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)
