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called me on the telephone. By that time he and I had been
speaking, for some years previous, each of us at every feast site in
the United States and one in Canada.
"Dad," Ted said over the telephone, "I simply can't bear the
thought of having to miss this Feast of Tabernacles. PLEASE can't
I come back?" He professed repentance. I took him at his word.
I said, "Come on back, Ted." The Church did not know I had put
him out. But I was determined not to be guilty of what condemned
Eli--allowing his sons to depart from God and still remain in high
offices in the Kingdom of Israel.
During the 1971 Feast, word reluctantly was given to me of
totally improper behavior and excessive drinking at the Feast sites
he had attended. This improper behavior occurred in restaurants
and places where most members attending were unaware of it.
One or two days later, I received a telephone call from the
minister in charge of the Squaw Valley site. I was then at the
Lake of the Ozarks site where Mr. McCullough was site leader. It
was late evening. Ted's conduct was totally unbecoming a minister
of Jesus Christ. He was drinking and gambling late at night at a
casino on the Nevada shore of Lake Tahoe. I was informed that it
was URGENT that I remove him from further participating in festival
site speaking. He was to arrive next afternoon after speaking at
Squaw Valley in the morning, at the Penticton, Canada site.
I had Mr. McCullough participate in the telephone conversation
with Squaw Valley. We agreed I had to stop Ted from further
participation in that festival. I arranged for my plane to fly to
Scranton, Pennsylvania through the night, pick up Mr. David Antion,
who was in charge of the Mt. Pocono festival site, and return for
Mr. McCullough and me. We had only a few hours for sleep while
the plane flew through the night for Mr. Antion. They arrived
back at the Lake of the Ozarks airport about 4:00 a.m. Mr.
McCullough and I joined Mr. Antion and flew on to the Penticton site.
There we intercepted Ted as he landed early in the afternoon
in his Falcon plane. We had a tearful conference in the privacy
of my plane (the crew had left the plane to give us privacy). Ted
was there cut off from further participation in the 1971 festival.
He flew to a Church-owned house or cabin near the south shore of
Lake Tahoe, and then on into seclusion in a small town in Colorado.
At that time I made Mr. Albert Portune executive vice-president,
taking over the day-to-day administrative duties of the Work in
Pasadena. At that time Mr. Antion was occupying the second position
in rank, and Mr. McCullough was deputy chancellor of the college in
Big Sandy, Texas.
BUT ONCE AGAIN WE TRIED TO PROTECT MY SON'S NAME AND REPUTATION--
to keep the matter quiet. Always I was hoping for a change of mind
and repentance from my son. I wanted to keep the door open for his
return to the Work.
Some time later--perhaps in November--while I was at the Big
Sandy campus, I received a heartbreaking, tearful letter from Ted