The long road north

By Carl E. Feather

Years of work as an itinerant evangelist preceded the Rev. Henry Robert’s call to Revival Center.

“When I got through, people were crying and praying. It was like a revival had started at that wake.” The Rev. Henry Roberts, describing on his debut as a preacher in West Virginia.

The Rev. Henry Roberts was accustomed to surprises. After 12 years on the road as an itinerant Pentecostal evangelist, he’d come to walk by faith, not by sight. His style was to get in his car, head down the road praying and trust God to send him to whatever church needed revival.

“Sometimes it would be a large church, and sometimes just a little tar paper shack along the road,” say Roberts, 79.

In Ashtabula it was the basement of a block building at the corner of West 57^th and Main Avenue.

Roberts was called there in 1961 by Rose Lee Long, who a year earlier had founded the Revival Center, a prayer and Sunday school group destined to become a large Pentecostal congregation now known as the Pentecostal Church of God.

A mother’s influence

Roberts grew up in the Pentecostal tradition, which was practiced at his mother’s church, in the Church of the Living God, in Iaeger, West Virginia.

The 11^th of 13 children, Roberts’ life was profoundly affected by the way his mother lived her Christian faith. “She lived so good,” he says. “ She lived the Christian life. That was her life, being a Christian lady. She read us the Bible, told us Bible stories when we were small and prayed for us.” Ella Roberts’ prayers were not empty, recited mantras addressed to an impersonal God. They were prayers that brought the power of heaven to earth.

Roberts says that even before he was born, his mother prayed that her son would become a pastor. His grandmother, however, doubted that her grandson should have any job that would put him in front of a crowd. “She used to tell me I was the ugliest child she ever saw,” he says. “I’d hide behind the door when company came.” Ella Roberts just kept praying. Roberts says that when he was 5 or 6, he was bitten by a copperhead while running down a path between their house and the corn field. His father had always told him to stay away from the copperheads because they would “ eat him up.” Thus, when the snake rose up and sank his fangs into the tender arch of the young Roberts’ foot the boy prepared to die. He ran back to the house and told his mother that he’d been bitten by a copperhead. He expected her to administer some form of home remedy or rush him to a doctor. Instead, she scooped him up in her arms, sat down and began praying over him. She prayed, and prayed, and prayed ---- until she was certain the crisis was past. Then she told her son to go outside and play. Robert’s, his faith still weak, insisted his mother administer treatment. She made a placebo of salt in a rag and wrapped it around his foot. In a couple days, the top of his foot blistered up as the venom worked its way out. Otherwise, he suffered no ill effect from the bite.

A decade later, when Roberts was fighting the Japanese in the South Pacific and doubted if he’d come home alive, he prayed a one-sentence prayer: “Lord, listen to Mom, I know she’s praying for me.” Anything more would have been a waste of words.

The Pentecostal way

Ella Roberts’ passion was the church, particularly the Pentecostal church. A native of Kentucky, she had grown up a Primitive Baptist, but by studying her Bible she came to the conclusion that both Holiness and Pentecostalism were the right approaches to Christianity. When a “Holy Roller” evangelist came to the hollow to preach a revival, the Primitive Baptists launched a campaign among the residents to discredit him and warn them not to attend. But Ella Roberts ignored their warnings and followed her heart.

“She was the original (Pentecostal) in that district,” Roberts says. “She became Pentecostal just by reading the Bible.” Joseph Roberts, Henry’s father, grew up Old Regular Baptist but didn’t practice his faith. A coal miner, he had his hands full trying to provide for 13 kids.

The family owned 90 acres on Johnny Cake Mountain. Theirs was a life of subsistence farming; what little extra meat they produced was traded at the Piggly Wiggly store for supplies. Roberts was introduced to the coal mines at the age of 6. By 13 he was working a full day there, making 12.5 cents an hour. It was a drift mine, drilled into the side of the mountain. The coal mine was dangerous and dirty, but Roberts preferred it to hoeig corn. Southern W. Virginia summers can be uncomfortably hot. “It was cool in the mines,” he says. “ The weather was the same in the mines year-around. The mining job eventually drew Roberts away from school. After serving with the Army Air Force in the South Pacific, Roberts returned to West Virginia and coal mining in 1945. In January 1946, he married Angie Cook, whose father also was a coal miner.

Although he’d heard the gospel message time and again in the Church of the Living God, Roberts had not acted upon it. On Dec. 21, 1946, he drove to Welch, W. Va. where a revival was being held by Wallace Hager. A lot of issues were laying on Roberts’ soul and mind. His mother had dies while he was in the South Pacific. Three times he had been miraculously healed through prayer, including once while in the service. Many of the men he went into battle with had not come home. For some reason, God had spared Henry Roberts. Roberts says “he’d pretty much made up his mind about what he’d do once he got to the revival, it was just a matter of finding the forum in which to make his profession known.. Concurrent with his conversion, Roberts felt the need to begin evangelizing.”I just wanted to see people get saved,” he says.

Seeking the Spirit

Elisha Davison, pastor of The Church of the Living God, awakened Roberts’ latent preaching gifts when he called upon Roberts to say a few words at a wake. In the Appalachian culture, night-long wakes were commonly held at the home of the deceased, giving friends an opportunity to call upon and grieve with the deceased’s family. Roberts says he surprised even himself when his few words turned into a sermon about what he’d read from the Bible earlier in the day. “When I got through, people were crying and praying,” he says. “It was like a revival had started at that wake.” The next time the church met, the pastor announced they had a new preacher in their midst. “I looked all over trying to figure out who it was,” Roberts says. “When he called my name, I just about passed out. It just floored me.” Roberts got up and began preaching, with stunning results.

“All of a sudden, I wasn’t this shy fellow,” he says. “When I got through, the altar started lining up with all these people.” Davison goaded Roberts to grow spiritually and develop his ministry. “He had a way of maneuvering you right into something.,” Roberts says. First, his pastor told him he needed to be baptized. Snow was on the ground and the creek waters were icy cold, but Roberts submitted. Then I went back to church and he said, “Now you need to pray for the Holy Ghost,” Roberts said. He spent the next year praying for the baptism. “I finally got the Holy Ghost and I really felt like the Spirit of God was moving in me, almost like electricity running through my body,” he says. Roberts says at first he tried to conceal the Spirit’s effect on him by refusing to raise his hand when he was so moved. But he eventually learned to not only raise his hand but to laugh when he felt the Spirit’s presence. And when he preached under the power of the Spirit, he had the habit of jerking his free arm upward. While preaching a revival in North Carolina Roberts felt the Spirit come upon him and became animated in his preaching. A middle-aged man in the front row had doubts about the validity of Roberts claim of being under the Spirit’s control, and jumped up and touched the arm Roberts was flailing. Roberts says the man was knocked off his feet and laid there during the balance of the message. When Roberts finished preaching and gave the altar call, the prostrate man rose and gave a testimony. He said,”Let me tell you people something,” Roberts said, “I heard Brother Roberts say he felt the Spirit of God, but I’ve been in church many years and I’ve never felt it. So I thought if he does that again, I’ll touch him and see if it’s true. Well, it felt like a bolt of lightning hit me. Don’t you ever doubt it, if he says he felt the Spirit of God, he felt the Spirit of God.”

Putting the miles on

Roberts took formal training through correspondence courses from the Cleveland Tennessee Church of Gd and other Bible colleges. He spent his weekday working in the coal mines and nights and weekends studying God’s word and preaching throughout Appalachia and as far north as Ohio and Indiana. Roberts began his ministry with a $5.00 Bible he bought with miner’s wages. One day, his pastor asked him if he’d be willing to preach from a different Bible if somebody bought one for him. Roberts agreed, and the pastor presented him with a Thompson Chain Reference Bible. It was leather bound and had pages of Indian Paper. That Bible became his constant companion. Within five years of receiving it, Roberts had preached 1,000 sermons from its pages. He used the Bible for 25 years and 3,000 sermons before retiring it. “It was just wore out,” he says. The Bible, a family heirloom is in the possession of his son, Kenneth.

Roberts says he never had to call a pastor and ask him if he could come preach.. Pastors who heard of the results brought about by Roberts preaching sought him. He trusted the Spirit to lead him to the next job. When faced with a number of requests, Roberts would go into his cubbyhole and pray of the requests sent to him by pastors. When one of them stood out from the rest, Roberts packed up and headed to that destination. After six years of juggling family, work and evangelism, Roberts decided to step out in faith and leave the security of his coal mine job. “The Lord said he would supply all my needs, and I decided if it ever got to the point he didn’t, I’d go get me a job in the coal mine,” Roberts says.

Two of his brothers, Clyde,Oliver, and sister Alene Roberts Bowen, also went in the ministry. Roberts says they had churches and a salary and couldn’t understand when their brother wouldn’t opt for that kind of security. “They thought I was nuts,” he says. That’s not to say that Roberts did not become discouraged. But God had a cure for that, as well. Roberts recalls being called to a revival in West Virginia at a time his ministry was at a low point.. After nearly losing his Ford car while trying to cross a rain-swollen creek to get to the church, he found a sign on the front door. “REVIVAL IN PROGRESS.” Roberts figures he’d missed the service after risking his life to get there. The pastor of the church, who was in his late 20's invited him in and began the service. Roberts said the pastor’s appearance was pathetic” Both eyeballs were missing and limbs on one side of his body were badly disfigured. His face likewise showed the effects of a catastrophic accident. Roberts says the preacher gave his powerful testimony that night. He was called to the ministry as a young man, but became discouraged, walked away from his ministry and took a job in the coal mines. While working in an air course in the mine, co-workers shot a seam without realizing that he was working nearby. The blast blew out his eyeballs and severely mangled his arm and leg.

The former pastor was given up for dead, but miraculously survived to return to the pulpit. Roberts says every person in the little church, himself included, ended up at the altar hearing the blind pastor’s story. Later that night, the pastor died. Roberts got the message and kept on evangelizing.

Pounding the evangelist

Roberts says he probably made less that $1,000 a year when he was evangelizing. Provision came in many forms other than cash. Angie says it was common practice for congregations to pay in food. Some pastors encouraged their congregations to “pound” the evangelist, that is bring in a pound of food as a love offering. Other’s held “grocery share” nights. Sometimes the shares were sufficient to fill Roberts’ car, a 1953 Chevrolet taxi that he put 115,000 miles on. “If they piled my car full she’d say “The Lord’s getting ready to call you away,” Roberts says. One evening his wife told him she had just used the last bit of flour in the house, and there was no money to purchase supplies. Roberts told her God would provide and let it go at that. At 4 A.M. there was a knock at the door. A couple who lived at the head of Elk Creek and attended a church that Roberts had preached a revival at were standing at the door with a 25 pound sack of flour. The couple lived more than 50 miles from the Roberts’ home, but both of them said they had woken up in the middle of the night with the same thought on their minds: Brother Roberts is in need of flour. “Both of them jumped up in bed and said “We need to take Brother Roberts a bag of flour,” Roberts said. The Roberts family had biscuits for breakfast that morning. Roberts says God also provided the funds for his evangelizing trips, even if both the gas gauge and wallet were on empty.

He left for a preaching engagement in Indians with just a few dollars in his pocket. Roberts stopped at a restaurant along the way and a man there recognized him as a preacher. Without prompting, the man gave him a few dollars, enough to get him to Indiana. He arrived in the Hoosier State a day early and decided to attend a church service that night. Roberts slipped in the back row. The preacher came back and greeted him, and when he learned Roberts was a preacher, invited him to preach. After Roberts finished his message, the congregation took up a collection for him, enough cash to get him to his destination. Roberts proceeded to conduct the revival. As he was getting ready to leave Indiana, Roberts counted his cash. It was just 15 cents more that what he’d left with. When he got home, he told Angie how God had provided for his every need on the trip’ indeed, he’d come up 15 cents in the black. That’s when one of his sons came clean. He said “Daddy I put 15 cents in your pocket before you left,” Roberts said..

The Cold North

After nearly 10 years of living and preaching on the byways of Appalachia, Roberts was faced with the opportunity to become a pastor. Roberts says he always felt his calling and gifts were those of an evangelist, and headed back to West Virginia. But he agreed to return to Ashtabula in five months. He figured the August 1961 trip would provide a nice summer vacation for his wife and their three teen-age sons. After the first week of preaching, members of the Revival Center asked him to stay on as their preacher. Rose Lee Long, who had started the Revival Center group, say God had shown her a great vision regarding the work. “The Lord spoke to me and he said if Rev. Roberts would take the church, he’d have one of the biggest Pentecostal churches in Ashtabula ,” she says. Roberts still reluctant to move his family north and give up his evangelism work, put the potential church members to the test. He asked how many of them would be willing to take the step of becoming church members. Only three hands went up, not enough for a quorum. Roberts preached another week. When he asked the question at the end of the second week, 14 hands went up. Roberts was starting to feel a little uncomfortable with where this could go. Angie and Henry decided to “put the fleece before the Lord,” a reference to a practice used in the Old Testament to discern God’s will. Angie devised the test as they were driving down Center Street. I said “If somebody want to give me a job, then we’ll take that as the Lord wanting us to stay,” she says. No sooner had we said that than this car pulls up behind us and waves us down, Roberts said. “This woman gets out and says, “Sister Roberts, would you like to have a job?” I wasn’t expecting that, at least not that quick!!” Angie and the boy’s returned to West Virginia to settle their affairs and pack their belongings. Kenny, their youngest son, says there was some culture shock involved in moving into the school system here, but nothing too severe because they had spent their summers traveling to revivals with their father. Their parents found adjusting to the new climate and culture more difficult. Angie says flatly that she didn’t like it here. People were unfriendly and a pastor’s wife and his children were constantly under the congregation’s microscope. “I thought it was the coldest place I ever saw,” Henry Roberts says.

As independent Pentecostal, the odds were stacked against the work. The city’s three existing Pentecostal congregations were relatively small and struggling. One of them had been wracked by an adultery scandal.

Pentecostal were referred to as “Holy Rollers” and Appalachian migrants as “hillbillies.” There was mistrust of both groups. “Pentecostalism was new to them,” he say. “They didn’t accept Pentecostal.”

There was a precedent for this mistrust. An itinerant Pentecostal pastor had blown into the community a couple years before Roberts, pitched a meeting tent and whipped up a revival. He pulled together a sizable flock that bought him a new grand piano and raised a pot of cash for the charismatic charlatan. “He took the piano, money and left the tent sitting there until it snowed on it,” he says. “Then the man whom he’d rented the tent from came alone and asked “Where did (the evangelist) go?”

Next in the series: "Dad Roberts"