born 1925
Ted Blakey has been a life-long member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He has been a businessman in Yankton, South Dakota, where he worked concurrent careers in janitorial service, pest control, and as a bail bondsman. He is now semi-retired.
Question: What is your spiritual tradition and how does it form a fou ndation for your life?
Answer: I grew up in a family of eleven children and we were taught the Golden Rule — do unto others as you would have them do unto you. My father used to say that without discipline you have nothing. I have grown up with these ideas as the basis of my life. I have found that these two things, discipline and love for others in your heart, is all you really need.
Q: How has your religion and religious practice given meaning to your life?
A: My religion is everything to me. I live to serve my Lord, to bear witness to him with word, song, and deeds. I’m sure I don’t do as well as I should, but I am trying. I sing and my wife plays piano. When people call on us to perform it is a privilege to sing praises to God. The Lord has prospered me so well that I gladly do anything I can to witness and help others as much as I can.
Q: What do you believe are the most important values to uphold and promote?
A: Again, the Golden Rule, not only in your religious and personal life but also in business. I believe in total and complete honesty. I also believe we need to be very considerate of other people’s feelings and show others respect. I remember when we were children and sold vegetables from house to house, whenever the door was answered we always removed our headwear and greeted with a hello. To this day when I go to an office to talk with a lady, I always remove my hat. And if I meet a quite elderly lady on the street, I tip my hat to her. It’s just simple respect and discipline.
Q: What has given you the most joy in your life?
A: Serving Jesus and helping others has given me the most joy. I also was very satisfied when the NAACP asked me to form a committee in South Dakota to help defeat the poll tax which kept poor people from voting, and our efforts were successful. Living here in Yankton I have had many opportunities that an African-American may not have had in other areas of the country. I have belonged to many civic organizations and in some cases been among the first Black people in the nation to be an officer in some of these groups. I have been blessed with many good friends.
Q: What has given you the most sorrow in your life?
A: In 1981 my first wife passed on. She had five and a half months between finding out she had cancer and her death. In that time she let me know she was confident that she was going to a wonderful new life. So even in the great sorrow of her death was the comfort of the Lord.
Q: What are your hopes for the future?
A: I hope we can strengthen the family and the home. I hope people can return to families that spend time together, that eat together and pray together. Many people want too much in material things and too little in real family unity. Some people seem too busy trying to impress their neighbors when they should be trying to impress their children. We need real homes for our children — homes of care, love, and discipline. If you bring up a child in the way you should, when he’s old enough to go out on his own, things will be all right.
Q: If there was one thing you could communicate to youth, what would it be?
A: I would like young people to understand that their dreams for the future are important — that they can have their own vision and follow it. We cannot lose any more generations of our young people to crime, sex, and drugs. We must help them to a better life.
Henry Decker
born 1941
Henry Decker is a member of the Pembrook Hutterite community south of Ipswich, South Dakota. He was an educator of the community’s children for over a decade and is now the group’s business manager.
Question: What is your spiritual tradition and how does it form a foundation for your life?
Answer: The Hutterites trace their beginnings to the Reformation, but they also differed from Martin Luther in that they did not believe in the practices of child baptism and communion. We have based our religion on the teaching of Christ and in particular the book of Acts in the New Testament. We believe in practicing the community of goods as well as we can possibly do it. Having grown up in a Hutterite society, I do not want to own things. Christ had no desire for personal ownership, and I don’t either. We have very nice homes to live in, we have plenty of food to eat, and we work very hard for our living, but we believe in sharing totally. I own nothing but my clothes, and they were given to me by the community. We work for posterity. We are here for our children to have a home. I’m not working for myself, because when I go I will take nothing and leave nothing in the way of worldly goods. Our community is a corporation, and we pay regular corporate taxes to the state and federal governments. We feel obligated to pay our share for the services we receive. All Hutterite communities do this. We are pilgrims here on this earth as far as God is concerned. We believe we are here for a chance to get to heaven; that goes for us in the Hutterite communities and for all those living in other types of communities. As Hutterites we feel we are doing what God wants us to do. Others may certainly do what they feel is the best way of life for them. The door is always open in our community. Anyone may leave at any time, and those may come that can live by the rules of our forefathers.
Q: How has your religion and religious practice given meaning to your life?
A: My religious experience gives me a sense of positive feelings. I try to live as well as possible the way Christ taught us and is teaching us. In the Old Testament God told Moses to teach the children every day. That is what we try to do every day with our children. We teach the German language and our religion together to our children.
Q: What has given you the most joy in your life?
A: The most joy comes from being put to the test every day and being able to take and stand the test. The only thing that has given me the necessary spiritual strength is the fact that I have a good family. My immediate family and many members of the community are my strength, and without them I know I would break down at times because the tests are very difficult. Helping each other out keeps me going. And, of course, the joy and strength of prayer are foundations in my life.
Q: What has given you the most sorrow in your life?
A: The most sorrow in my life comes from the fact that everyone does not live by our way of life both in our community and outside our community. Everyone wants to do their own thing. In our way of life that is not the way to live. When we need to do something in our society, even small things like going to town for supplies, we have to consult with others; it is the way we live — we live as a group.
Q: What are your hopes for the future?
A: My hope is for us to become better in our way of life. I hope we can be sounder and more stable. I hope we can build stronger constitutions in our hearts. The example we set for our young people today is what will be in the future.
Q: If there was one thing you could communicate to youth, what would it be?
A: To youth outside our community, I would like them to understand we are people like everyone else. We were put here by God for the same reason everyone else