July 30, 2010
Deacon Stephen Hall Jr.
Gibson County deacon has given 25 years of service
Deacon Stephen Hall Jr. and his wife, Pat, pose for a photo in the kitchen of their Snake Run home. This August the deacon celebrates his silver anniversary of ordination. “My 25 years as a deacon have fulfilled a lot of my dreams,” he said. “I’m so happy and so thrilled that I can be of service to so many people.” (Message photo by Mary Ann Hughes) Click for a larger version.
By MARY ANN HUGHES (Message staff writer)
There’s a small sign hanging in the barber shop in the back of Deacon Stephen Hall’s house that is filled with words about service.
That’s so appropriate because he has followed the call to service since he was a young man.
He grew up in Evansville, where his family attended St. Anthony Church. He was the third of six children, and says his parents were poor.
One afternoon, while attending the horse races at Ellis Park in Kentucky, his luck changed a bit. After a race, the announcer said the winning horse was disqualified. Steve and his buddies began looking on the ground for discarded winning tickets. They were too young to cash the tickets themselves, so they asked someone to do it for them. When the man returned, he handed them hundreds of dollars.
“I had never seen that much money in my life,” the deacon remembers.
He knew what he wanted to do with his winnings: attend barber school in St. Louis. He bought a ticket on a Greyhound bus, and headed west. “I went all by myself, and my parents were sick to death” with worry.” He was 16 years old.
He attended the barber school by day, and every evening he sold newspapers on a street corner “‘til 12 at night, and then I would have to go home and go to bed.”
At the end of six months, he had his degree from barber college. He returned to Evansville, and was hired by a barber who had a shop at the corner of Washington and Kentucky avenues.
He married a young woman named Dorothy, and they soon were the parents of three children, Linda, Sharon and Jeffrey. Tears still flow at the memory of the day he lost her.
She suffered with bronchial asthma, and died 26 hours after he took her to the hospital for treatment. She was 28 years old, he was 29, and their children were seven, four and nearly one.
He was “newly-widowed,” and everyone was trying to fix him up with a date. “Nothing clicked,” he said. Then his sister, Geneva, called and told him about a woman named Pam Lefler who was a “very good Catholic.”
They still laugh at the memory of their first date. “I was a career girl,” she says. “I was praying for a good and holy husband.”
She adds, “The nuns at Ferdinand were praying for a good and holy wife for him and a mother for his children. We decided our marriage must be made in heaven because so many people were praying for us.”
They met in November of 1957, and they were married the following June. “By Christmas time,” Steven says, “the children were calling her ‘mother.’”
Pat grew up in Snake Run, a rural community in Gibson County. She was a parishioner at St. Bernard Church there, and the day of their wedding the gravel road in front of the church had turned to mud. The neighbors placed wooden planks about a quarter of a mile from a house to the church so everyone could walk to the wedding.
“Everyone remembers our wedding,” Pat says.
The Halls soon had two sons of their own, Joseph and Stephen, and after five years they made the decision to leave Evansville and move the family to Snake Run. Pat remembers, “I couldn’t take town any more.
They built a home on the edge of a family farm, directly across from St. Bernard Church, and soon their youngest son, Richard, joined the family.
Steve continued to work in the insurance business in Evansville, and he opened a small barber shop in their home.
In 1978, he made a Cursillo weekend. “That’s when he decided he wanted to do more,” his wife says.
Under the direction of the late Father William Deering, he began studying to become a deacon. On August 3, 1985, he was ordained to the diaconate by Bishop Francis R. Shea.
He was assigned to serve at his parish, and began preaching on Sundays, baptizing and performing weddings and funeral services. “I’ve done it all,” he says.
Just as he listened to his customers when he was their barber, he learned to listen to his parishioners as their deacon. “I got to know them,” he said. Sometimes it was tough, especially the deaths. Some times — many times — were joyful, especially the baptisms and the weddings.
Pat said, “The weddings are always joyful. And the baptisms are special. He’s baptized our grandchildren, and now the great-grandchildren.
“You become such a part of the parish. It’s very joyful. There are many more joys that hardships.”
Seventeen years ago, he expanded his service to the community when he became a Hospice volunteer. He’s their barber, and he travels all over southwestern Indiana cutting hair for their clients.
A few Christmases ago, he received a call from Bishop Gerald A. Gettelfinger inviting him to go to the prison in Carlisle on Christmas morning. When they arrived, the deacon began to talk with a prisoner who was standing off to the side.
“I told him he could be forgiven of his sins.” As the two men talked, Steve told the younger man about his work as a barber. “He seemed real interested,” Steve said.
He has since learned that the young man has been trained as a barber in the prison.
Of the prison visit, he says, “I never forgot it.”
Being a deacon has been a very rewarding experience, he says.
He sums it up with the words, “when you are called to be a deacon, you are called to serve — not be served.”
During his 25 years of service as a deacon in the Diocese of Evansville, Deacon Hall was assigned at Blessed Sacrament Church in Oakland City, and he currently serves at both St. Bernard and at Holy Cross Church in Fort Branch.
He will celebrate his silver anniversary as a deacon on Aug. 3. Cards may be sent to him at R.R. 2, Box 115A, Fort Branch, IN 47648-9632.
A celebration is planned for him on Aug. 15 at Holy Cross Church in Fort Branch. Mass will be celebrated at 2 p.m., and a reception will follow until 6 p.m. in the cafeteria.