I remember Ken back in 1959 when I was a freshly married 18 ½ year old. According to his obit he was some 7 years older than me. I don’t know how much earlier he had been appointed, but he was the Marshalltown, Ia, Congregation Servant (the presiding overseer) at a time when 25 year olds were rare.
I had just stated door2door selling (I had no skills) a photographic album plan and believe it or not, Ken quit his full time job of meat cutting at Piggly Wiggly and began selling these plans in a remote territory near Waterloo.
It wasn’t long before Ken was a master salesman and he took me under his wing and we set out for a long weekend of training in Hutchinson, Ks, where Raymond Grey(sp) and his wife Virginia hosted the event in their large sprawling ranch home with some 8 bedrooms. Raymond was gregarious and an extreme go-getter. I believe he was the founder of that company called NATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHERS ALBUM COMPANY, originating out of Ft. Worth, Tx.
It didn’t surprise Kenneth or me that the Greys were also Jws and for several years after, he would be a prominent speaker at our district conventions.
Ken and Crystal already had three or four children at the time and that family would increase to some 7 children by the time he later moved away from Marshalltown to Des Moines at some age 30. I told Ken I would help him in his belongings move and showed up that Sunday morning where we headed south to Des Moines, rental truck loaded. What privately surprised me was that we were the only two who were involved. His brother and all the Marshalltown brothers were oddly absent.
I never saw him again but his older brother Wayne and younger sister remained in Marshalltown.
Wayne, one of the elders, and I became somewhat close, playing an occasional round of golf together. I took wedding portraits of Wayne’s daughter and husband in 1977, just prior to my disassociation.
Wayne phoned me sometime later, asking (humbly) for the photo negatives in behalf of his daughter. I found that request bizarre in that he was requesting a favor from someone as evil as I was in their eyes.
I rose above all that and handed him the package of negatives in the parking lot of the company where I worked. He thanked me.
I never saw Wayne again.
(obit: https://www.tributearchive.com/obituaries/16670036/Kenneth-Lee-Christensen)