If my mother’s family was sufficiently devoid of religiosity, my father’s side made up for it in spades.
Above is a photograph of the Hamilton Grange Reformed Church (one of the “Collegiate” churches in New York), whose pastorate my grandfather, Paul Leinbach, had just assumed the year my father was born (1913). Apropos, the church was located on property formerly owned by Alexander Hamilton in Harlem, on 149th St. and Convent Ave., to be precise.
My grandfather was the fifth generation of pastors in his paternal lineage. He had brothers, uncles, and other relatives who’d been pastors as well. It was, in effect, the family business.
The Leinbachs arrived in Philadelphia in 1723, but soon migrated to the thriving metropolis of Oley, Pennsylvania (just outside Reading). I once asked my father why the family had come to this country and he replied, without skipping a beat, “lousy farmers, I guess.”
The family eventually became associated with Count Nicolaus Zinzendorf, a Moravian missionary to America. Once, however, the German Reformed Church was effectively established in Pennsylvania, most of the family returned to their native ecclesial roots.
In these early days, and extending well into the 19th century, my ancestors were “circuit riders.” They would serve 10 or more churches at a time, traveling by horseback to lead Sunday worship. They were expected to farm as their main source of income and were paid by the various churches in land, crops, and farm animals.
Growing up in the small town of Womelsdorf, Pennsylvania (where his father, naturally enough, was the pastor), my grandfather set his sights on bigger horizons, eventually landing in New York, which he absolutely loved.
Until, that is, my father was born. He was a “blue baby,” a condition caused by a congenital defect of the heart and/or blood vessels which produces bluish-looking skin. His doctors told his parents they’d have to leave the city in order to extend the boy’s life, one they didn’t think would last but a few years.
So my grandfather, who loved cities and probably feared having to go back to someplace like Womelsdorf, moved the family to Philadelphia, where he assumed the position he held for roughly 25 years as editor of the Messenger, the official German Reformed publication.
The irony, of course, as my father once pointed out, is that the air in Philadelphia was probably far worse than New York’s! Yet in the end, it all worked out. My father died just 6 weeks shy of his 97th birthday, without ever having taken a single medication. In fact, I don’t ever recall him missing a single day of work!
My grandmother, Helen DeLong, had met my grandfather while he was pastor of the First Reformed Church of Easton, Pennsylvania. Like my grandfather, she too was a “pastor’s kid.” At one time her father had served as the chaplain at Penn State and ended his ministry at Bethany Reformed Church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
As an aside, one day, while serving a church outside Philly, I made a pastoral call on a member who was at the U. of Penn. hospital, very close to where my father spent most of his childhood.
I found the family row house in Center City and called my father. “I don’t know how to break this to you,” I began, “but it’s not all that great a neighborhood these days.”
His quick-witted response? “Well I don’t know how to break this to you,” he offered, “but it wasn’t all that great a neighborhood back then either!”
In any event, the stage was now set for my parents to meet, in Bermuda of all places.