Faith through Decorating: Lessons Learned from Harvey

By Al Strohschein

I met Harvey more than twenty years ago when Atty. Lloyd Paust retired and Harvey needed an attorney. Harvey has a third grade education, with limited reading and math skills. He worked many different jobs from setting pins at a bowling alley, to tending the town dump, to laboring over thirty years at the Fall River Foundry.

Harvey was married to Mary, and had a daughter Betty. His other two children died in infancy. As the years rolled by and Mary’s health declined Harvey visited more frequently. Eventually, Mary’s health declined to the point she needed to live at an assisted living facility, and Harvey and Betty lived in a mobile home at a local mobile home park.

With Mary not being at home cleaning was not a high priority, and Harvey’s hygiene also suffered. One thing that did not suffer was Harvey’s love of decorating. He always says that God made the church on a rock, but intended it to be decorated by all for all! Harvey is a very visual person and his love of decorating is, to some extent, infectious. His walls are plastered with Valentine’s Day reds and pinks in January and February. Halloween is a favorite holiday, but his all-time favorite holiday is Christmas. Plastic flowers never die and Harvey has MANY of them.

The last two years have been tough for Harvey. His wife died on November 23, 2015 and his daughter died April 15, 2017. His mobile home was condemned and he moved to an Assisted Living facility. Harvey appreciated my reading of the Twenty Third Psalm to his wife Mary as she neared death. I got Harvey a picture Bible, much like the one I remember reading at my doctor’s office when I was a child. Harvey can follow along the stories as I have begun to read them to him when I visit each week.

Harvey is now on hospice. He listens to his favorite Country Western artists. He loves the song ‘On the Wings of a Dove” by Ferlin Husky from 1960. I recommend Googling it, and listening to the words if you are questioning your Faith. I have a new perspective for the Bible, and certainly an entirely new take on decorating by deepening my relationship with Harvey! March 2018 he will be 90 years young. If you care to send him a card make it colorful! His address can be reached via the church office.

Join us this Lenten season for our near-daily devotion, part of

“The Brush of Angel Wings” Sensing God’s Love.