and my mom became close, and they eventually married on November 10, 1919 in Fairview, Oklahoma.

I was only four years old when I had the best change in my life take place. With some help from a few of my relatives, such as my uncle Johnnie Sharp, who married my mother’s oldest sister, Jennie Ewbank, I began to remember and recollect my stories. And so my story begins.

My uncle Johnnie Sharp lived in Fairview, Oklahoma, right next door to us on the north side of us just across from a park. There was a fence that divided our home and theirs. There was a most beautiful garden that he tended daily, and this was where his recollections of my life began. I would climb upon the fence every day and begin the ritual of asking a thousand questions, knowing that he would think silently that I was a walking question box. The funny thing is, he was patient but foolish to answer every question that came from my lips. I would ask him things like, What is that in your hands?

He would reply with the simplest answer: This is a hoe.

What’s that? I asked.

Well, it’s a sharp instrument that breaks up the ground to get the weeds out, he answered.

Now, being a small child, we all know that questions rarely stop with the first one, so I continued to ask Uncle Johnnie more details about what the hoe did and why the weeds had to come out and so on and so forth.

So he continued answering me, telling me what weeds were, why they needed to come out, as my questions just kept on coming. He was a very patient man and smiled while giving me the answers to every question I would ask, being just enough to appease me until the next question followed.

I was so inquisitive, wanting to know this and that and what the thing hanging out of his mouth was, and so I had to ask, Uncle Johnnie, what is that thing in your mouth, and why is there smoke coming out of it?

Uncle Johnnie said, This is a pipe.

A pipe? I asked. What’s a pipe?

Well, he said, a pipe is something that makes me feel good when I have it in my mouth.

Why is there smoke coming from it? I asked again.

I wouldn’t allow him to avoid my question and kept on until I got my answer and felt satisfied. Uncle Johnnie told me that he put leaves in his pipe to make it smoke, and I was curious as to why he put leaves in it, so that question soon arose: Why do you put leaves in the pipe, Uncle Johnnie?

As he thought about it for a minute, as if to try to explain it in simple terms for a young boy to understand, he replied, It’s not leaves. It’s tobacco.

My questions continued on and on, which really started to irritate him, but I was so intrigued by his black pipe that I finally asked him, If you enjoy it so much, then why didn’t Aunt Jennie ever have a pipe in her mouth?

So he angrily responded, Aunt Jennie does not want to use a pipe. Now go to bed, that’s the best place for you to be right now!

Every day was the same thing. For some reason, I wouldn’t move on to new questions; it seemed like I was very fascinated with just the pipe and would open my day with more questions about it. My Uncle Johnnie would chuckle at me and say, I hope that one day, when you get married, you have children and that they would question you until you are pestered to death because that is what you deserve!

I finally gave up on the pipe and moved on to the sunshine. I learned through my Uncle Johnnie how the sunshine would help the vegetables grow. Where did the sunshine come from? Who put it there? I wanted to know everything about all of these things in my childhood. Rather than answer so many of my questions, I soon was given the simple answer of, When you grow up, you will learn a few things as I can’t tell you everything that you want to know. Go ask Aunt Jennie where the sun comes from!

But being a child, simple answers like that one just wouldn’t satisfy my hunger for knowledge. I kept asking and asking about the sun until finally Aunt Jennie told me that God put it there for us to enjoy for all of our lifetime and to help all the vegetables, trees, fruits, and other things to grow. This seemed to satisfy me, so finally I ended the questions and moved on to another part of my life.

Chapter 2

This was when I began recalling how I treated my sister Beatta and how selfish I had become over a favorite item made just for me: a brand-new homemade wooden footstool. Now, this wasn’t just any tiny stool—oh no, sir, this one was special! It was made by my daddy’s hands and just for my little bottom to enjoy. I really loved this gift too! The time was 1926, and I was about five years old now, if I remember correctly, and I would take my little wooden stool and head out front to sit on our front porch, where my picture was taken. I would carry that stool everywhere I went, and I would never let my little sister, who was three years old, sit on it either! I suppose that may have been a bit selfish, looking back on it, but after all, I was only five years old. In my older years, there was a time when I reflected back on that memory, looking at a photograph I still have of sitting on that wooden stool on the front porch, not sharing with my sister.

Finally, when the first Christmas came, I allowed my little sister to sit on my stool. According to my Uncle Johnnie, he thought it was so cute that I would get off the stool and let my little sister sit on the stool until I was ready to snatch it back. Don’t worry, I learned to share that year, and my little sister was happy that I did!

I recall my father being so kind to my mom, even though, at this time, if I recall correctly, he was an alcoholic and under the influence nearly every payday, but he always made sure that Mom had her allowance every week so that she could buy groceries. Mom would always tell me that my father was always so kind to her being his wife. I still, to this day, thank God above for that memory. You know, I don’t think I would ever trade these memories for anything, even though my father was an alcoholic. No matter what happened during his episodes of being drunk, my mother would always treat him with love, and that was all we children would see: an unconditional and very deep love for her husband. Oh, how wonderful that love was!

Another memory I have of our early Christmas days was Dad bringing in a Christmas tree, a cedar tree, and setting it up in our living room near a window. Mom showed my sister and me how to use the scissors to cut colored paper into long streams into the exact size for a ring, which was fun to do. She had made a paste using flour and water to glue the sections of paper together to make colored rings and then hung them on the tree. She also threaded a needle and sewed popcorn together to make additional decorations for our Christmas tree. We didn’t have lights on the tree, but it was so beautifully decorated, even without the lights.

We were never taught that there was a Santa Claus. We knew that Mom and Dad did the honors. On this Christmas, I was excited to find a red coaster wagon under the tree in which I could give my sister a thrill ride. She didn’t mind until I dumped her out of it. A little baby buggy was a gift that belonged to her, so I had to keep my hands off it.

We kind of hated to see Christmas come around because my dad would celebrate by getting drunk and was sort of abusive to Mother and us kids. Dad wanted his old rusty .22-caliber rifle, which my mother hid with all of his rifle shells so that he couldn’t use the rifle even if he found it. It was common for Dad to get into a fight with some relative, usually my uncle Bill McCaskey, my mother’s sister’s husband. Not a pleasant memory during the height of my father’s drunken moments.

As my journey continued along, trying to recall several memories here and there, a funny one emerged. I remember getting into trouble for teasing my sister. I would always tease her while my father was out of the home. I would pinch her, causing her to scream out loud. Oh, if Dad were home, I would be reacquainted with the razor strap, and so I would tease far less when Dad was home to avoid any consequence that would come from it. My father believed in the old ways and even had a strap hanging on the wall with a sign hanging above it that read, I need thee every hour. I guess it was true, though it didn’t hurt so much to be punished. My parents knew how I felt, and they would hurt more in grieving afterward. Oh, how I thank God for having parents who loved me!

The first years of my life were that of a normal childhood and how it should be, to the best of my younger recollection as an elderly man now to be remembering. It had its ups and downs, good days and bad days, but along with all the daily events, there were some pretty heartbreaking events. And though it was a hard time, it made me a stronger person.

Often, my little sister and I would get special gifts from time to time as reward for things. One incident I remember the most was my parents driving to Enid, Oklahoma, which was about forty miles east of us. It was an outstanding city to go shopping in, so they would drive to that city to do all the shopping needs for their home. As they would drive from Fairview to Enid, they would discuss what the best kind of gift they could get for us children, and they would make up their minds to buy us something special.

Today was different. The shopping trip was going to be just Mom and Dad. They decided to leave us to allow for Beatta and me to stay home alone. I was now around the age of six. According to what my mother had told me, I was responsible to take care of my sister. We were to stay in the front yard until they got back and were only allowed to go inside the house to get something to eat and then come back out to play. I suppose now, looking back on that moment, the reason we had to stay outside was to avoid breaking anything or doing damage to the inside of the house. Mom must have thought there was less to get into outdoors rather than indoors, and she was right. I never minded being outside. I would ride around in my red coaster wagon, and my sister would be pulling me all around in the front yard because, at that time of my life, I was so weak, so very weak. She would always pull me. It was funny. She would keep pulling me around in that red wagon until she finally lost her patience and tipped it over, causing me to fall to the ground. She must have thought this was funny to tip me over because she would take off laughing and then run, making fun of me, and it would make me so mad. I usually wouldn’t lose my temper, but for some reason, the way that Beatta was laughing at me made me so angry that, at that very moment, I looked down under the tree in front of the house, saw a green apple, picked it up, and threw it at her glasses and broke them. I didn’t know how hard I had thrown that darn apple until I saw her glasses fly off and hit the ground, causing them to break.

When she bent down to pick them up and I saw they were broken, I knew I was in a whole lot of trouble. I can still feel the ache in my tummy, knowing that I was going to be in some serious trouble, so I tried to make my sister happy by being nice to her the rest of the afternoon. But all she would keep saying was, You’re going to get it when Dad gets home! Mom may understand, but Dad will be the one to give you your punishment, and Dad will really get you! Oh, I was so terrified to see them come home, knowing what would happen when they saw what I did. All I kept thinking was how they would understand me losing my temper and how I could explain it to my parents. What a question for a six-year-old boy to have to try to explain what gave me the right to throw an apple at my sister. No matter how I tried to come up with answers, they would still know and wouldn’t listen to me anyway, and I still would need to be punished for that incident, no matter what excuse I tried to think of to save me. I thought even a spanking wouldn’t buy my sister glasses and that I had to take my punishment because I knew I couldn’t buy my sister a new pair. I didn’t have any way to.

Just then, my parents drove up all happy and smiling seeing us kids. As they got out of the car, each of them was holding a package, one for my sister and one for me. Just then, they saw my sister holding her glasses as she began to explain to them what I had done. Dad turned to look at me and said, Son, you can’t have what I have in my hand, which I had intended on giving to you, because you have done something wrong. Of course, that hurt me very much, knowing I was not getting my present. I was further punished by being made to stay in the bedroom closet until he came to let me out.

That made it worse, knowing that he would come to get me out later because I knew that I would have to get my real punishment, which was a slapping. I mean a really hard one too. Thank God, Dad wasn’t drinking alcohol at this time and that he was in his right mind. Finally, what seemed like all afternoon and night, he came for me. It was so dark in the closet, but he finally came in to get me out. I will never forget what happened next. The first thing my dad asked me was, Have you learned your lesson?

Yes, Dad, I learned it! I repeatedly said, and soon after, he asked me what I wanted him to do about what I had done to my sister. As I sat there thinking for what felt like forever, I responded with, Dad, I know I can’t help my sister with her glasses, and I’m really sorry for what I did!

Looking back on that moment, I know that I must have been really sorry because I remember sitting there looking into my dad’s eyes as tears filled in mine and began running down my cheeks. As I sat there crying, I knew I was sorry but couldn’t help but feel that I was crying more to prevent the harsh punishment that I just knew he thought I deserved.

Just as another tear had fallen down my cheek, my dad did something