Chapter I: The Preacher's Son "It was a hard row to hoe, to be perfect."
DeForest Kelley, 1992
Reverend Ernest David Kelley began his ministry to the congregation of Conyers, Georgia, on January 12, 1930. At first meeting, the new shepherd made a mild impression, fine-boned with smooth skin, spectacles, and a bald head. By surface appearances, he was a timid man, but his quick, sharp eyes and the fire of his sermons revealed that he was not. His greatest gifts were the content of his sermons and the strength of his presence in the pulpit. His own soul knew the bitter taste of daily trials, and so he was a genuine witness in his mission to frail humanity. His was a constant litany, crying out about the perfect soul-gathering rescue of Jesus Christ and the joys to be found in him.
Reverend Kelley could speak directly to the souls of these Georgia people. His heritage was close to that of his congregants. The Kelley family origins were proud, Irish, and Southern. From Virginia in the 1750s, the Kelleys found their way into Georgia, to Franklin County and the small hill town of Toccoa. Theirs was the rugged earth of north Georgia hill country, a land of Cherokee people and hardscrabble settlement. A century later, the region became a favorite highway for the mean ruin of Union forces during the Atlanta campaign. Two young witnesses to the Civil War, Mary Emily Payne and Emory Jackson Kelley, later married and raised nine children surrounded by the deprivations of Reconstruction. Ernest David, born in 1883, was called to ministry in 1911. Ordained through the Broad River Baptist Church, Reverend Kelley chose to serve the common man on the sawdust trail. He met and married Clora Casey of Cedartown, eleven years his junior, and his first son, Casey, was born in 1917. Jackson DeForest came along in 1920. In 1925, Reverend Kelley earned a graduate degree in theology from Mercer University. He served churches with names like Zebulon, Attica, County Line, and Penfield. With Clora at his side, he ministered all over the interior of Georgia.
Now at the height of his physical and spiritual strength, Reverend Kelley shared the gospel in Conyers. Educated and poor, after nearly fifteen years of preaching, the Reverend knew the hearts and minds of men and the dangers of a worldly life. His call for unswerving Christian faith was mixed with Christian warning: he made it very clear to his congregation and to his children that there were grave consequences for sinful yet ordinary behaviors such as going to dances and movies and drinking and smoking. The saved and those yet to be salvaged were invited to find and renew their spirit in a Baptist way of life with the Kelleys. While the Reverend ministered with his sermons and mastery of the Bible, his wife ministered by loving example and gentle touch.
Reverend Kelley kept his boys, Ernest Casey and Jackson DeForest, close to the church. He made them learn the responsibilities of the elect; the boys knew they were representing something far larger than their own small lives. The mission of the father was the mission of the family. As a preacher's kid, DeForest was bound to the sawdust trail of his father's ministry. Athens, Woodville, and so on, they moved from one Georgia mill town to the next. Reverend Kelley shaped his sons with an eye on the promise of heaven and the literal existence of hell. He ruled with the steady hand of the righteous, while Clora worked to soften that hand with humor and diplomacy. However, the traditional round of Bible study, quotation and recitation, psalms at supper, Wednesday evening prayer meetings, and Sundays filled with classes and multiple services challenged the obedience of even the most respectful child. DeForest's brother, Casey, chafed under the restrictions of the household and seemed quite unable to please anyone completely. He was already a teenager, vexed by many things his little brother couldn't begin to imagine. DeForest, like his mother, sought to keep the peace. DeForest's first role was his portrayal of the Good Son.
Sometimes DeForest spent long hours playing outside, and when it was time, from deep in the shadows of the porch, Clora would call out, "DeForest!...DeForest!" and the boy's name rang out all around the big house and yard. DeForest loved that sound of his mother's calling. Other times, the little boy stayed close to his mother to keep her company as she worked. While she did her chores, his eyes were often drawn to her only finery, an ice-bright diamond ring. Clora wore it always, while washing, ironing, and scrubbing, "and it was all smooth...and the prongs wore down slowly," the boy remembered. She cherished that ring, and so did her son. Her brother, the mysterious Herman Casey, won the ring in a card game in France and gave it to her. Her boy DeForest wanted to give her something, too; he wanted to give her the world. As young as he was, he knew her life was hard, and he wished to make it easier for her somehow, and so he became her sunshine.
DeForest was immersed in the Reverend's mission in Conyers. There his sermons were thundering appeals delivered in lightning. He called all to a worldly mission to "seek and save the lost." To join him, one must be filled with the Holy Spirit, and for that to happen, one must surrender. "Are you willing to crucify self?" the Reverend challenged every member. He promised them that failure would mean "wreck and ruin."
Ten-year-old DeForest began to think that there could be only hellfire and damnation for someone as weak and selfish as he knew himself to be, and his father gave no indication otherwise. DeForest worked ever harder at being the good son. With some resignation, he recalled, "It was a hard row to hoe, to be perfect."
2 Before their first year in Conyers was over, Reverend Kelley introduced the congregation to DeForest's musical talents. In the words of Erskine Davis, DeForest's friend during those years, the boy had a "very good voice for singing. He often sang a solo at the morning church service. Two of his favorites were 'Living for Jesus' and 'Jesus Is All the World to Me.' While DeForest sang, Reverend Kelley would beam with pride and joy. Sometimes he would stand by DeForest while he sang." The Reverend made good use of DeForest's gifts and seemed determined to forge the boy into an instrument of ministry. For the holidays, the Reverend presented a Christmas exercise. DeForest received "a great hand, the solo work of this 10-year-old boy being especially good," according to the local paper. DeForest's uncle, Dr. Luther H. Kelley, "slipped in and took a back seat just like most doctors do at church and grand opera."
DeForest's performances, his manners, and his charm made him popular in Conyers. He was a sensitive boy who appreciated neatness, process, and order; messes and contrariness disturbed him. Contrariness, indeed! One grandmother drove DeForest to distraction by insisting on calling him Forrest, as in Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Civil War hero. When he tended to her, she would look at whatever he might bring her and say, "Set it down here, Forrest." And he'd put her tray down. Finally, he brought her a gift and told her if she would say his name right, he would give her his gift. Smiling, she agreed. He gave it to her; she admired it and handed it back to him: "Set it down here, Forrest." Everyone knew, and she did, too, that he was named for Lee DeForest, the genius of the new century who made the radio possible, as well as talking movies and all kinds of things. Dr. DeForest traveled the country, promoting his work and inspiring the common man to look forward to the new world just taking shape in the early twentieth century. Reverend Kelley was very impressed with the mind and inventions of Dr. DeForest, and his second son was given a name fit for the future.
But the present times were hard. To help out, DeForest hunted squirrel, rabbit, and possum -- anything that might fill the family table -- but he had no taste for killing and never hunted unless he had to. Reverend Kelley took on a second church, the Rockdale Baptist Church a few miles west of town, for the small sum that congregation could offer. While the Reverend preached, DeForest hunted and sometimes hosed down the coal laborers at the Conyers rail depot for a coin or two, but these small amounts could not do much to relieve the Kelleys' ministerial poverty. There was no shame in their lack, and it was no sin to do without.
In Conyers, one of DeForest's favorite playmates was the small son of Emma Banks, who did some day work for Clora Kelley. Emma's house was little more than a shack in West Conyers, but her yard was interesting, with an outdoor laundry kettle, chickens, and a woodpile where DeForest and sometimes his brother Casey would go to play and be with Emma. She made a deep impression on DeForest, and he took her into his heart.
DeForest took pleasure in his life in Conyers, trapping rabbits, fishing, wading in the water to catch tadpoles and bugs. He loved Sandy Kelley, the little brown dog that kept close tabs on the young master, waiting for him while DeForest was in school. Toward the end of every school day, DeForest would go near the classroom's open window and sharpen his pencil, signaling Sandy that dismissal time approached. He remembered, "That little dog's tail would raise up, and off he'd go, down the street, through the window without the screen, and all around the house; then he'd come back and lead me home."
School lunches could be dreary, but Erskine Davis's mother baked a yeast loaf for his sandwiches. Erskine's father was a dairy farmer and grew wheat for the family bread, taking it to the local mill to be ground. The smell and taste of the bread were just wonderful. "DeForest would come around at lunch recess and swap two of his sandwiches for one of mine," Davis remembers. A boy who knew quality had to be willing to pay up for it, and DeForest was such a boy.
DeForest's elementary-school teacher, Mary J. Cowan, gave him stellar reports for neatness, promptness, attendance, and conduct. He di...
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