You may have seen this postcard before. It's been floating around for years. Someone gave me one a long time ago and I became obsessed with the kid on the front known as Larry Larimore, Boy Preacher. It took a while but I tracked him down, luckily just outside of Los Angeles.
Almost sixty years after that postcard photo, Larry is now a co-minister with his wife Gloria at the the New Life Christian Center in El Monte, California. I sat through their sermon on Sunday morning with maybe fifty other people and listened to both he and his wife take turns in the pulpit -- Gloria was even touched by the Holy Ghost (my personal fav) and spoke in tongues. It was mostly gobbly-gook with some Spanish sounding words tossed in for the mostly Latino audience. She was really going to town when I looked over and noticed Larry fighting to stay awake in his throne-like chair on the stage. Just when I thought we'd lost him, he shouted out an "Amen!" that jolted him back to speed.
Here's Larry and Gloria today. I spoke to Larry after the service and he said he traveled all over the country singing and preaching as a kid and it was a great way to grow up. Up close, he was bigger and heavier than I had at first realized, but was completely gracious and very sincere. He seemed humble even -- something you don't find in many preachers. He said he'd gotten out of the ministry for a while in the 70's and 80's selling real estate, but that he was delighted to be back doing what he considered his life's real work.
And no, he's never seen a penny from the image used on those postcards.
Good friends of mine! Bless them!
ReplyDeleteI found the postcard you mentioned in a pile of postcards that I used to collect and thought I'd look up what happened to the kid preacher, leading me to come across your site. Thank you for this bit of info- very interesting!
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