Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 23, 1995 TAG: 9503300039
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS STAFF WRITER|
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
There are even some odd articles, such as a new pair of patent-leather slippers - the kind little girls have worn since Correll was a child in World War I days.
The office and the shoes are symbols of Correll's long and active life, a life now available to her many friends and relatives in the book ``Lady Preacher.''
``Lady Preacher,'' which was privately published, arrived at Correll's Lewiston Street Northwest home on her 87th birthday, just before Christmas.
The book recounts Correll's life as the wife of the late Sidney Correll, a Pentecostal minister and foreign missionary. Aside from some devotional material she wrote years ago for a weekly radio program in Dayton, Ohio, the book is Correll's first literary effort.
Hampered slightly by a stiff hip, Correll spent about 18 months writing her book, which she says is a tribute to her husband, who died in 1991. They were married 66 years.
``We were 17 and 18 when we got married in Angelus Temple in Los Angeles,'' she recalls.
``It was such a beautiful place. Our minister was Mrs. [Aimee Semple] McPherson. We were honored to have been married by her. The Lord blessed us with a long and wonderful life together.''
McPherson, founder of the Church of the Foursquare Gospel, which has congregations in Roanoke and Christiansburg, was an early inspiration among ordained women. Correll is the oldest living alumna of Life Bible College, a school McPherson started in Los Angeles.
Correll met her husband there. Both teens soon became Pentecostal believers and friends with McPherson.
Even after all these years of women in ministry, Correll found it necessary to justify the right of females to preach. Her book, she said, is ``a whole lot of things that I needed to say to those that come after me.''
It includes the facts of her life, comments about family members and church friends, and Sidney Correll's accomplishments. She also talks about death and divorce.
The patent-leather shoes? They're a present from one of her three daughters who, on reading the story of Correll's early childhood, decided to surprise her mother with a gift the older woman had longed for 80 years ago.
Following their marriage, Helen and Sidney Correll entered Foursquare church.
They preached in tents and moved often with a family that grew to six sons and daughters. They eventually settled in Dayton and developed a large independent evangelical church after a painful break with the Foursquare denomination. Correll said the split was caused by jealousy of her husband's success as a church developer.
During this long pastorate, the couple followed a natural liking for foreign mission. They traveled internationally until Sidney Correll retired in 1979.
The two also set up Correll Missionary Ministries to raise funds to help pastors in the several countries where they had helped start congregations.
Today, that agency is still going strong under the direction of Correll's youngest child, Michael, who heads its board of directors. In 1989, the aging couple moved to Roanoke, where Michael had established himself as an entertainer with singer Jane Powell.
``Lady Preacher,'' Helen Correll says, has given her a purpose since her husband died.
Now, she's looking about for a new project.
by CNB