Reaching for a star

In May this columnist was a guest speaker at Manly Memorial Baptist Church in Lexington. The announced topic was on examples of loyalty from within the history of the congregation. While his mouth was speaking, his eyes were scanning the auditorium for one of his all-time favorite persons, Edith Vaughn-Parker, the retired long-time state and foreign missionary and one of the speaker's living examples of loyalty. Finally, the eyes caught her seated so down front that a survey of the faces had overlooked the most familiar of them all. Her head wore a little more white than when we last met. But it was Edith alright. Now that the eyes had found her, the mouth blew her a little kiss right from the pulpit.

Edith Vaughn-Parker may not have seen the spontaneous gesture. She may not read this column. She is experiencing the loss of eyesight. She has macular degeneration. Last year when she wrote her little book, Soaring on Eagles' Wings, she depended upon several kind souls to write from her dictation. But, for certain, someone will tell her about this column, so the columnist best be careful.

If Baptists had celebrities within their faith group, they would be the missionaries and, in particular, those whom we used to say “went to foreign fields.” In reality, Baptists who uphold humility as a desired virtue should not grant celebrity status to anyone; but if we did, Edith would be one of the stars. She is a living legend.

Edith Vaughn was born in Pulaski, Va. She received her higher education at Randolph-Macon Woman's College and her practical education at the WMU Training School. In the summers of 1944 and '45, she was working in state missions through what we now call the Virginia Baptist Mission Board.

From 1946-50 she served the people of Southwest Virginia as a state missionary at the Good Will Center in and around Norton in Wise County. She became the missionary lady who showered love and attention upon the children of communities including Guest River, Dixiana and Esserville, which was described as “a hard place of real need.” While in Southwest Virginia, she began to contemplate foreign missions, considering Africa as her likely field of service.

After two years, 1950-52, as director of the Training School's Good Will Center in Louisville, Ky., she answered the persistent call from the Lord to serve on a foreign field. In 1952 she was appointed as a Southern Baptist missionary to Brazil. For the next 35 years she developed a Portuguese accent as she worked in a Good Will Center called Friendship House in Recife, taught evangelism and social work on the seminary level and engaged in church planting.

In 1987 Edith Vaughn retired back home in Pulaski. She no sooner returned than, as she describes it, “a favorite aunt signed herself out of a nursing home” so Edith could take care of her. Edith also helped in the First Baptist Church of Pulaski and she frequently traveled to Roanoke to lead a Bible study for Brazilians in the area. “They needed me,” she reflects, “and I surely needed them.”

All of those years—student, missionary and retiree—were spent as a single woman. “Like all young girls I dreamed of getting married some day. But all through grade school, high school, college and seminary I never found my mate for foreign missions. In 1952 it came time for me to go to Brazil. My father was concerned and he talked to me about marriage and about going to Brazil alone. I laughed with him and said, ‘Oh, it's alright, you know [the Apostle] Paul never got married.' He didn't think it was funny. He said, ‘Maybe he did and we just don't know about it.' He even picked out a suitor he thought would be good, but I never saw this man.”

In the summer of 1997, Edith attended a gathering of retired missionaries held at Ridgecrest. John Parker, a recently widowed retired missionary who had served in Chile, was present and unashamedly was looking for a wife. “Of the 400 people there I figured the Lord had one for me,” confessed Parker in an interview with the editor of the Religious Herald in 2003. They met and were married three months later. At age 76 Edith Vaughn had become a bride for the first time.

Interestingly, they almost crossed paths all those many years earlier. A native of Mississippi, Parker had graduated from Southern Seminary in '41 and became a pastor in Wise County with support of the Virginia Baptist Mission Board. In the summer of '42, he was off to Chile for the beginning of a 38-year career. In 1946 Edith Vaughn entered Wise County to begin her long missionary saga. In the 1940s two stars passed almost within reach of each other! It took 50 years for those stars to cross again! The Vaughn-Parker partnership was a happy one for seven years, ending with his death in 2004 at age 90.

Soaring on Eagles' Wings, a personal account of answered prayers, reads like a heartfelt conversation with Edith. Copies are available from the author at $11.64, including shipping, and can be ordered at 422 Morningside Dr., Lexington, VA 24450.

Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies. He may be contacted at [email protected] or at P.O. Box 34, University of Richmond, VA 23173.