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My Family Background
While in Boise, Idaho for a short time in 1908, 12 year old Melissa Letitia (Lettie) attended evangelistic meetings with her stepmother, Myrtle Wheeler. On returning to their isolated home in the “sticks” at Brownlee, they reported the wonderful meetings to my grandfather, Eugene, who had been home, caring for the live stock. They were so enthusiastic and my mother so anxious to hear more that he returned to Boise with her, while Myrtle cared for the live stock. And both were baptized at the close of the meetings.

Ellen White’s writings proved a special blessing, as they were rarely able to attend church. But, about three years later, while in a state of spiritual depression, my grandfather read D. M. Canright's repudiation of our message in Seventh-day Adventism Renounced, with its false accusations against Ellen White. Becoming very bitter, he began to circulate books and pamphlets, including those he wrote, denouncing Adventism, and especially Ellen White.

As he went from place to place as a self-appointed apostle to get Adventists to renounce their faith, he plead with my mother to go with him and read the Scriptures. But, despite an unusually close bond of affection, she consistently refused. Trying to force her to come with him, he began to tell her that if she would not go with him she might as well leave home. This she did in 1913, shortly after her 17th birthday.

In Boise, Doctor Froom and his wife befriended my mother. Through them she became acquainted with their budding young son, Le Roy Edwin, who entered the ministry soon after she left her father. She was impressed by his strong commitment to our message and his rapid advancement from editor in training at the Pacific Press, two years later, followed by three years as editor of the Chinese Signs of the Times and, on returning home, editor of the Watchman magazine, followed by associate Ministerial director, under A. G. Daniells. In that capacity he founded the Ministry magazine, before taking the place of retiring Daniells, becoming the second Ministerial director. Seeing in him a great worker for God, mother decided to name her future son after him. Thus, when I was born on April 27, 1932, I received his name, but spelled, Leroy.

Meanwhile, some time after marrying Simeon Scott Moore in 1917, they had moved to California, where my father did colporteur work to earn money so both could take nursing at the Paradise Valley Sanitarium. There they took advantage of every opportunity to learn more about our message by attending various series of meetings held by men who had worked with Ellen White, such as Elder Burden and Luther Warren.

Arrival of my two oldest sisters cut short their nurses training and my father was working as a carpenter when an urgent message came from Idaho. So, intending to return in a few weeks, they temporarily rented out the home he had built. Unfortunately, only a few miles en route, a kicking car crank broke my father’s arm. Unable to return, as their home was rented, they continued the long painful journey. Because his arm had not set right it was a year before he could use it. As a result it would be two decades before they returned to California.

Mother always greatly desired a son. But two sons and a daughter died in infancy. Four daughters had survived, but no son. So my older sisters joined in prayer for a son, dedicating, as did Hannah of old, the requested son to the ministry. When I arrived, I never knew a time when I did not sense a call to the ministry, a sense that would for eight years prove a terrible burden.

A year and a half after I was born, my brother Paul arrived who, from childhood planned to be a doctor. But in the middle of his pre-med course, he struggled for months with the growing conviction that he too was to be a minister. It took an extra year, but the pre-med courses he took would prove a help to him in his college teaching and pastoral ministry, which closed with his development of Life Talk Radio. He has now been retired for several years, but the radio program, which he had established in many states, continues to grow and to bless many.

The great purpose of my parents lives was realized -- to raise children for the Lord's work. My oldest sister, Myrtle was a church school teacher, while Miriam was a nurse. After two years at St. Helena Sanitarium she left as a single lady to serve eleven years as a trainer of nurses in Africa, before accepting the post of nursing instructor at Pacific Union College, from which she ultimately retired. Meantime her single lady status terminated on her 48th birthday, when Paul and I joined in marrying her to Orville Ross.

My third sister, Millicent (Mille), worked as lab and X-ray technician for several Adventist clinics, before working at St. Helena Sanitarium and Hospital, half a mile from Rose Haven, my mother’s elderly care home, where she also spent a few years helping mother.

Marie, 16 months older than I, also worked with mother for several years. She and her husband Alvin Anderson, dedicated their lives to local church work and Pathfinder ministry. In 2005 she, at 74, was killed in an auto accident. But he is still involved in Pathfinder work.

Marilyn, born 13 months after Paul, did most of half a century nursing in mother’s Rose Haven elderly care home. Eventually she and her husband, Charles Sterling, purchased the home and my mother helped them by visiting with and having worships for the elderlies until in her ‘90s. (My father died in 1959, just before his 67th birthday; but mother lived eleven days short of 98.) Marilyn was 68 when she died of a rare brain cancer – the same from which Myrtle, our oldest sister, had died a decade and a half earlier in her home.

Marcia, our youngest sister found her special calling as cradle roll and kindergarten teacher. She lives near Spokane, Washington, where most of us grew up. Paul lives in Arlington, Texas, and Miriam and Millie live in Calistoga, only a few miles from Rose Haven, our family home from January, 1950, which elderly care facility Charles still operates.

We never knew grandpa Wheeler. Mother’s affections for him never ceased. But she and my father agreed that they would not allow their children to be influenced by an infidelity he carried to the grave. Meanwhile, we had the privilege of having two deeply committed and spiritually balanced parents, whose heritage we all so greatly appreciate.

They became ASI members soon after it was formed and mother continued as an active participant for decades after Daddy died. He had felt a call to the ministry when a young man, but was never able to secure the training. Yet, he and mother continued a vital personal ministry throughout their lives.

Few people will be held as responsible as will my siblings and I for the gift of dedicated and loving parents. The failure of many lies at the door of parents who were either legalistic or failed to live and to teach spiritual principles. This could not be claimed an excused by any of us, to whom Christ's statement applies: “unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required” (Lk 12:48). For we grew up having regular family worships and careful instruction by parents, both of whom were both committed to the principles of God’s Word and His end-time messenger.

My father was known for his integrity, kindness, and godly counsel. Mother was known for an omni-directional love that knew no caste or color and had no bounds. Besides her own eight, she was claimed as mother by scores of young men and women, including evangelist, Dan Collins, a diamond in the rough. Having first been brought into the church by Marilyn, his spiritual and doctrinal training came from the hundreds of hours mother spent studying and counseling with him. His story was the subject of mother's first published book, My Son Dan, written when she was in her mid-'70s, though she had written poems and songs since just a girl.

Next: Light at the End of Eight Years of Darkness