Gilford Vaughn, Baptist preacher with Rusk County Roots
The Waco News-Tribune, Saturday, June 20, 1959, p. 6
Gilford Harris Vaughn was born August 20, 1916 at Oak Flat, Rusk County, Texas. His parents are Simeon Levi Vaughn and Martha Viola Allen. They named Gilford after a Baptist preacher, Guilford Hancock. His middle name Harris is from his great-grandfather, Edmond Harris Sanders or his uncle George Harris Vaughn – or both, since George Harris Vaughn was named after Edmond Harris Sanders.
Ernest Guilford Hancock was born in Manchester, Coffee
County, Tennessee, but married a lady from Rusk County and apparently lived in
the Rusk County area around the time Gilford was born. Gilford remembered
hearing Guilford Hancock preach at a homecoming. Brother Hancock said, “I have
a namesake here. I’ve been praying that God will call him to preach.” As an
older teenager, Cousin Gilford thought to himself, “I hope he has another namesake
here because I don’t intend to preach. I hope God does not answer his prayer!”
But preach he did! Gilford Vaughn was a Baptist preacher for 76 of his 97
years.
In 1920 when Gilford was almost four, the census lists
the family living at Miller, Rusk County, Texas.[i] This would later be part
of the area of the oil boom in Rusk County. Gilford told me that his father
sold out land there that might have made them wealthy, and moved back to Oak
Flat. However, Gilford was satisfied with the Lord’s will, and that God did not
intend for them to be rich.
Gilford Vaughn was saved in 1936, and baptized on
August 23, 1936.[ii]
He surrendered to preach in August of 1938. “On the same day [August 28, 1938]
that Bro. [O. H.] Griffith was ordained the church liberated Bro. Gilford
Vaughn to preach.”[iii]
After being called to the Afton Grove Church in Cherokee County, Gilford was ordained
at Smyrna Missionary Baptist Church of Oak Flat, Rusk County, Texas, on January
28, 1940.[iv]
Nine preachers (including his grandfather Marshall
Lewis Vaughn)[v]
gathered from four different churches to form a presbytery to ordain Gilford
Vaughn. The service included those as follows, and the duties they performed.[vi]
- G. D. Kellar, moderator
- T. B. Prescott, ordination sermon
- C. R. Meadows, question the candidate
- M. L. Vaughn, charge to the candidate
- L. L. Brown, charge to the church
- C. F. Palmer, ordination prayer
- V. S. Lyles, present the Bible
Other presbytery members, who had no specifically assigned duties, were O. H. Griffith and C. E. Banks.[vii] Hubie Bradbury, not officially part of the presbytery, served as spokesman for the church.[viii] C. E. Banks reported on
the ordination to the Baptist Progress periodical. He wrote, “Bro.
Vaughn gave a very interesting account of his conversion and call to the
ministry, withstood a very good examination on the doctrine of the Holy Word of
God, and was found sound in the Faith.”[ix]
Gilford attended Jacksonville Baptist College in
Jacksonville, Texas in the years 1937-1942, receiving a bachelor of science
degree. He was a second-generation student. His father attended the school in 1910-1912.[x] While in school, Gilford
worked on campus in various jobs – from raking leaves to maintaining fires to
heat the buildings. He also returned home to farm one of those years, to
support himself and his schooling. Two of Gilford’s daughters attended
Jacksonville College in the 1960’s.[xi]
While at Jacksonville College, Gilford met his future
bride. On July 24, 1943, Gilford married Hazel Berniece Lee of Nacogdoches
County, Texas. The marriage took place in Oak Flat, performed by his
grandfather M. L. Vaughn and faithfully recorded in a notebook where he kept a
record of the marriages he performed.[xii] To this union were born
three daughters. Hazel eagerly served alongside Gilford. She played the piano
in many of the churches he pastored.
From the time he began to preach at Afton Grove in
November of 1939, Gilford pastored 24 churches in Oklahoma and Texas.[xiii] Antioch Missionary
Baptist Church near Fairfield was his last. Two pastorates – Liberty in
northeastern Rusk County and Stone Heights in Henderson – brought him home to
Rusk County for a few years. These were his only pastorates in his native
county. From pastorates in Oklahoma to Walker County, Texas, he ranged over
some 400 miles distance to teach and preach the word of God.
Gilford actively preached for 70 years, until his 92nd
year of life. He resigned from the Antioch Missionary Baptist Church near
Fairfield, Texas in 2008. At the time he retired, he was the oldest serving
pastor in the Baptist Missionary Association of Texas.
Gilford died April 18, 2014 at Palestine, Anderson County, Texas, and is buried at Land of Memory Cemetery on Highway 287, north of Palestine, Anderson County, Texas. Hazel died October 15, 2015 and is buried by his side at Land of Memory.
[ii] This probably occurred at the summer protracted meeting at Smyrna. During that meeting, O. H. “Heaton” Griffith was licensed to preach. (Centennial + 5: History of the Smyrna Baptist Church of Rusk County, Texas, 1873-1978, J. W. Griffith, Henderson, TX: 1978, p. 36).
[iii] Centennial + 5, page 36. Hazel Vaughn’s notes say that Gilford surrendered to preach on 4th Saturday morning in August, 1938. The 4th Saturday would have been August 27, 1938. The explanation of the difference between the 27th and 28th is probably this. Gilford surrendered to preach on Saturday morning the 27th, and the church by vote officially liberated him to preach on Sunday the 28th. The paper given him by the church, written by clerk A. A. Scruggs, says he was liberated 28 August 1938.
[iv] Both his ordination certificate and a report in the Baptist Progress give the date as January 28 (“Bro. Gilford Vaughn Ordained,” C. E. Banks, Baptist Progress, Thursday, February 8, 1940, pp. 7-8). Centennial + 5 (p. 36), based on Smyrna Church records, gives January 27th: “Bro. Vaughn was ordained by the church on January 27, 1940…” This discrepancy may be as simple as a typo in Centennial + 5. The Smyrna Church minutes were destroyed in a house fire and are no longer available to inspect.
[v] Marshall Lewis Vaughn (1858-1947) was ordained by the Smyrna Church in September of 1897. 43 years later he gave the charge to the candidate at Gilford’s ordination in 1940. 43 years later in 1983, Gilford gave the charge to the candidate at my ordination.
[vi] The presbytery and ordination information is based on three sources: (1) Gilford’s ordination certificate, (2) a report of the ordination in the Baptist Progress, and (3) notes in the Smyrna Church minutes recorded in the book Centennial + 5.
[vii] I remain a little uncertain of the identity of C. E. Banks. He was a fellow student with Gilford at Jacksonville College. I believe this identity is correct, but note that, according to his obituary on Find-A-Grave, was not ordained until 1949. My impression is that an unordained preacher would not be officially a part of a presbytery. Perhaps as a student and licensed minister, he was invited to “sit-in” on the proceedings. This needs more research, but I think the error may be that Claude Banks was ordained in 1939 rather than 1949.
[viii] Hubie was later ordained a deacon at Smyrna (March 1937), and, after moving to Dallas, was licensed and ordained to preach by a church in that area.
[ix] Bro. Gilford Vaughn Ordained,” Banks, Baptist Progress, February 8, 1940, page 7.
[x] Several Vaughn family members attended Jacksonville College. Levi’s father Marshall Vaughn was an East Texas Baptist minister who had a great desire to see a Baptist College established for the education of Baptist youth.
[xi] A Centennial History of Jacksonville College, Volume 1, John William Gregson, Jacksonville, TX: Jacksonville College, 1998, page 108.
[xii] Gilford and Hazel are the last couple in his list of marriages in his journal.
[xiii] Before his call to Afton Grove, Gilford had “a regular appointment” to preach at Sweet Gum Baptist Church, where R. E. Rodgers was pastor. See, for example, “Sweet Gum,” Henderson Daily News, Wednesday, November 1, 1939, page 10.
posted by R. L. Vaughn at 10:06 AM
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