Mary Jo Russell’s home is filled with handcrafted items her late husband L.A. Russell made for her throughout the years—a wooden train set, toy cars, and a miniature church.
“These are little things, but they make me think of him every time I look at them,” Mrs. Russell said.
Mary Jo and L.A. met when L.A.’s dad was the pastor of First Baptist Purcell. L.A. lived in Oklahoma City and visited his parents in Purcell on the weekends. Mary Jo had become close friends with L.A.’s mother and was at the house often when he visited. Eventually she and L.A. became friends, started dating, and fell in love.
“He asked me to marry him before he left for the war,” she said. “We were married more than 60 years and that wasn’t nearly enough time.”
The couple married on January 17, 1944. They had two daughters, Pat and Gwen. After the war, L.A. started an insurance agency in Purcell, which he ran until his retirement. Mary Jo assisted her husband for years in the family business.
As they raised their children, the Russell home was the setting for many church youth activities. In fact, their den was equipped with a ping pong table and L.A. was often a champion, Mrs. Russell said.
“He was left handed and it was hard for people to get used to his serve because the cut on it was just opposite of what it was for a right-handed person. He loved that,” Mrs. Russell said with a smile. “L.A. felt a friendship with those kids. Many of them would come back to town and visit. Sometimes when the boys would have problems in their lives they’d come and talk to him about it.”
L.A. developed Alzheimer’s in the latter years of his life, was bedfast, and at times did not recognize his wife.
“That’s awful when it gets to that place. And sometimes Alzheimer’s patients have a look about them that is just blank,” Mrs. Russell said.
That’s why a particular day still stands out in her memory. One day L.A. called to her and when she entered the bedroom he was sitting on the edge of the bed.
“This day his eyes were bright and sparkly. He said ‘You know what I want to do? I want us to establish a scholarship fund for boys who want to be preachers,’” she recalled. “I didn’t think we had that kind of money because I thought to start a scholarship and to have enough in there to go on for years would take lots and lots of money. So I really didn’t think about it much any more.”
After L.A. died in the summer of 2006, Mrs. Russell went over her finances with her daughter and decided to make a gift to First Purcell, the church in which she and her husband had met, raised their family, and attended all their married life. The Foundation invests and manages the L.A. Russell Scholarship Fund for Mrs. Russell.
“I just pray that through the scholarship some young man will become a preacher and will bring glory to God. That’s my prayer. I know L.A. would be so happy about this because this is what he wanted,” she said.
Posted on
Friday, January 2, 2009
by BFOK