Sweet devotion

Still active though officially retired, Salvation Army officer Gertrude Purdue sets a pace that inspires others

Retired Salvation Army officer Gertrude Purdue led a caravan of doughnut carts through the Memphis Veterans Medical Center recently. As volunteers dispensed refreshments, Purdue, 97, marched alongside swinging her walking stick like an umbrella.

At her age, it might seem time for Brigadier Purdue to hang up her bonnet. But with boundless enthusiasm and a mind clear as a Salvation Army bell, she still sets quite a pace.

In addition to running the Army's doughnut brigade, which spreads cheer twice a month, she has played piano for its Ben Lear South Citadel services for 35 years, coaxing out songs like "Amazing Grace" and "Blessed Assurance." This month, folks will find her in front of Kroger stores at the Salvation Army's red kettles.

"I don't get tired," said Purdue. "If I say I'm tired, I'll be tired, and I can't afford that. I have to keep going."

Purdue is among the last of the South's active brigadiers. Officers of the Salvation Army, which is both a church and a social service organization organized in a military pattern, keep their military titles after retirement.

The rank was abolished in the early '80s, said Christopher Priest, director for the Army's Southern Territory. He knows of only three other brigadiers in the 15-state territory (and the District of Columbia) who still volunteer.

Purdue has led the doughnut runs for the VA hospital here 44 years. Volunteers cooked their own doughnuts for years in a VA kitchen "until we blew out the circuits," she said. Now they buy them.

From 1962-1973 Purdue and her husband of 61 years, Brigadier W. B. Purdue, were Memphis area commanders, the highest ranking Salvation Army officers in the city. Both ordained ministers, they once held "open airs" (street preaching) on South Main near an Easy Way grocery. He played the trombone and she played the accordion, summoning sinners with hymns like "When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder."

Purdue has lived through six wars and led a corps (church) through the Great Depression. She and her husband were among the first directors of United Service Organization (USO) clubs in World War II. In Memphis they helped establish one of the first pre-school day care centers here, created an early shelter for abused women, and created a seminal senior citizen's program.

The Army's Purdue Center of Hope, opened in 2000 and housing the command center, three shelters for homeless women and children and other programs, is named for the Purdues.

"She's our main recruiting tool," said Esther Pearson, who spearheaded the organization of the Salvation Army Greater Memphis Women's Auxiliary in 1986, and was herself recruited by Purdue. Her energy is "the most amazing thing. Often I've called her in the morning, and she'll be gone to a meeting or just returned."

Purdue, who lives in East Memphis, goes to bed around 10 p.m., rises around 6 a.m., and performs her daily devotional before setting out on her chores. She calls herself "the handmaiden of the Lord."

Friends say she is the first to arrive at meetings, the last to leave, and doesn't understand people who leave a work site early just because their jobs are done. When she runs things, nobody gets a pass. She expects doctors and other prominent volunteers to toe the line as well as anyone.

She is organized right down to her funeral suitcase. The Salvation Army calls dying "a promotion to glory," said Joyce Waters, Purdue's longtime friend and director of the emergency family shelter at the Purdue Center. Purdue has packed a new uniform, a funeral flag, a poem, and instructions for scriptures to read and music to play. "She wants to make sure that when she leaves out of here, she's still in charge," said Waters.

Many speak of her ability to lift spirits.

Sometimes when Waters has felt discouraged by the self-destructive behavior of those she tries to help, Purdue has said to her: "Just keeping doing good for them. Set an example of love. And you never know what seed you sow today will grow down the line."

"She has a smile that lights up a whole room," said Elizabeth Duncan, the Army's director of development.

Purdue was born in Massillon, Ohio, in 1909, and grew up in Michigan and Indiana, the oldest of seven siblings, and the daughter of Salvation Army officers. She has served doughnuts to servicemen or veterans since she was 9 years old, and by 13 helped conduct summer camps for the disadvantaged, assisting children with swimming and games. "We were children of the regiment," she said, and "I had a flock."

She knew two of the famed Salvation Army doughnut girls who wore battle helmets and cooked doughnuts for soldiers in WWI, and is one of the few still living who met Evangeline Booth, the famous firebrand and daughter of the founder, William Booth.

In 1933, Booth led a caravan through the country and stopped at Huntington, Ind., where Purdue headed the local corps. "Oh she was spectacular," said Purdue. "She challenged the troops (the Salvationist "soldiers") like nobody else."

In those days of the Depression, Purdue, then Capt. Gertrude McClellan, was hauling left-over milk from a dairy to poverty-stricken areas of Huntington in a Model-T Ford. "People were very desperate. They came out with their cans and my lieutenant and I dipped out the milk," she said. Her corps had a transient home and a pantry for the poor. Firemen and police stocked it with the cans of food they charged for playing basketball games.

In 1934, at age 25, she married Capt. Bramwell (W. B.) Purdue, then 26, in Huntington. She wore her Army uniform and wedding scarf, the same worn by her mother at her wedding. They had two daughters and a son and raised a foster daughter.

Stationed throughout the Southern Territory for almost 30 years, they helped form in Lawton, Okla., one of the first USOs, and later directed other USO clubs. In the '50s, W. B. Purdue served as divisional secretary in several cities while Gertrude worked with nursing homes and hospitals.

After coming to Memphis in 1962, they led the development of an early shelter house for abused and exploited women and children at Linden Circle and Somerville and with the Junior League of Memphis established one of the city's first pre-school day care centers on the same block.. (Southside later merged with Ben Lear Citadel and the day care center moved to the Purdue Center.)

The Army now has four locations here: Ben Lear South Citadel, 672 Alabama; Winchester Corps, 4741 Winchester Rd. (opened in 1990); the Adult Rehabilitation Center, 130 N. Danny Thomas; and the Purdue Center, 696 Jackson Ave.

With the help of the old Memphis Parks Commission they helped create Golden Age Clubs, recreational and learning clubs for the elderly that were so popular the parks service later developed their own clubs. Later, as president of Church Women United, Purdue became a founding member of the Memphis Inter-Faith Association.

The Purdues officially retired in 1973, but she went on to organize an early discount program for seniors and play piano 29 years at the Adult Rehabilitation Center. W. B. Purdue worked 16 years coordinating volunteer work for Memphis and Shelby County Juvenile Court before he died in 1995 at age 87.

Purdue now shares her home with her daughter Marilyn Sheron, director of the Child Development Center at Christ United Methodist Church.

Purdue has received many honors including "Volunteer of the Year" in 1990 and Senior Volunteer of the Year in 2005 by Volunteer Memphis.

But last year, she received a special one. It is The Order of the Founder award, the highest international honor the Salvation Army bestows. It is given for superlative service to its mission and ministry.

Her photo hangs at Army headquarters in Atlanta, inscribed with her name and the words "servant," and "encourager." She loves that. But some might have preferred the words "handmaiden of the Lord."

By Barbara Bradley
The Commercial Appeal
December 3, 2007