FORWARD

God as His Guide, A Voice to Sing, A Bible to Read: 

The Ministries of S.J. Perkinson 
 

      Twenty years ago, feeling the need of helping the little fellow who, through no fault of his own, could not help himself because he was unable to pay his way, and realizing that most of the boys that needed help were located in and around the Cotton Mill section, I would take a bunch of towels under my arm and soap in my pocket, and make my way to the community house near the river. Then I would build a fire, and while the water was getting hot, I would sit at an old piano that was in the club room and sing songs that the boys liked. After the meeting, I would teach them a Bible lesson, and then they would go upstairs and wash. So, symbolically, they were clean on the inside and out.

      This work grew so rapidly it became impossible to carry on the work in the community club house because it was too small. Therefore, the boys were brought to the “Y” building on Haywood Street, and the group had grown to such an extent that we had them meet in the gym.  Each boy was required to quote a verse of scripture before he would be permitted to go in swimming. Oh my, how they would fight to get a Bible to read and memorize this verse!

      This work continued and grew until we were the leaders in working with underprivileged boys. At first, we had an average attendance at these meetings of 66 boys. However, when we had extra things for them, we had more. Each boy was given a pledge to sign: “I hereby pledge myself to obey the rules of the Clean Life Club, and as long as I am a member I agree to cooperate with the officer.”

      Because of the wonderful results of this work, Clean Life Clubs sprang up all over the state. We had an average attendance of 145 underprivileged boys at each meeting, and one year there was a total of 13,247 boys attending meetings at the YMCA, not one of whom paid one penny for his membership, and they really got more privileges than the boys that paid for their memberships.  In March of one year, we had 1,287 boys at club meetings. 

      The Clean Life Club met every Tuesday and Saturday nights at 7:45 P.M. at the YMCA.  Topics were carefully worked out so as to meet the needs of the boys, and there was a special topic for each Tuesday night, the one day of the week when we seemed to have the largest number of boys attending. We continually asked for cooperation in this work, earnestly seeking prayers and suggestions. Some of the topics for meetings included “A Boy and His Home”,  
A Boy and His Church”, “A Boy and His Community” and “A Boy and His Enemies”.

      Many have found the Lord through this work. Almost every boy read his Bible, and we had a Bible-reading contest.  One boy has read 367 chapters in one month! I say, “Keep a boy reading his Bible, and he will never break his mother's heart.”  Yet, someone will ask, "Do any of them make good?" The answer is, "Yes, they are on the Asheville police force; some of them are speed cops, some of them are preaching."

      One came to me and said, “Well, Perk, I started the real Christian life by quoting my first verse of scripture around the council ring at the "Y" camp.” This boy finished his call as a minister of the Gospel.  Some of them worked in many of the large stores in the city, and they would have been on the chain gang if it were not for the Clean Life Club. Mothers stopped me on the streets and said, "All that my boy has amounted to in life is due to the good Christian training he received at the Clean Life Club.”

      One boy's brother had passed away at a local hospital, and he was brought to me by his mother, a widow, who asked me to help her with this one, now her only child. He entered the club when he was young, grew up in the club, became president, and later worked in a large establishment. He was his mother's pride and joy!  Where would he have been if it had not been for the Clean Life Club? Yes, the "Y" opened its doors to little underprivileged boys to work out in the gym and swim in the pool, and they later became model citizens.

      At one point, a group of boys in the club were meeting, but they had no speaker. It so happened that at that time, in the lobby of the “Y”, stood a fine-looking Cherokee Indian chief, and with him were other Indian boys from Cherokee, North Carolina. I asked him if he would say a few words to the Clean Life Club boys. He took me by the hand and said, “Perk, I certainly will, I used to be one of your boys, and now I am a coach in Cherokee, telling the boys at home the stories that you used to tell us at the “Y”. 

      I also tried to visit the Reformatory each month. One month I was at another meeting nearby, and while playing the little organ given to me by the local Rotary Club, something seemed to say, "Go to the Boys' Home where a meeting is being held and help them with the music." I did, and being very well acquainted with me, the boys knew the songs that they liked to sing so well.  After the song service, I asked the boys to come forward and take Christ in their lives and live for Him. In the group was a red-haired boy who was from one of the poorest homes in the city. He came with tears in his eyes, and eight others followed. The next day, he was killed in a fall at the school. How consoled his mother was when I told her that just that past Sunday, April 10, her boy gave his heart to the Lord.  I took the organ to his funeral and sang lots of songs that the little fellow liked so well.

      Mr. E.E. Wheeler had approached me ten years before we started our early Sunday morning meetings by saying, ''Let's get the boys together every Sunday morning at five-thirty for breakfast and teach them the Sunday School lesson. We did, and that work grew, too. Each year during the cold months, we said, "Any boy who will get out of his warm bed and make his way to the "Y" deserves a breakfast. Some of these boys walked from four to five miles in the rain and snow to attend this. We had as many as 120 boys at these sessions at six o' clock in the morning. One Saturday night at a good meeting at the "Y", the leader said, "Well, Boys, in the morning we will have beans and hot dogs along with milk, coffee, and cakes.”  I made everything and asked the sheriff if he would let them stay if they were willing to sleep on the floor so that they would not miss the breakfast at the "Y" at six o'clock Sunday morning.  Some I took home, and I told them if they did not get up, we would try to send them word so that they could come, but when I arrived at 5:45 a.m., they were at the “Y” already.  This is just one of the many such incidents I could tell.

      The boys' breakfast was always closed on Easter, but we had a big Easter Egg Hunt and a special Easter program instead. We only had the boys' breakfast in the winter, so as we said, from time to time, if a boy would get up out of his warm bed and walk to the "Y" from Woodfin and West Asheville and West End, he deserved a good hot breakfast.  It was brought to the attention of the West Asheville Civic Club that many, many boys from West Asheville were really walking three and four miles to attend the breakfast, so a group of men were recruited to investigate and see just how many of the boys were involved in this.  To keep the boys from going so far, Mr. Bert Starnes, of West Asheville, organized the boys’ breakfast in West Asheville on November 30, and each Sunday morning he would meet the boys from that section. With the assistance of his leaders, Bert would teach the Sunday School lesson, and after this, he gave the boys breakfast. I visited Bert in his work, and it was great to observe the boys and see what a great interest they took in the breakfast and the quoting of the scripture. How they could quote verse after verse! This work also grew until we had a boys’ breakfast going at the Woodfin School, also, where for many mornings the ladies of that section would come in to cook the breakfast and the lesson would be taught by those in charge.

      The West Asheville group had fifty boys on the first morning. Mike Hamrick taught the lesson, and the West Asheville Men's Club gave the breakfast. Mr. B.B. Anderson, principal of Hall Fletcher High School, E.B. Roberts, W.E. Ryon, J. E. Harris, P.J. Fortune, B.A. Barrose, and G.G. Morgan were there. Mr. Bert Starnes was in charge of the breakfast.  They had 56 hot dogs, 14 big cans of pork and beans, 5 gallons of milk, and 3 gallons of coffee. The silver and the dishes were donated by Mrs. O.E. Starnes. The result was that for at least two years, the breakfast and meetings were held in the back of a store building in West Asheville. The West Asheville Civic Club, together with Bert Starnes, who was responsible for obtaining the food, did a fine piece of work, and had a fine group of boys meeting each Saturday.

      The Asheville policemen often watched for the boys walking in the cold weather, and gladly picked them up, sometimes making two or three trips to the Y so that my little fellows would not be too cold. The police said that this was a great work and did much to help keep boys out of jails.

      Our mission was carried on week by week as we asked the Lord to help us. I have seen the time when it was late Saturday afternoon, and we had no help.  I bowed my head and said, “Lord, if you want this breakfast to continue, and you are pleased with what we are doing, send someone to help us.” As I walked up the street looking for anyone willing, a man came up and handed me four dollars and said, "I felt like I would like to do something to help." On the main street, I went from one person to the other and finally got enough to get breakfast for the boys.

One time, as I knelt in the kitchen asking the Lord to help us, while I was still on my knees, there was a rap on the door and a man walked up and handed me nine dollars and a quarter for the boys' breakfast. Did we have faith? Yes, and the Lord lead us from day to day in this work.

      We also provided a wonderful camp for these boys, Camp Powatan, taking boys from the Asheville Boys' Home, Buncombe County Training School, the  Mountain Home Orphanage, and the Eliada Orphanage. With the help of the civic clubs and merchants from all parts of the county, we were able to hold the camp for three weeks. The boys from the ages of 8 to l0 went the first week; then the 11-12 year old boys were there during the second week; and the last week was for boys aged 13-15. With ten good leaders, we really had a fine time with the boys. I saw them, when it came time to go home from camp, run and hide in the woods and beg me to let them stay another week, saying that they would do anything, even wash dishes, if they would be permitted to stay. The camp was opened with prayer, and the boys with their packs on their back knelt, thanked the Lord for friends and the help of the people; and they asked the Lord to send them away from the camp being even better boys than they were when they came in, and be boys that would make real Christian men some day. After supper, when they gathered around the council ring, each boy had to quote a verse of scripture. Then one of the leaders delivered a message from the Bible in a story form so that it would be simple for the boys to understand. A prize was given to the one that memorized the most verses from the Bible during the week. These prizes were given when he left camp. Pigeons, ducks, and sometimes coats and sweaters were given, anything we could get that would stimulate more memorizing.

      The "real" day at camp was the Sunday morning service. We called this meeting “The Decision Service”, and we had from 85 to 100 boys in attendance.  Every boy made a decision at this meeting. I have had them on their knees crying and walking down from the top of the mountain to their cabins and saying, "Perk, I came out here without Christ in my heart, but I go back to Asheville with Christ in my life, and I want to live for Him." One year we had 265 boys attend camp, and 265 boys made the decision to live the new life in Christ Jesus.

      Each Christmas, through the help of many Civic Clubs in the city, we gathered about 300 needy boys at the Y.M.C.A., and we give them sweaters, overalls, and socks. Out of the group, we picked 150 of the neediest boys, and they were given other clothes. After that, we took them all to the gym at the "Y" for a supper of hot dogs and beans.

      The Lions Club had some great times with these boys. We have seen 75 to 100 boys come to try out for their team and get uniforms. The civic clubs all bought the uniforms and paid for the balls and bats, and we would draw up a schedule for the boys, which we tried to carry through the summer until school started, giving them something to keep their minds occupied until school opened. This was a great success. I recommended this highly, along with the boys' breakfast work.  We would help umpire and keep them playing; we gave the little fellows breakfast at Christmas time, and also we gave them clothes to keep them warm. There were usually 120 boys at this meeting.

      We also had what is called the "Civic Club Baseball League." The boys from the CLC were given a good work-out by me. Every club in the city of Asheville took part in this work.  We selected the boys by placing all the catchers in one group, the first basemen in another, and so on, until we had chosen all the boys that went out for baseball. And sometimes we had as many as eight teams with 25 to 28 boys on each team. These teams were sponsored by members of the civic clubs, and each team was given one of the club's names. We had some great times with these boys.

      We also had the Knot Hole gang. Ten years before I started this, Dan Hill mentioned that other cities had the Knot Hole Gang, and it helped to create a great interest in baseball and also taught boys to be good sports. So we started taking the boys from all walks of life who had been hanging around and “stealing their way” into the ball park. They then signed a pledge card which, if they lived up to it, helped them go straight and be fine young men. If he broke the pledge, his ticket would be taken away from him until he could do better. He would stay away until he proved he was worthy. The pledge read: (1) I will not at any time skip school to attend a game. (2) I will attend no game against the wishes of my parents or employer, (3) I will uphold the principles of clean speech, clean sports, and clean habits, and I will stand with the gang against cigarettes and profane language on the field or off, and (4) I will not engage in unruly conduct either at the games or at any other time. I understand that breaking this agreement may cost me my membership in the Tourist Knot Hole Gang.

      The civic clubs of the city helped in the supervision and direction of this work as representatives ate at the "Y" with the boys. The Cosmic Club took the job of helping keep order in the ball park and distributing the tickets to all the schools. One year, 200 guys were present on the opening day of the game. They marched into the ball park behind the Asheville High School Band, and as they walked, they formed a complete circle around the field and into the grandstand. The last boy was marching onto the field just as the first boy was taking his seat. This made a wonderful sight! Through the efforts of the civic clubs, the boys were taken from the little hill overlooking the park and given a splendid place from which to watch the games. We gave away 3000 tickets this year.

      As I have said, we had a place for the boys to sit in the park, and on the first game of each series, we would be at the park and have each boy to present his ticket before he could get into the game. We did not have to take many tickets away from the boys because they knew if they violated the rules, away went their pass until they could do better. Then it was given back to them. We have had from 150 to 200 boys at the first meeting, and that was just the beginning. Then the books were checked.  On the books, we had to put the name of the boy, his address, and his ticket number. At the end, we would have from 1500 to 2000 boys signed up.  I remember when we marched in with the high school band.  Two thousand boys came to the first Knot Hole Gang game at the McCormick Field.

      We had the corner in the bleachers for the boys, and, with two or three leaders that would help, we would sit with the boys and keep order so that they wouldn’t run all over the baseball park. They were all right and did fine. Many times I have been sitting close to some of the boys while the game was going on. How they knew the players!  They would say, "That guy won't hit that ball. You wait until the next fellow comes up, he will hit that apple."  And sure enough, the fellow following would get on base almost every time. They kept up with the players. 

      Many times I had the teachers tell me that the boys seem to be better in school after signing that pledge. We would tell them they had to obey. I remember a little fellow who brought his buddy, who had his ticket taken away from him a few days before this.  When he thought no one was looking, he slipped his ticket through the fence to his buddy so he could come in. So we had to take both tickets for a while.

      Another summer event was the street showers, which proved a great success when it was hot. They had no pools or any way for the children to enjoy the hot streets, so the firemen of Asheville Fire Department made a connection on a pipe with water sprinklers on the top to be connected by a fire hose. Two or three lengths of hose were given, and Spurgeon Sluder would bring the hose and help set up the showers, and the kids would have a time for they had no place to swim but the river, and it was not fit for anyone to swim in. Then, on Friday, in the colored section, we would go with the help of Spurgeon Sluder, and we would set up the hose and the pipe, tying it to the pole and connecting this to the fire hydrant under the sprinklers. The children would cry when we had to leave them. The streets were hot, but the cold water made it all right. 

      The marble shooting was a great event for the boys as they would come to the "Y" in the spring of the year, ready to drop in their marbles to shoot. We would class the boys off in the age limits and have from three to five rings shooting. The boys from eight to ten were in one circle, eleven to twelve in another circle, and thirteen to fifteen in another; and sometimes, with a big crowd, we would have to break that down. How they could shoot marbles! The last time we would shoot winners in one large ring, and I have seen the smaller boys beat the larger boys many times.

      Also, we have the "Shop" meeting at the "Y" where I took my organ, and, with the help of the ministers, we went to the many plants in the city. In the winter, we took a big pot of coffee furnished by the merchants. With a long string of tin cups on a wire, we went through the plant shaking these cups and calling attention to the hot coffee. Each man was given a cup of hot coffee to drink with his cold lunch. Then a song service was held while they ate. The minister was introduced to the men, and he brought a real gospel message. .Many men were won to Christ in these meetings, and men that had not been to church for many years went back to worship with their families and really lived the new life. These meetings went going on for at least twenty years.

      I went to all the schools in the city with a small, portable organ, speaking and leading the singing and having a prayer with the boys and girls. We went back time and time again. The outstanding meeting of one year was held one Christmas at Lee Edwards High School where 1500 students are enrolled. The principal had a song sheet printed with some well-known carols.  We took 800 students the first day, and really had a fine song service. Then, on the second day, 800 more students had a splendid service. I wish you could have heard these students sing!

      Each Sunday morning at 10:00 A.M. at the Fire Department, we held a meeting with the firemen and as many policemen as we could. We went to the top of the tall Jackson Building, and, with a spotlight shining on us and with a song-book in my hand, I tried to sing a number of gospel songs, inviting the men of the Fire Department Central Station to hear a real gospel message; and I have seen the people stick their heads out of windows and say, "Come down from there. I can't sleep while you're up there!" Some have even pointed a pistol out the window and would threaten to shoot! On the other hand, there were women who would wave their Bibles and say, “Keep that up, Son, sing on! It's good!"

      One day, after the meeting was finished, a man with a red handkerchief around his neck and a bundle under his arm walked up. He stopped me and said, 'Was you the fellow that was singing up on top of that building?"

      I told him I was, and he said, "You was singin’ a song that I have heard my mother sing a number of times. Will you sing that song for me?"

      I said, "Well, I’m on my way to the Bible class, but I’ll sing the song. What is it?"

      "If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again."

      And while I was singing, he took the red handkerchief from around his neck and began to wipe the tears from his eyes. 
 

Ed. Note:  These notes, in Seth Perkinson’s own handwriting, were taken from various-sized bits of paper that were found long after his death.  They were in no particular order, and they were not dated.  The information given here was put together by his granddaughter, Louise Lyda Sallstrom.