Mary Harriet Russell

1925-2017

 

Mary Harriet Russell was born in 1925 to Homer and Venita Russell. She was named after both of her grandmothers. For sake of clarity in this bio, the first half will refer to her as Harriet, her middle name. Her father wanted to call her by his mother’s name. All the family and relatives and friends knew her by this name for years. After her children grew up and left home, she changed her lifestyle and she was known for the rest of her life as Mary, her mother’s mother’s name whom she had been very close to.

 

Harriet loved music. She sang her first solo song at three years old at church and sang “Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam, to shine for Him each day”. She said that this song was her life’s theme. At nine years old, she played her first piano recital pieces: Bach & The Pines.

 

Harriet was born on the farm. She had an older brother, Wally and a younger brother, Earl and younger sister, Esther. When she was about five years old, their farm had such a successful harvest and they made a lot of money. Homer bought new farm equipment and a new car and new furniture. Venita, Harriet’s mother, cautioned him about spending so much money, but they had lots of grain in the barn, so he felt really good about it.

 

Homer showed Harriet all about his car and how he put air into his tires and how you can release the air. Cars were a big rage around that time, and Homer was really proud of his car. His friends that had cars all came to his farm so they could compare their cars. When they all went into the house to have lunch, Harriet had a little stick to push into the valve to make that nice hiss sound. When it stopped making the sound, she went to the next tire, then she went to the next tire. When the men came out to get into their cars, low and behold, all the tires were flat on all of the cars. Homer was embarrassed in front of his friends and furious and began chasing Harriet to whoop her. All the guys were laughing, and yelling don’t hit her, Homer!!

 

One day when Homer was a few acres away working in the fields, Harriet heard her mother screaming from outside. She got on her tip toes to look out the window. The barn was on fire. Her papa was too far to hear. All her mother, Venita could manage to do was to get the horses out. Harriet watched while the whole barn, grain, new equipment, everything burned to the ground, except the car.

 

This catastrophe lead them to lose the farm. They had no money for seed for the coming spring, and all the equipment was gone, so they had to sell what they could and move to the city.

 

Homer worked for the church for awhile and worked other places as a maintenance man, electrician and plumber. Harriet’s mother and father’s marriage began to be rocky off and on as she grew up. Her brothers, Wally and Earl left home while still young teenagers, finding work wherever they could.

 

When Harriet was eighteen years old, she had graduated and started a class to be an electrician. World War 2 had broke out, so she was able to get work in the shipyards being an electrician. Since she worked for the government, she got free housing. Her Grandmother Mary had moved in with them, and her mother needed to care for her so she couldn’t work. Her sister was still in school.

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Harriet worked in the shipyards for a year, supporting her family and saving up as much money as she could for college. Her aspiration was to be a missionary. She applied at the Westmont College in Los Angeles and was accepted. When her grandma had died, her mother was free to work again. Since they no longer had free housing since Harriet was leaving and didn’t work for the government, Venita asked Harriet to give her money to buy a house so she could run a lodging house. Harriet gave her mother all her savings except enough for the train to get to the college. She was able to get work on campus to help pay her way through school. Harriet’s majors were Bible and music.

 

About a year and half later, in Santa Barbara, there was a big meeting at her church. Harriet was always the one that played the piano. After the singing was over, she went to sit down, but the place was packed. Her mother was sitting in a pew with a man sitting next to her,..only a few inches apart. Somehow, she squeezed between them. This man ended up to be Paul Douglass and he walked her home that night. Paul had a background of growing up on the mission field. (His parents worked at the orphanage in Alaska) and his aunts and uncles were missionaries in Brazil. After some courting, they decided to marry.

 

In 1947, their first child, JoAnne was born, then David was born in 1949. Trying to follow their dream of living for the Lord and doing some ministry work, they went to Arkansas so Paul could go to Seminary. He was ordained while he was there. Paul did some preaching as an associate pastor on the circuit, preaching at different churches each week. Times were hard money wise, so they always prayed that someone from the church would invite them home for a good Sunday dinner. It was the one solid meal for the week. Harriet had afterbirth infection from David’s birth and JoAnne had pneumonia. So, when Paul’s father died, his mother sent money for the family to come back to California, and they went as it was time.

 

Paul and Harriet bought a trailer and lived in Barstow where Paul had a good job. Esther was born there. Once again, JoAnne, at four years old, had pneumonia and needed to be hospitalized. The hospital there in Barstow wouldn’t admit her because they had no money. The only hospital that would accept her without money was the county hospital in San Bernardino. This is where Harriet’s mother and sister lived, so she stayed with them while JoAnne was in the hospital. Refusing to go back to Barstow where she wouldn’t have access to a hospital, Paul went back to work for a week for another paycheck, sold the trailer and moved everything to San Bernardino. That’s where Daniel was born.

 

Harriet and Paul still wanted to be in God’s service. They made a good team in the field of music. Every church they went to, she was the pianist and he was the song leader. He had a very good voice. In 1956, they started a church in their own home. The living room was the church meeting place. Of course there was a piano for her to play and he led the singing. Brother Gentry did the preaching. The bedrooms were the Sunday School rooms. The church grew and is still in existent to this day.

 

They helped plant a couple more small fledging churches in a couple other places. For awhile, they thought of going to Mexico to do mission work there and took Spanish classes at the local college. The whole family was learning Spanish. Eventually, this vision didn’t go anywhere. It seemed that Harriet’s dream of becoming a missionary was fading.

 

Harriet began teaching piano lessons. She just started with a few, but the number grew. She became a member of the local Music Teacher’s Association.

 

Paul always worked and sometimes, he’d work two jobs. Finances were really tight, especially when Paul had surgery and they had medical bills. Paul lost his job for not being able to work for a month of that sickness, so it was an even bigger strain on their marriage than it was before.

 

Finally, in 1963, their marriage ended in a divorce. This was a tough period for the whole family. Paul remarried to Catherine (Dolly) and JoAnne got married six months after that in 1965. The other kids who were mostly teens lived sometimes with Paul and sometimes with Harriet.

 

By then, Harriet’s piano student were growing, she had annual recitals for her students, and she played solos at special events. She was actually very successful with her music studio. But as most people know, it’s hard to make a living with music. She took enough classes at Valley College to complete her Associates degree. Then, she was able to take the State Test so that she was eligible to work for the State. She became an eligibility work for welfare in California.

 

Harriet was always involved in church. She played the piano for choir, and all the services. She was a gifted musician, but mostly her heart still yearned to do missionary work. During this period of time, the churches were quite strict about leadership in the church. If you were divorced, you could not hold any office, not even secretary, let alone a minister or missionary. (somehow, they turned a blind eye so she could continue playing the piano because they really needed her.)

 

The late 1960’s and early 1970’s, brought about the hippy movement which had Jesus People, Jesus Freaks, witnessing at the beaches and baptizing in the ocean. It caused a huge ripple among the churches. They preached that you could serve Jesus without a diploma, without a church, just read the Bible, pray and witness. Harriet watched as her son, David joined this movement through the Children of God, and listened to what he had to say.

 

Harriet felt with all of her heart that this was her answer to her life-long burden to live fully for the Lord. All of her children were grown and married, she had no husband, there was nothing holding her back. So, she paid all her bills, sold all that she had, and took off with another couple to Canada. Saying farewell to an old life, and looking forward to a brand new life. This is when she began using her first name, Mary.

 

Mary moved to Brazil and lived there for twenty years. She loved it there. But when she was in her late sixties, her health was failing. She felt like she should move back to the States. “In case I die, my family won’t have the expense of shipping my body back!” A couple of years later, JoAnne, her daughter, also came back to the States from Japan. Mary went to live with Craig and JoAnne in Texas for the next nine years. During this time, Mary started a new healthy diet, joined the Senior Citizen’s Club and went to water aerobics twice a week, thus getting stronger and healthier.

 

While at the Senior Citizen’s Club, she had many friends. One day a new person joined them, Merrell. She sat with him at lunch to make him feel welcome and talked with him. Their conversation eventually went to the Lord,.. after some conversation, Merrell prayed with her right on the spot, to accept Jesus, to make Him his Lord and Savior. That was the beginning of their relationship which eventually led to engagement and then to marriage. Mary and Merrill were married in the home of JoAnne and Craig. Craig married them and pronounced them man and wife.

 

Mary and Merrell read the Bible together every morning and went to church every Sunday as long as they were healthy enough to do so. After eight years, Mary’s health declined and she had to move to a nursing home for care. Less than a month later, Merrell died.

 

Mary lived in a beautiful nursing home for five years, close to her two sons and daughter which visited her regularly until she was called home to her Savior in 2017 at ninety-two years old.