The Girl I Married
Women And My Quest For God
By James Donahue
Throughout my life there has been a strange link between the girls I loved and the way they all led me on spiritual pathways toward where I am today. When I look back on it, what occurred was an uncanny sequence of events that not only forced me to look at various belief systems, but taught me more than I ever thought I wanted to know about all of them.
My first important girl friend was Susan Philbrick, a girl who played snare drums in the high school band that I joined. When I was placed in the percussion section, and given a snare drum to tap, it was natural that we would become friends and eventually start to date.
Susan was a tall, thin red-head who seemed to always be smiling and full of mischief. I thought at the time that I was madly in love with her. It was my first serious case of puppy love. She was the daughter of Paul Philbrick, a man that worked with my father in the lab at the Huron Milling Company. The Philbricks attended the Methodist Church, the same church my parents belonged to. Paul had a beautiful bass voice and sang in various social functions, including the church choir. I grew up around that church, but it was not until I began dating Susan, and was entertained one Sunday afternoon for dinner at the Philbrik home, that I was persuaded to add my tenor voice to the church choir.
I suppose I learned the basic Christian story in that church, but I never had a burning interest in a spiritual quest in those days. But I really liked being in that choir. That was when I discovered that I could read music while singing. It was not long before Paul and I pared off with Julius Winkle, a fine baritone, to form a men’s trio. We sang a variety of very nice songs, even spirituals, as part of almost every Sunday morning service.
My affair with Susan was short lived, although it lasted for most of that school year. Paul Philbrick left the Harbor Beach job shortly after that and the family moved to Midland, where I suspect he went to work for Dow Chemical Company. I learned some years later that Susan committed suicide. I have always wondered what drove her to do such a thing.
During my senior year in high school I plunged madly into an infatuation with Marjorie Richards. Marjorie and I dated regularly for a while. She came from a relatively prominent and well educated family although I cannot remember what they did for a living. Marjorie’s mother was a big, maternal woman who always made me feel comfortable to be around. Her father was an active union leader at the local factory.
The Richards family attended the True Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a spin off from the Latter Day Saint movement, which in turn was a spin off from the Reformed Mormon Church, which was a spin off from the Mormon Church headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Before I dated Marjorie, I didn’t know such a church existed in Harbor Beach, or anywhere in the world. I remember one time when we were together, she tried to tell me about her religious beliefs and I suppose it was an attempt to either get me to go to church with her, or to convert me to that strange twisted form of Mormonism. She told me about the visions of Joseph Smith, who led his followers to Salt Lake City, and why her church was slightly different. But when she began to tell me about people’s souls becoming stars in the sky after we died, the story got too strange for me. It was after that that Marjorie lost interest in me and our relationship went south. I look back on that as my first introduction to a powerful religious organization that was going to have an influence on my life in later years.
By the time Bill Havers and I linked up and started sharing a room off campus at Central Michigan University, I was a declared atheist, as were most college men in those days. In truth, however, I think I was more of an agnostic. I didn’t know what to believe about the concept of God. I think I had to admit that some force created and kept the universe running, but I was not sure contemporary religious systems, which were all in conflict with each other, had it right. Bill, who was raised in a Free Methodist Church, shared my feelings. In fact, he mocked the church doctrines during public performances. He even went so far as to preach salvation sermons and give alter calls while performing in bars, which always brought laughter from the patrons.
There were other girls during my college years but it wasn’t until the summer that the Beaver Boys played Dixieland at the Green Mill at Port Austin, and I met Bernice Roggenbuck that I moved into my next phase of research into religious belief systems. After we were almost killed in the automobile wreck in Mount Pleasant, and I missed a year of college, Bernice and I fell into a serious relationship. Again I found myself madly in love. But this girl was a Roman Catholic and that posed a serious problem. She tried to get me to go to church, and I refused.
The relationship heated up and before I knew it, Bernice and I were talking about getting married. It was a poor-man’s engagement since I could not afford to give her a ring. But we considered ourselves engaged none-the-less. When I got back in college that fall, the first thing I did was attend classes for protestant men who wanted to marry Catholic girls. The class was taught on campus by a local priest. There were about six or seven of us in the class. According to rules of the church, such a class was a requirement before any priest would agree to conduct wedding ceremonies for couples like Bernice and me.
That course was an intense form of training on Catholicism. I was troubled by the fact that the Catholics considered themselves to be the only real church, and that any children born to a union of Catholic and non-Catholic parents must belong to and be raised in the church. Before the church would allow me to marry this girl I had to agree to this. I also found it hard to accept a belief that the Pope was more exalted than Jesus Christ, in that the Pope was considered a god in the flesh, and the only true link between humanity and the Creator. I found myself challenging most of the Catholic doctrine, including the Pope’s odd edicts like the one that prohibited Catholics from eating meat on Fridays. I often got into open debate with the priest who was teaching the course. In the end, I realized that as much as I thought I loved this girl, I was going to have a hard time committing any children we would have to a religion as strange as this one. She was so rooted in the church she said she couldn’t leave it. In the end, the engagement was broken off. I was heart-sick over the breakup, and I resented the church for what happened.
Not long after that, Lyle Hanson, one of the men rooming with me in Mogg Hall, decided that I needed to meet someone new. He took me over to a house in Mount Pleasant to “meet some nurses” and apparently had a specific girl in mind. When we arrived, the girl he wanted to link me up with was not there. However, Doris, the woman I later married, was. The moment I met Doris, there was a spark. We didn’t stay long and I remember asking Lyle about Doris on the drive home. He laughed and said: “You don’t want to get involved with her. She is a strict Baptist.”
The next weekend I decided to call the house and attempt to hook-up with the girl Lyle wanted me to meet, and possibly arrange a date. When I called, that girl again was away, but Doris answered the telephone. Once I knew who was on the line something came over me. Out of pure impulse, Baptist or not, I asked her if she would meet me for a cup of coffee. She agreed.
Doris and I began dating immediately. She had other suitors, but that did not deter me. She was in training as a medical technologist at Mount Pleasant Community Hospital which made us both students. Her parents lived near Cass City, Michigan, a place I could easily pass through on my trips to and from my own home at Port Hope, so Doris began hitching rides home on weekends with me. And that opened the door for weekend dates even when we went home.
Again I found myself in the strange situation of loving the girl, but hating the religion that seemed to be rising up between us. Doris brought me to a few church services, which I reluctantly attended. And I was appalled by the constant calls from the pulpit for salvation by accepting Jesus as a personal savior, and the calls at the end of each sermon to publicly walk up to the alter for the salvation of my soul. Because I was the visitor from the outside, every eye in the place was in some way turned on me.
I remember the night when Doris and I had a serious discussion about that issue. We were already talking about getting married. I remember telling her that I had been through a relationship that was destroyed by the church. I said I could not understand how a religion that teaches love can get in the way of love. I made it clear that I did not plan to be a Baptist or go to church every Sunday, but that I wanted to be with Doris. I know that she went through some serious soul searching before she agreed to marry me. She later said she had another suitor, a born-again Christian man who wanted to marry her. She said he visited her shortly before we were married and tried desperately to talk her out of what she was about to do. In the end, she chose me.
Eventually circumstances led me into a Baptist church in South Haven, Michigan. I walked that isle, went through the rituals of accepting Jesus and even getting baptized. I quit drinking, later joined a fundamental Baptist church and got heavily involved in church work. I even attended college level Bible classes. For a while I was the religion editor at the Kalamazoo Gazette in Kalamazoo, Michigan. But it did not last. And that is yet another incredible story to be told.
By James Donahue
Throughout my life there has been a strange link between the girls I loved and the way they all led me on spiritual pathways toward where I am today. When I look back on it, what occurred was an uncanny sequence of events that not only forced me to look at various belief systems, but taught me more than I ever thought I wanted to know about all of them.
My first important girl friend was Susan Philbrick, a girl who played snare drums in the high school band that I joined. When I was placed in the percussion section, and given a snare drum to tap, it was natural that we would become friends and eventually start to date.
Susan was a tall, thin red-head who seemed to always be smiling and full of mischief. I thought at the time that I was madly in love with her. It was my first serious case of puppy love. She was the daughter of Paul Philbrick, a man that worked with my father in the lab at the Huron Milling Company. The Philbricks attended the Methodist Church, the same church my parents belonged to. Paul had a beautiful bass voice and sang in various social functions, including the church choir. I grew up around that church, but it was not until I began dating Susan, and was entertained one Sunday afternoon for dinner at the Philbrik home, that I was persuaded to add my tenor voice to the church choir.
I suppose I learned the basic Christian story in that church, but I never had a burning interest in a spiritual quest in those days. But I really liked being in that choir. That was when I discovered that I could read music while singing. It was not long before Paul and I pared off with Julius Winkle, a fine baritone, to form a men’s trio. We sang a variety of very nice songs, even spirituals, as part of almost every Sunday morning service.
My affair with Susan was short lived, although it lasted for most of that school year. Paul Philbrick left the Harbor Beach job shortly after that and the family moved to Midland, where I suspect he went to work for Dow Chemical Company. I learned some years later that Susan committed suicide. I have always wondered what drove her to do such a thing.
During my senior year in high school I plunged madly into an infatuation with Marjorie Richards. Marjorie and I dated regularly for a while. She came from a relatively prominent and well educated family although I cannot remember what they did for a living. Marjorie’s mother was a big, maternal woman who always made me feel comfortable to be around. Her father was an active union leader at the local factory.
The Richards family attended the True Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a spin off from the Latter Day Saint movement, which in turn was a spin off from the Reformed Mormon Church, which was a spin off from the Mormon Church headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Before I dated Marjorie, I didn’t know such a church existed in Harbor Beach, or anywhere in the world. I remember one time when we were together, she tried to tell me about her religious beliefs and I suppose it was an attempt to either get me to go to church with her, or to convert me to that strange twisted form of Mormonism. She told me about the visions of Joseph Smith, who led his followers to Salt Lake City, and why her church was slightly different. But when she began to tell me about people’s souls becoming stars in the sky after we died, the story got too strange for me. It was after that that Marjorie lost interest in me and our relationship went south. I look back on that as my first introduction to a powerful religious organization that was going to have an influence on my life in later years.
By the time Bill Havers and I linked up and started sharing a room off campus at Central Michigan University, I was a declared atheist, as were most college men in those days. In truth, however, I think I was more of an agnostic. I didn’t know what to believe about the concept of God. I think I had to admit that some force created and kept the universe running, but I was not sure contemporary religious systems, which were all in conflict with each other, had it right. Bill, who was raised in a Free Methodist Church, shared my feelings. In fact, he mocked the church doctrines during public performances. He even went so far as to preach salvation sermons and give alter calls while performing in bars, which always brought laughter from the patrons.
There were other girls during my college years but it wasn’t until the summer that the Beaver Boys played Dixieland at the Green Mill at Port Austin, and I met Bernice Roggenbuck that I moved into my next phase of research into religious belief systems. After we were almost killed in the automobile wreck in Mount Pleasant, and I missed a year of college, Bernice and I fell into a serious relationship. Again I found myself madly in love. But this girl was a Roman Catholic and that posed a serious problem. She tried to get me to go to church, and I refused.
The relationship heated up and before I knew it, Bernice and I were talking about getting married. It was a poor-man’s engagement since I could not afford to give her a ring. But we considered ourselves engaged none-the-less. When I got back in college that fall, the first thing I did was attend classes for protestant men who wanted to marry Catholic girls. The class was taught on campus by a local priest. There were about six or seven of us in the class. According to rules of the church, such a class was a requirement before any priest would agree to conduct wedding ceremonies for couples like Bernice and me.
That course was an intense form of training on Catholicism. I was troubled by the fact that the Catholics considered themselves to be the only real church, and that any children born to a union of Catholic and non-Catholic parents must belong to and be raised in the church. Before the church would allow me to marry this girl I had to agree to this. I also found it hard to accept a belief that the Pope was more exalted than Jesus Christ, in that the Pope was considered a god in the flesh, and the only true link between humanity and the Creator. I found myself challenging most of the Catholic doctrine, including the Pope’s odd edicts like the one that prohibited Catholics from eating meat on Fridays. I often got into open debate with the priest who was teaching the course. In the end, I realized that as much as I thought I loved this girl, I was going to have a hard time committing any children we would have to a religion as strange as this one. She was so rooted in the church she said she couldn’t leave it. In the end, the engagement was broken off. I was heart-sick over the breakup, and I resented the church for what happened.
Not long after that, Lyle Hanson, one of the men rooming with me in Mogg Hall, decided that I needed to meet someone new. He took me over to a house in Mount Pleasant to “meet some nurses” and apparently had a specific girl in mind. When we arrived, the girl he wanted to link me up with was not there. However, Doris, the woman I later married, was. The moment I met Doris, there was a spark. We didn’t stay long and I remember asking Lyle about Doris on the drive home. He laughed and said: “You don’t want to get involved with her. She is a strict Baptist.”
The next weekend I decided to call the house and attempt to hook-up with the girl Lyle wanted me to meet, and possibly arrange a date. When I called, that girl again was away, but Doris answered the telephone. Once I knew who was on the line something came over me. Out of pure impulse, Baptist or not, I asked her if she would meet me for a cup of coffee. She agreed.
Doris and I began dating immediately. She had other suitors, but that did not deter me. She was in training as a medical technologist at Mount Pleasant Community Hospital which made us both students. Her parents lived near Cass City, Michigan, a place I could easily pass through on my trips to and from my own home at Port Hope, so Doris began hitching rides home on weekends with me. And that opened the door for weekend dates even when we went home.
Again I found myself in the strange situation of loving the girl, but hating the religion that seemed to be rising up between us. Doris brought me to a few church services, which I reluctantly attended. And I was appalled by the constant calls from the pulpit for salvation by accepting Jesus as a personal savior, and the calls at the end of each sermon to publicly walk up to the alter for the salvation of my soul. Because I was the visitor from the outside, every eye in the place was in some way turned on me.
I remember the night when Doris and I had a serious discussion about that issue. We were already talking about getting married. I remember telling her that I had been through a relationship that was destroyed by the church. I said I could not understand how a religion that teaches love can get in the way of love. I made it clear that I did not plan to be a Baptist or go to church every Sunday, but that I wanted to be with Doris. I know that she went through some serious soul searching before she agreed to marry me. She later said she had another suitor, a born-again Christian man who wanted to marry her. She said he visited her shortly before we were married and tried desperately to talk her out of what she was about to do. In the end, she chose me.
Eventually circumstances led me into a Baptist church in South Haven, Michigan. I walked that isle, went through the rituals of accepting Jesus and even getting baptized. I quit drinking, later joined a fundamental Baptist church and got heavily involved in church work. I even attended college level Bible classes. For a while I was the religion editor at the Kalamazoo Gazette in Kalamazoo, Michigan. But it did not last. And that is yet another incredible story to be told.