Harold John Seeley
Personal
Gender: Male
Date of Birth: January 25, 1916
Date of Death: June 2, 2002
Death Place: Rushville, NY
Harold John Seeley
Harold John Seeley – Baptist church founder dead
Harold John Seeley, a man who dedicated his life to spreading the Christian message through the camp he headed and the church he helped found, has died at age 86. The cause was pneumonia, said Seeley’s daughter, Shirley Seabrook.
In 1950, Mr. Seeley became the director of what is now LeTourneau Christian Conference Center, located at 4950 County Road 11 in Rushville, when its founder, Harold Strathern, died. Mr. Seeley had been assistant director since 1939, only six years after Strathern had pawned his wife’s wedding ring to raise the $3,000 necessary to buy the abandoned farm on which the camp that was called Tabernacle on the Lake was built.
Initially, it served children from the inner city and orphans, said current director Ron Davis. During World War II, the camp used to house refugee children from countries like Germany.
“He reached out to everyone and welcomed them without reservation,” Davis said of Mr. Seeley. “A lot of people in ministry positions around the world made the decision to go into the ministry at this camp.”
Mr. Seeley kept in contact with many people. “We still get a Christmas card every year from Billy (Graham),” added Seabrook’s husband, Jack Seabrook.
Mr. Seeley was born Jan 25, 1916 to Ernest and Jennie Walden Seeley. He married Fran Andrews on June 2, 1935. He was drafted into World War II, during which he earned a Purple Heart and Bronze Star. But he never talked about the war, said Shirley Seabrook.
“Camp was his great interest, then the (Canandaigua Baptist) church, after we got it started,” said long-time friend, Gerri Moose.
Moose had come to the camp with co-worker Avis Sowl to check on some girls they had sent up for the summer from their orphanage in Kentucky. While there, the orphanage the pair worked for had a directorship change.
“Mr. Seeley asked us if we would stay and counsel that summer,” Moose said. “After that he asked us to stay the winter. After that he quit asking us and we stayed.
“He was so patient and so kind,” Moose added. “He was like a second father to us.”
Sowl and Moose weren’t the only ones Mr. Seeley made a part of his family.
Jack Seabrook told of his trip with the Seeley family to Gettysburg National Park in Pennsylvania when he was dating Shirley. He said, “We stopped at a restaurant and the waitress looked at Mr. Seeley and said, ‘Is this your family?’ And without hesitation, he said ‘Yes.'”
Besides inviting local groups to the campsite, he invited community members into his home when he started the Canandaigua Baptist Church in his living room in the late 1950s.
The group moved from the living room to the dining room when it got big enough. Then another room was set aside for children’s classes. “We kind of took over the whole house,” Moose said.
Both the church Mr. Seeley started – now in its own building on North Road – and the camp he took into his heart have grown into local pillars.
Mr. Seeley died on the day that would have marked his 67th wedding anniversary to Fran Seeley, who predeceased him in March 2001.
He is survived by his four daughters and their spouses, Shirley and Jack Seabrook, Beverly and Walter Rumminger, Edith and Otto Krein, and Jeanette and Doug Mack.
Also surviving him are eight grandchildren; 13 great-grandchildren,; and one brother and sister-in-law, Fred and Ruth Seeley.
Daily Messenger (Canandaigua, NY) – Saturday, June 8, 2002
[Grandson of SGS # 2826 – Harold John; Ernest; William (#2826); David (#1117); John; Joseph; Joseph; John; Nathaniel; Robert]
