This picture of the Madrona St. Household was taken in 1975. I am not sure of the identification of everyone. Front row is Wee Mother (Tom McCulloch's mother) and Beverly Peterson (Miller). Second row: Stephanie Mahan (Harris) Shirley McCulloch, Tom McCulloch, unsure, unsure and Joy Trejo. Back row: Aeja King, Nancy Schukantz, unsure and Sharon Glass (McCulloch).The following article was written by Tom on the occasion of their third anniversary. Notice his closing paragraph. This was a widely held belief among the leaders of community, "During the last three years I have come to feel and realize that everyone needs community with no exceptions. Community is something that the Holy Spirit is bringing about and I am glad that I can be a part of it."
Madrona was the second household to start, Westby being the first. Actually, Ken Pagaard originally started community at Madrona which he owned at the time. Ken and his household moved to Westby, the McCullochs bought Madrona and started a household.
Pastor Hensgen, Mark Dery here, the journalist who interviewed you years ago for his book-in-progress (which is still in progress!) about Southern California in the '70s. What an motherlode of information your blog is; an inexhaustible resource. By slaving over a hot scanner to preserve these moldering copies of OUR LIFE TOGETHER and, more important, sharing your memories of what this extraordinarily radical experiment in Christian socialism (a term that may scandalize you!) was like, you're documenting a fascinating and tremendously important chapter in what some religious historians call the Fourth Great Awakening of the 1960s and '70s. Scholars everywhere are very much in your debt.
ReplyDeleteThanks Mark
ReplyDeleteI searched using Google.com on the words "Ken Paggard" which lead me to the link to this web site.
ReplyDeleteI was part of Dolan and Ramona Wolford's household for a while. I cannot think of anything in my life that affected me more in a positive way than my association with the First Baptist Church of Chula Vista from 1972 - 1979.
After I've read everything that's been posted here I may choose to share the good things I remember as the "not-so-good" isn't worth repeating because it's usually an outside interpretation that lacks any kind of loving and caring facts for the highest good of all concerned.
I will choose to be anonymous for a while for the purpose of upholding the loving principles above personalities and with a hope this will not turn into anything but the loving and caring Ministry Pastor, Ken, Pastor Dick and Emory Fry and many others including Sam and Liz Ballesteros and Pastor Larry and his wife Joyce who worked on many issues of the Visitor.
Does anyone remember what happened at Notre Dame in 1974 related to the FBC and Pastor Ken Paggard?
Sincerely,
James