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BB: Chet, it's great to be with you here at Epworth, and I'd like to just start asking you about where you were born and how you grew up and your personal background.

CE: I was born and raised in Spokane, Washington, went through high school there. I was raised in the Christian church. That was before there was a difference between the Christian church and the Disciples of Christ. Ours was the more fundamental, little corner on the church, church on the corner. And it was a conservative church but a loving church, and I enjoyed growing up there. When I graduated from high school at sixteen, I did what the church wanted me to do and what my parents hoped I would do, and that was to go to Eugene, Oregon, to Northwest Christian College. And I did that and got a degree there and was ordained and decided I didn't want to be a minister. That was my first major attempt to not be a minister, of which there were three in my life. And so I went to work for Seattle First National Bank that was then Seattle, the First National Bank in Washington State, and I was there five years doing quite well. I think I could have been a banker if I had stayed with it, but I had gotten involved in a local church where I was just as a member, and I got more involved and more involved. And in the middle of about the fifth year there, the nice manager there said, "Have you ever thought about going to work for the church?" And so I found myself pastoring a church in Northeast Washington and picking up some credits at Whitworth College in Spokane. And then I found myself in Northern Oregon, pastoring a church and picking up credits at University of Idaho. So that after about eight, nine years, I was all ready to not be a minister because I had another bachelor's degree and a master's degree, and I was going to be a public school teacher in music and education.

And as I was getting ready to graduate, some very strange and interesting things happened. And by some strange coincidences and so forth, I ended up at the First United Methodist Church in Corvallis, Oregon, and then I was sent to First Methodist Church in Portland, Oregon, and I spent eighteen years being a Methodist minister doing music and education in the church rather than in the public school. Then I had been at First Methodist Church in Portland for thirteen years, and I was sort of running dry and feeling like I was sort of burned out, and maybe I ought to get out of the ministry. That was what I was trying to do in 1960 and tried to do in 1947, but I was just not being very successful at it, but I thought this time I would be successful. Until one day, it was summer, and we had three ministers at First Methodist Church and I... the district superintendent said to me, "I need you to go across the river and preach for three or, three or four Sunday mornings at the Japanese church." And I assured him I didn't know how to do that, and he assured me that I would find a way to do it. And so I was supposed to drive across the river and preach for maybe during the months of July, ministers change in July, first of July, they change their appointments, and so I could be borrowed over here. And we did that, and I needed a translator. And so one of the members translated for me, and I struggled along and figured out a way to do it and, as the district superintendent had told me to do. And we got into early August, and I was taken out to lunch by three men of the church, and they took me out to lunch to ask me if I would stay for a year. And I was sort of shocked and I said, "Well, I don't know. I'd have to think about that." And then they said, "Well, think about it. But you know, we'd like to, you know, have you stay for a year." So I thought about it for about a week. And about that time, I got a phone call from the bishop who said, "What are you going to do? If you're going to stay over there, I have to appoint you over there." And you know, a word from that, like that helps you think from the, you know, when the bishop confronts you with that. And so I decided well, maybe that would be a good thing to try. So I went back and talked to the men. I said, "If you want me to do this, you need to understand that I don't know what I'm going to do, and I don't know what I will be doing, and you're going to have to help me do what I'm supposed to do." And we agreed on that, and they were wonderful, and it all became sort of a wonderful challenge to me. And I just sort of -- they just kind of drew me into them. And with their kindness, with the twinkle in the Isseis' eyes which I just value, by their wish and want for me to stay. And by six months after that, I was pretty convinced that they wanted me to stay because they doubled my salary, and that was a good thing to do, I think, I thought it was, and we just kind of evolved, I guess.

BB: And that was in what year that you came and what were your impressions of the past when you came here in that year and what was happening?

CE: That was in 1978. I had gone to First Church Portland in '65; and in '78, I'd been there thirteen years. I began to just love the people. I began to feel at home and like I wanted to be here, and they were just very kind people.

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