The Faith of Our Fathers: An Introduction to the Series - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

June McManus Gardner and her husband, Norman, are people of faith. Born nine days apart in South Carolina in 1935, he in the upstate and she in the midlands, they were brought up in the Baptist faith. Norman and June both accepted Christ at the age of seven and were baptized on Easter Sunday, 1942, one hundred miles apart. They met at the age of sixteen at Colonial Heights Baptist Church in Columbia, SC and married there at the age of nineteen. Norman continued to follow his call to the ministry while June worked full time and attended night classes. After graduating from Bob Jones University in 1958, the young couple put all of their belongings on the back of a homemade trailer and drove to Fort Worth, Texas to attend seminary at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Soon after arriving there, the Lord provided a full time church for them in Montague, Texas. They commuted to the ninety miles to seminary. June was able to attend classes and receive her Bachelor of Religious Education degree at the same time Norman received his Master of Theology degree in 1962. The year before graduation the Lord gave them the desire of their heart with the birth of a son, Norman Russ Jr., nicknamed “Rusty.” A second son, Larry Greer, was born ten years later in 1971 in Spartanburg, South Carolina Retiring in 2016, Norman served as a pastor sixty-three years. During those years they served ten churches in the states of Texas, Illinois, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida. June mostly was a stay-at-home mom, working beside her husband in the churches they served. June’s writing career began by submitting articles to Southern Baptist publications around 1966. Once she saw her name in print she was smitten by the “writing bug” which led to becoming a curriculum writer for teachers of preschoolers in the Southern Baptist Convention and writing a Vacation Bible School Book for preschool teachers . June’s writing was “put on the shelf” for a few years while she worked for the Florida Baptist Convention. Leaving there to start a weekday preschool in her church, she retired from being director of the preschool in 1995 to care for her new granddaughter, Amber. Already she had two grandsons, Joshua and Caleb to help care for. In 2004 another granddaughter, Allison, was born. Interest in genealogy began in 1999 when June became interested in learning about her ancestors. This led to her writing family history books beginning in 2012.