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Vol. 2, # 50, July 23, 2004
Donald Deer's daughter recently wrote PH. Her letter
follows:
Dear Dr. Holland,
 I'm
Donald Deer's daughter. I talked to my mother this afternoon on
the phone, and she said my father was hoping I could send you
his news.
My father had hip replacement surgery last week
Monday, I guess you knew that was scheduled. There was a lot to
recover from that day and the next, but my father came through
just fine and was doing better every day last week. There is still
lots of pain and irritations, large and small, but he has been
making a lot of progress. This morning he unfortunately had to
have another small operation, because he had internal bleeding
at the site of operation #1, but the report I got from my mother
this afternoon was that that had gone well.
Whenever he gets out of the hospital (this week?
next week?) my father will go to a rehabilitation center near
their house in Claremont, California (he's in a hospital in Los
Angeles right now). He and my mother are not in a position to
do e-mail (hence this note) but if you wanted to tell them anything
via e-mail I'd be happy to relay it; their phone and mail contact
info is:
Room 640 (last I heard)
USC (University of Southern California) University Hospital
1500 San Pablo Street
Los Angeles, CA 90033
Tel.: 323-442-8500
I hope this finds you well.
Sincerely,
Marie Deer
Keep in mind that Shepsons Miller Alvis and Beth
Wilson are among the members of the 2004 College Student/Adult Mission
Project trip to Farmington, Maine. This mission trip will extend
from July 23-August 1.
 Remember
that Alana Woolley's Memorial Service will be this Sunday at 4 PM
in the Church Sanctuary. We are all grateful that Pastor Cecil Sherman
was back in the pulpit last Sunday with his usual three or four
points to ponder.
Remember in your prayers the family of Alana Woolley,
Jared Oliver, Cecil and Dot Sherman, Rick and Linda Mears, Franklin
Fowler, Sheri Coombs, Sandra and Carl Sizemore, Julia Tyler and
her parents, Donald and Barbara Deer, Mary and Julian Pentecost,
Kay and Bob Culpepper, John and Margaret Oliver, Mike and Vivian
Clingenpeel, Miller Alvis, Beth Wilson and the other members of
the Farmington, Maine, mission team, the Church staff, the Executive
Committee, our military and civilians in harm's way, and those only
known to you.
The Spire has reported that Mike Clingenpeel will
preach his first sermon as our pastor on September 12.
Thanks to Sooner Shepson Kathy Wade an article
from the summer 2004 newsletter of Virginia Baptists Committed is
printed in part below:
A Blast from the Past
EDITOR'S NOTE: The following quote is excerpted
from pages 38 to 44 of a 1974 Broadman Press book: The Church
Christ Approves. The author is James T. Draper, a pastor who
later became part of the Fundamentalist takeover of the SBC, president
of the SBC, and current CEO of the Baptist Sunday School Board
(now LifeWay Christian Resources).
"....Fundamentalism is more dangerous than
Liberalism because everything is done in the name of the Lord.
In the name of the Lord, the Fundamentalist (note the capital
F) condemns all who disagree with him. In the name of the Lord,
a great heresy is propagated across the land....
 "He
uses the Bible as a club with which to beat people over the head,
rather than a means of personal strength and a revealer of God....
"To the Fundamentalist, the test of fellowship
is correct doctrine. If you do not agree with his doctrinal position,
he writes you off and will not have fellowship with you. There
is no room in his world for those who have a different persuasion.
He feels threatened by diverse convictions and writes them off
as sinister and heretical. As long as you support his position,
he is with you. Cross him and he has no use, whatever, for you....
"While his obsession with doctrine [and
Scripture] is commendable, there is much that must be condemned
about the heresy of Fundamentalism....[The Fundamentalist has
a] divisive spirit...He assigns everyone else to heresy, while
he staunchly defends the faith...He will never give anyone else
a fair hearing. He is always talking and declaring, but seldom
listens....
"The Fundamentalist tactic is simple: hatred,
bitterness, and condemnation of all whom they despise....In the
name of the Lord, they will launch vehement attacks on individuals
and churches. In the name of the Lord, they attempt to assassinate
the character of those whom they oppose....They direct their attack
most often on other Christian leaders with whom they find disagreement...."
PH: Since Draper's words of 1974 and the takeover
of the Southern Baptist Convention by fundamentalists beginning
in 1979, Draper's words seem very accurate; especially in light
of the recent withdrawal of the SBC from the Baptist World Alliance.
Gene Cox (August issue of the Richmond Magazine)
 Do
you want to see a photo of Shepson Gene Cox levitating? Would you
like to read about Shepson Gene's lessons in life? Did you know
that Gene Cox is really older than twenty-nine? Did you know that
he is the son of a fundamentalist Baptist minister? Did you know
that Gene and Eleanor first dated on New Year's Eve in 1965? (Brenda
and PH met on New Year's Eve in 1964.) You can read all about Gene
in the current issue of Richmond
Magazine and see a photo of him levitating.
In brief Gene's lessons in life are:
1, Be who you are.
2. Keep growing
3. Find your soul mate(s).
4. Do your job
PH: This is good and sound advice, even better
than Dr. Phil in a box.
Shepson Rob reports his topic as follows:
The American Civil Religion: Good Thing, Bad
Thing, Or Both?
"My Catacombs Lecture will be a version
of the presentation I made to the Religious Liberty Committee
of the Baptist  General
Association of Virginia, of which I am a member. For our July
25 Catacombs event, I am hoping for some lively discussion of
the following question.
How do we relate our Baptist stand on keeping
church and state separate to the powerful strain of patriotism
that is inside nearly all of us? Without question there is a religious
ingredient in the way we feel ourselves stirred by the history,
inspired by the heroes, and grasped by the values of the land
that has birthed us -- the nation whose power and influence now
girdle the globe as that of the world's one and only super power.
Can we get any clues from the way St. Paul says "principalities
and powers" rule in our lives, both for good and for ill,
in "this present age?"
PH is pleased to report that two deliveries of various
school supplies have been made by Shepsons Bill, Charlotte and Brenda
for the benefit of ISH. We are off to a good start, but more supplies
are needed.
Items requested again this year are:
wide rule notebook paper
3 X 5 index cards
ball-point pens
washable markers
pocket folders
crayons
pencils
wide rule spiral notebooks
bottles of glue/glue sticks
blunt-end scissors
rulers
pocket folders
colored pencils
composition books
pink erasers
compasses
3-hole wide rule notebooks
highlighters
River Road Church tries to gather school supplies
for ISH well before the beginning of school so that Henrico Social
Service caseworkers can notify clients that they may sign up to
receive supplies. If you don't have time to shop, but wish to participate,
call Charlotte and Bill Simpson at 285-3185 or Brenda and Henry
Holland(PH) at 288-8295 and they will shop for you.
The goal of this international movement is to promote
a living wage and end abusive child labor practices for workers
in the  production
of coffee, tea, cocoa and other commodities. The Board of Missions
commissioned a letter to be sent on its behalf to Paul Michaels,
president of M&M/Mars, Inc., requesting that his company support
social justice for cocoa farmers. RRCB is now using Fair Trade Coffee.
 Peggy
Pruden is twenty-nine today and Marian Judd is twenty-nine tomorrow.
Also today, Ellie and Gene Cox will celebrate thirty-eight years
of marriage. Remember that one of Gene's lessons for life is: "Find
your soul mate" and obviously Gene did.
From the Washington Post
Hugh Gallagher Dies; Crusaded for Disabled
By Adam Bernstein
Hugh G. Gallagher, 71, who died of cancer July
13 at Sibley Memorial Hospital, wrote an early civil rights law
affecting the disabled and a praised biography of former president
Franklin D. Roosevelt's struggle with polio.
Mr. Gallagher, stricken with polio at age 19,
played a major role in the 2001 decision to add a statue of Roosevelt
in a wheelchair to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington.
For years he told reporters, "Don't let them steal our hero!"
Mr. Gallagher underwent rigorous and at times
horrifying treatment for his disease, which he contracted during
its last widespread sweep in America before the invention of a
vaccine. He was paralyzed below the chest and later suffered from
clinical depression.
He went on to address his concerns for the disabled
through a career in politics and prose. Although many worked to
change the image of the disabled -- from the pitiable, leg-braced
waif in old March of Dimes promotions -- Mr. Gallagher was far
more concerned about practical questions, the personal and financial
costs of living with a disability.
While working as an aide on Capitol Hill, he
developed and drafted the language of what became the Architectural
Barriers Act of 1968, a lauded precursor to the sweeping Americans
With Disabilities Act of 1990. His legislation mandated that buildings
funded with federal dollars had to be accessible to the disabled,
which many opposed because of expense and aesthetic appeal.
"Hugh's most outstanding contribution to
the quality of life of people with disabilities was to successfully
place disability rights on Congress' agenda for the first time,"
former Senate majority leader Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.) wrote for
an event honoring Mr. Gallagher in 1995.
Mr. Gallagher was never a one-issue man, and
his social concerns ranged from gay rights to dignified end-of-life
care. He also was a prolific writer of newspaper opinion pieces.
His earliest nonfiction books concerned a range
of subjects, from congressional logjams ("Advise and Obstruct:
The Role of the United States Senate in Foreign Policy Decisions,"
1969) to the efforts of the indigenous people of Alaska to win
large land claims from the U.S. government in 1971 ("Etok:
A Story of Eskimo Power," 1974).
By far his best-known book was "FDR's Splendid
Deception" (1985), about the president's ability to radiate
hope and confidence while living in great physical stress. Many
critics hailed the book's unsentimental approach to a long-overlooked
aspect of Roosevelt's life.
In her review for The Washington Post, Marina
Newmyer wrote that Mr. Gallagher "has put together a solid,
suspenseful and fast-paced account of the medical tragedy suffered
by Roosevelt."
Mr. Gallagher found that among the 35,000 photographs
of Roosevelt at his presidential library, only two featured him
in his wheelchair. Media of the day all but ignored the polio,
an omission that served the president's political purposes and
showed his threshold for withstanding pain, he wrote.
He said he understood Roosevelt's stoicism, which
Mr. Gallagher took to indicate a near-disavowal of the disability.
"For years, I tried to work harder than any able-bodied person
would," he told an interviewer. "My drive to become
a superhero exacted a terrible price. I paid no attention to my
emotions. I became an automaton."
Hugh Gregory Gallagher was born in Palo Alto,
Calif., where his father taught political science at Stanford
University. He grew up in Chicago, New York and Washington.
He was at Haverford College in spring 1952 when
he suddenly developed polio during parents' weekend. He left school,
spent three months in an iron lung and was operated on several
times. "I never realized such pain existed," he told
a reporter at the time.
Once, his iron lung stopped, and Mr. Gallagher
had to instruct the unnerved nurses how to pump the device by
hand.
Much of his rehabilitation took place in Warm
Springs, Ga., where Roosevelt also had recuperated. That triggered
his fascination with the president.
In 1956, he graduated from what is now Claremont
McKenna College in California and then went on a Marshall scholarship
to Oxford University, where he received the equivalent of a master's
degree in political science, philosophy and economics.
At Oxford, he had difficulty maneuvering a wheelchair
on the cobblestone streets. The only bathroom he could use was
a block and a half from his room.
Such indignities led to his legislative work
on Capitol Hill. He spent most of the 1960s as an administrative
assistant to Sen. E.L. "Bob" Bartlett (D-Alaska). He
also worked for President Lyndon B. Johnson as his legislative
signing and veto message writer in 1967 and 1968.
He then was the Washington representative for
British Petroleum and spent about 25 years as a policy and politics
consultant for large oil concerns in Europe. His work took him
to Alaska and other oil-drilling areas, where he was often hoisted
onto oil rigs in his wheelchair.
Over the years, he lobbied to make airports,
performance halls and libraries accessible to those in wheelchairs.
He wrote from his home in Cabin John, including
the books "By Trust Betrayed" (1990), about Nazi Germany's
treatment of the disabled, and "Black Bird Fly Away"
(1998), which looked at his own depression about his disability.
In 1995, Mr. Gallagher received the $50,000 Henry
B. Betts Award for his lifetime work for the disabled.
At the time, he reflected on the "revolution"
in attitudes toward the disabled but added that there were some
limits in what was doable or even desirable.
"Making the New York City subway system
accessible to wheelchairs is not the best way to spend public
money," he said. "Besides, I'm not going down there
to get mugged."
Survivors include his father, Hubert R. Gallagher
of Bethesda; and a sister.
PH met Hugh Gallagher on three occasions. He was
a soft spoken, gentle and caring man. His brilliance was best reflected
in his writing. After meeting him for the second time, Hugh gave
PH a copy of his book, By Trust Betrayed. This nonfiction
book is about the effort by Hitler and Nazi physicians to kill anyone
that the Nazi's deemed "unworthy of life." Those unworthy
of life included the crippled, the mentally ill and the disabled.
Because of the public out cry and some brave individuals among the
disabled and the clergy, this official policy was later rescinded,
but many of these medically sanctioned killings continued. More
than 200,000 human beings were killed as a result of this program.
For this reason and others Gallagher was opposed to "doctor
assisted suicide." At the time of this book's publishing in
1995 the President of the American Society of Psychoanalytic Physicians,
John M. Dulhy, M.D, stated, "Every physician in training, or
practice, should read this book" PH has read it. Attached to
this PHA is a photo of Hugh Gallagher.
PH
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