Sigurd Bryan

Published on June 14, 2017

Sigurd-Bryan "I found out that I enjoyed teaching and the prospects of staying on there as a teacher and the prospects of being a pastor... I knew when I tried to preach I really was just teaching. That's what was natural."

Chapters

Early Life and Background

Dr Sigurd Bryan talks about his early life growing up in Alabama.

Clayhatchee, Alabama

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Coming to Howard College and the Call to Ministry

Dr Bryan talks about recieving the call to Christian ministries, and his decision to attend Howard College in Birmingham, Alabama.

Site of the East Lake campus of Howard College

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Student at Howard College

Dr Bryan discusses his experiences as a student at Howard College.

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Seminary

Dr Bryan talks about his experiences at Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

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Becoming a Teacher; Professor at Howard College

Dr Bryan talks about his decision to become a professor at Howard College and his experiences there.

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The Transition from East Lake to Homewood

Dr Bryan talks about the transition of Howard College from the East Lake Campus to the current campus in Homewood, Alabama, as well as discussion his relationship with Major Davis.

Samford University

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More on life as a student at Howard

Dr Bryan shares more stories from his time as a student at Howard College.

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Changes to Howard during WWII

Dr Bryan explains some of the changes to the curriculum at Howard College and the Navy V-12 program during World War II.

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Life as a Professor; Expectations and changes to the Curriculum.

Dr Bryan talks more about his time as a professor at Samford University, and explains what was expected of him, and the changes to the courses and curriculum during his time there.

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Reflections on University Presidents

Dr Bryan reflects on the lives of three presidents of Howard College and Samford University from his perspective as both a student and as a professor.

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Baptist Student Choir

Dr Bryan talks about his involvement with the BSU Choir at Samford University.

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H-Day

Dr Bryan talks about H-Day at Samford University, and details his involvement with the program.

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The Impact of Christianity on Samford

Dr Bryan reflects on how the Christian character of Samford has shaped the school. He also talks about what makes Samford different from other Christian schools.

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Transcript

BRYAN KESSLER: We are going to start off with just some personal background.
First of all where were you born?

SIGURD BRYAN: I was born in Barbour County, Alabama in a rural area not far from
Clayton, Alabama and reasons for my being born there was this: my mother and
dad, my mother was a native of Barbour County but she and her family, when she
was a teenager, moved to Dale County, to a little farming community called
Clayhatchee. My dad was a native there, so at times they got to know each other
and eventually marry and begin their married life in Clayhatchee. My older
brother, Wayne, was born there in 1921. Then my mother still had a brother who
remained in Barbour County and he had married one of the Barbour County girls.
Her father had a bit of land there and so her mother's brother and his wife said
to my folks "Why don't you come to Barbour County?" So they decided to go and
stayed almost a year. During that year I was born. So I'm a native of Barbour
County and then they moved back to Dale County, back to Clayhatchee and remained
there, I don't really know how long, maybe several years, but before I was
school age we moved to Dothan, Alabama and I really grew up mostly in Dothan and
after we moved to Dothan my mother and daddy had another child, a girl, my only
sister, Lilian, was born in Dothan, 1926. I was born in 1924 and so let me go
back and tell you the origin of my name Sigurd because a lot of people wonder
about it. The night I was born, it was in January, the weather was cold, and
when my mother felt that it was about time for me to be born, she suggested that
we go over to that older brother of hers and his wife. They had a larger house
and my mother knew that they would need some help when I was born. They went
over to her house and so they called Dr. Bennett, he was a doctor there in (?).
He came out and my mother said she wasn't quite ready so he said "If you'll just
give me a place to lie down until she's ready. You just call me." They did that
and a little after midnight they called him and I was born and he had forms to
fill out of course and he wanted to fill them out and get back to Clayton so he
got down to the point where it says the name of the child. "What are you going
to name this boy?" he asked. I'm sure that they had, you didn't know it was
going to be a boy until it took place, so I'm sure they had thought about some
names but had not settled, not knowing whether it was a boy or a girl and it
must have been a moment of hesitation there and when he asked "What are you
going to name this boy?" I don't know whether they talked a little bit but
anyway there was some hesitation and my older, my mother's oldest brother, his
wife was sitting right there and she said "Why don't you name him Sigurd?" She
had read the stories, Sigurd, Beowulf, Roland, the ancient heroes, and she was
in 4th or 5th grade and she had always wanted somebody in the family to use the
name Sigurd, so here was her chance. And they did. That's how I got my name. I
was given no middle name at the time. Just Sigurd Bryan. S-I-G-U-R-D. So I don't
know if that particularly helps you. Before I was a year old, I guess, and then
before I was school age, we moved to Dothan. My daddy was so tired of, I don't
think he really enjoyed farming, but he grew up on a farm and so when they moved
to Dothan, that's where I started school and I went, we didn't own a house for
years. We just rented and Dad got a job with Harris Furniture Company and he
remained working in the furniture business the rest of his life. He worked with
Harris a while and then later moved to Marianna, Florida and he worked with (?)
Forehand, a company that was in Panama City, Florida and Mr. Forehand was from
Enterprise, Alabama and Mr. (?) was his son-in-law so they started in that
furniture business. The main store was in Panama City and then they wanted to
start some stores in Marianna, so when they decided to start a store in
Marianna, they got Mr. Forehand's son named Rex, Rex Forehand. He was young and
I don't know how they got my daddy because he was working in Dothan but they got
his name and he was invited to come down and work in that new store in Marianna.
Marianna's not far from Dothan. So my daddy decided to go so we moved to
Marianna. I had just finished the 5th grade and that particular year, I forget
the reasons why, Dothan was promoting students who had done very well to skip a
grade. My brother was in the 8th grade. He was promoted to the 10th. I was in
5th grade. I was promoted to the 7th. We moved to Marianna and my brother began
in the 10th grade. They accepted what the other schools had done and they were
willing to accept my promotion to the 7th. My mother and daddy said (?) and they
had a 6th grade, so I went through the 6th grad there and we stayed one more
year and I did the 7th grade there and then we moved back to Alabama. We moved
to Enterprise. That's where was Rex was. He'd been the manager of the Marianna
store and Rex's dad said "Rex if you'll come back home, I'll put you in a
business here in Enterprise." He did that and Rex said to my dad "How about
going with me?" They had become good friends. So we moved to Enterprise, Alabama
after 2 years in Marianna. I went through 8th grade in Enterprise. Coffee County
High School. My dad got dissatisfied and we moved back to Dothan. He began at a
used furniture store and then he got to working with a regular furniture store
with a man named Heikowitz and he was a Jew, good man. He worked for him a
number of years and then he went to one other place, Bloomberg. Bloomberg's was
one of the best places in Dothan. They were Jews and he went to Bloomberg and
started a furniture store so Daddy had me working for them. He stayed with them
until his death, so I went through the first 5 years in Dothan, 6 & 7th in
Marianna, Florida, 8th grade in Enterprise, Alabama and then back to Dothan to
get my last 3 years of high school, no, 4. 10th, 11th...my 4 years in high
school I spent in Dothan. They had a good school system and then after
graduating from Dothan High School, by that time I felt that the Lord was
calling me into some kind of mission service. I figured it probably would be,
but in those days the options were not as many as they are now and if you felt a
call to ministry, Christian ministry, you thought it would either be education
or music or pastoral work. I loved music but I didn't think I was qualified to
go into music. I didn't particularly care to be in education so I figured it
must be a pastor, preaching, teaching, so I graduated from Dothan High School. I
decided to go to Howard College. Small college, Birmingham, my pastor had gone
there, but that was one pull I had going there and I rode and got accepted and
going to Birmingham from Dothan was quite a change for me but I went and at the
time Howard College, my catalog at Howard, "the Friendly College." That appealed
to me so I enrolled at Howard College. We had about 500 students and at the end
of that first year, no, not even that long, the fall quarter was football, so it
was fairly normal. It didn't (?). Had a friend from Hartford, Alabama, my
roommate, Page Kelly, and we had asked him that previous year, he was at
Hartford, Alabama at the high school there so we met at a Bible conference. His
uncle brought him to the conference and my pastor brought me to the conference
at Troy, First Baptist Troy, and I when I got to Howard College, I'll never
forget, I moved up there by myself, didn't have a car, got off the train, and
walked out to the corner of, to the main streets of downtown Birmingham to catch
a streetcar. Birmingham had the streetcars then. It went all the way to Howard
College in East Lake and I asked a policeman right there "How can this streetcar
know that I want to get off?" "Just step out there on the sidewalk." "How will I
know what to pay?" He told me. I got on and this big suitcase with me and set
down. I wondered how I'd let them know when to get off. He said "well you just
reach up and pull the string." I said "I know where I'm going but I just don't
know when I'll get there." I kept watching and I'd see people pull the string
and get off and it kept going and finally he said, "Right over there is Howard
College," but I was looking the other way and I turned around and looked and
there was the campus, so I jumped up and got off. At Renfroe Hall, which was a
boy dorm at the time and Mrs. Bookman was the, what do you call it? She was
the...in charge of the dormitory and she welcomed me. She said "We've been
looking for you" and she said "Have you had lunch?" I said "No." The main lunch
was over but she said "Come on, we can still get you something." So I ate lunch
there and then she told me "You have already got a roommate. You know Page
Kelly?" "Yes." "Well he has arranged for y'all to be roommates." That's so
great, you know. So I felt like the Lord had gone ahead of me again to help me
but I knew nothing about city life, I knew nothing about college life, and
that's the one person I knew. He had come to summer school and he was
well-versed in what college life was all about. So we were on the first floor
upstairs. She showed me how to get up there and I don't know whether Page was
there that afternoon. He was probably working somewhere, but anyway, we became
roommates and we had to move out of Renfroe Hall pretty early in the new year.
We would have started that fall and what happened was, one of the units of the
Navy V-12 program moved in. This was when (?)  and so when the Navy came in, we
had to move out, so all of us who were in the dorm, found places at home that
were around the campus. People opened up their homes to us, to the students,
especially ones that were not married. So Page and I roomed together with one
family and then come January, we moved to another home and then I guess it was
the beginning of the next year, we moved to still another home and we lived in
that home until he finished. He finished a year ahead of me because he'd gone to
summer school. I moved out to that home and moved to a home near the campus,
just across the street from the campus and lived there my third year and then
moved to still another home for my senior year. both homes were very near to the
campus, but I finished Howard College in the spring of 1946, having entered in
1942 and when the Navy came in, they put the college on the trimester system so
the Navy ones could go to school year round, so I went to my second and third
year, second and third years at Howard College when they had the Navy program.
We had classes together, but the school didn't think of the curriculum geared
with the Navy, so at the end of my first year, Page had, let's see... Page and I
continued to be roommates even though we were living in homes until my third
year and then on to the fourth year and my fourth year he finished and (?) and
so after my fourth year, I moved to a house even nearer the campus, just across
the street from the campus and lived there with two other fellows and I
graduated in that spring. My mother and daddy came up to graduation. My older
brother in the meantime had felt the call to preach and he went to Bob Jones
College. Bob Jones had grown up down here in Dothan and still has a strong
influence down there. So many people in Dothan had gone to Bob Jones. At that
time it was in Cleveland, Tennessee, so my brother and a friend of his decided
to go to Bob Jones. They went to Tuscaloosa hoping to find a job so they could
go to the University of Alabama but they couldn't get a job, so my brother, my
older brother, went to Bob Jones College and he had to work while he was there,
but he finished in 4 years and then he went out to New Orleans Baptist Seminary
and got his doctorate there and then began to serve at churches. After I
graduated from Howard College, I went to the same seminary that Page was already
there. Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. It was another
seminary for Southern Baptists and I guess it was--we roomed together my first
year of seminary. He asked to room but in the meantime he got engaged and
married the following summer and I happened to be his best man so he got married
to this girl, Bernice Macintosh, and she had a sister who lived in Laurel,
Mississippi, and so they had their wedding at her home and I was in a meeting
with a friend that we had met at Howard who was down near Jackson, Alabama, a
country church down there at a revival meeting and Page was going to be married.
He and Bernice were going to be married in Laurel, Mississippi. I happened to be
his best man. I got someone from that church to take me to Laurel that Sunday
afternoon to Jackson, Alabama. So my second year in seminary I was rooming by
myself because Page had married and he was still in seminary. second year was
the same as the third year, living by myself and I got my first degree there,
master of divinity, three years, I'd gotten a bachelor's degree from Howard
College, went to seminary for three years, got another bachelor's degree, but
that's the way it was at the time. Started a seminary degree for three years of
work, bachelor's (?). They've maybe changed that. When I finished my third year
at the seminary and got that bachelor of divinity degree, I felt that I wasn't
ready to leave. I wanted to stay on and do some additional work and found out
that my grades were sufficient that I could do that. I had not knocked the top
out of my creative that I had-- I had high enough grades that I was accepted
into graduate work, so Page in the meantime, it was he and his wife, got
interested in missions, and they volunteered to go to Rio and teach Hebrew in
the what's the name? The seminary at Rio. Not in Brazil, so he and Bernice went
to (?) stayed with (?), came back and asked him to teach at seminary while he
was at home and while they had two, eventually had three girls, and Page was a
good teacher and the seminary at Louisville knew that and he had majored in
Hebrew and he wrote his thesis. His thesis was an interpretation of the book of
Malachi. Very good interpretation and the seminary in Louisville asked him to
stay and teach there but he went back to the mission field and I don't know how
long they'd been back, they had a child and the child died, soon after birth.
That was especially hard on his wife. They had two older girls, three older
girls. Anyway the seminary asked Page again if he would come back and teach
there and they may not have knew what had happened, especially his wife. He felt
that she needed to get away from there, so this time they acceded to their
request at the seminary so they came back home, came back to Louisville and he
began a tenure at the seminary in Louisville, teaching Old Testament Hebrew,
Ancient Old Testament, whatever, So when I went to the seminary, we were there
together but then they went to the mission field and by the time they came back,
I was still working on my doctorate degree, but I finished pretty soon after
they came back. He stayed on and when I finished my dissertation, I wrote my
dissertation on the Messianic teachings of the prophet Jeremiah, I had gotten
interested in the Messianic teaching the Old Testament, had a professor who, he
just said a lot about that theme, Old Testament, so I wrote that as my thesis
and when I got that handed it in, I had another decision to make. What was I
going to do? I had been at seminary for about ten years and so I knew that
almost every year, churches would send pulpit committees to the seminary to talk
with graduate students, students who have graduated. I felt that probably that
would happen to me but it didn't. I still thought that I would be a pastor.
People would ask me while I was doing graduate work "Are you going to teach?"
"No I'm not planning to teach." I thought "No I'll be a pastor." I had
determined that I would be what I call a teaching pastor. I had a professor like
that in high school and me meant a great deal to me and I felt that when I tried
to preach I really was teaching, so that's what I had felt. I had come to feel
that way but nothing opened. I wondered why. Then just a few weeks before I was
to graduate, I received this letter from Major Harwell Davis who was still
president at Howard College. He'd been president when I was there. He knew me.
He had two sons. He said "Sigurd there's a possibility of an opening in our
Bible and religious education department next fall. Would you be interested?"
And, you know, my initial response was "No I'm not interested. That's not what I
want to do." so I thought. I didn't answer right away. I waited several days
before I answered him and I wrote finally and I said "Major Davis, I don't know
whether I’m interested or not because this is not what I thought I would do.
Can you tell me more of what I would do if I came?" He wrote back a full letter
this time. I still wasn't satisfied. I said "May I come down and talk with you?"
"Yes." So on Tuesday before I was to graduate the following Saturday, I came
down to that interview with him and he said "Let's put it this way. We have a
growing student body." Had about 1,700 students by that time. "We lost two men
in the religion department and we need somebody else and since you don't have
anything else to do right now would you be willing to come and teach for a year?
That would solve our problem right now and after a year if you feel this is not
what you ought to do and you want to leave we'll understand." Nobody could've
been fairer to me than that, so I said "OK" but I didn't sign the contract that
day. I came on home and waited about a week. I was at Bible camp for that first
week. I went up to that camp that week, went home for the weekend, to go camping
next week but the weekend that was on, I threw out my contract and said "OK I'll
come for at least a year." I remember going into my first class. Old Testament
Survey, a required course. I didn't know whether I had enough material to last
for an hour or not, but at the end of that year, Bryan, an unusual thing
happened. During that year, Major Davis had said "You'll probably have more
opportunities to preach while you’re here than if you were a pastor." Well, he
was right. At that time, so many of the churches, especially the rural churches,
called Howard College asking "Do you have somebody who can fill pulpit..." and
so on. Most of them out to lunch was in the department and another man they had
hired the same time they hired me was Arthur Walker and he was finishing up at
New Orleans the same time I was finishing up at Louisville so we both came at
the same time. So, at the end of that first year, Dr. (?) who'd already been
there 2 years was serving, I guess as an interim pastor of a church in the
Birmingham area. He asked me if I would fill in. I said "I'd be glad to." After
I'd been there several Sundays I got a call from the chair of the pulpit
committee. "Would you be with our committee?" I said "Yes." They picked out a
day and we met and he said "What we want to do is to ask you, would you allow us
to present your name to our church as a possible pastor?" I said "Don't tell me
that." I said "If this was happening a year ago I would have jumped at it." I
couldn't quite understand what happened the year after that, so I told them
"I'll just have to wait several days before I can tell you." I thought about it,
tried to pray about it and thought about my year that I taught for a year and
found out that I liked it, but I told him "You know, I thought I would be a
teaching pastor and that may not be the kind of person you're looking for."
"That's exactly the kind of person we're looking for." I said "Don't tell me
that." It was a hard decision, in a sense it was, but here's how I resolved it.
It was as though the Lord was saying "A year ago you thought you wanted to be a
pastor and nothing opened and this teaching position opens. You've taught now
for a year. Now you can have your choice if you still want to be a pastor here's
an opportunity. If you like teaching stay here and you can do that." So here's
the way I resolved it. I felt that the Lord was saying "You can become a pastor
if you want to and you can remain a teacher if you want to but I think about a
year ago I tried to show you what I thought the way you ought to go" and when I
thought like that I thought I knew what I was supposed to do. I found out that I
enjoyed teaching and the prospects of staying on there as a teacher and the
prospects of being a pastor...I knew when I tried to preach I really was just
teaching. That's what was natural. I told the committee "I appreciate it you
extending your invitation to me, but I'll tell you I feel I'm where I'm supposed
to be." I never felt anything about it but the Lord had opened up the door for
me to do what I really could do best. I got to thinking bout this; the fellows
that I had been close to in seminary. They had heard me, one man especially,
James Clark. He was the oldest student and we got to know each other in seminary
but he was from Alabama and he had me in every church he served to teach a Bible
study, generally that it was real strong during those years. We'd have a January
Bible study, winter bible study. He had me for bible studies, he had me for
Bible meetings. he had heard me teach, he had heard me try to preach, so one day
he finished up his seminary, went back to Alabama and he was on the campus one
day and the man who had become head of the finances of the college was a former
mayor in Jasper, Alabama. I had come to know him because beginning my second
year in college, I became assistant pastor of the First Baptist Church in
Jasper, Alabama and this man was mayor and taught a big Sunday school class at
our church so he knew me. He was at the college. My friend James was talking to
him one day and he said "You know, the president is looking for somebody to
teach in the religion department this fall. Do you know anybody?" James said
"Yes, Sigurd Bryan that just graduated from seminary. He doesn't have nowhere to
go." He told the mayor in Jasper (?) at the college and that man told Major
Davis. He gave Major Davis my name and the rest is history. So the Lord used
someone who knew me better than I knew myself. I believe strongly that the Lord
works through human beings. That was just unusual then. (?) I came to Howard
College to teach in the fall of 1946.No, I finished college in 1946. I came back
to teach at Howard in 1956.

BRYAN KESSLER: So they were still at East Lake?

SIGURD BRYAN: Still at East Lake. I got back in time to spend one year on that
old campus as a teacher and then the summer, this was 1956, summer of 1957, we
moved to the present campus.

BRYAN KESSLER: How did that transition go?

SIGURD BRYAN: It went smoothly. It was in the summertime and Major Davis had
been (?) for a long time, retired and he got Grover Hemboldt(?) who had gone
there as a student, he had been at (?) Airfield during the Second World War and
had begun coming to our church in Dothan. I had known him by that time for
several years. We were working up in (?) and had gone to Duke got my master's
degree at Duke and so he went out, he'd been around books, libraries, a long
time, so he invited him to be the new librarian. Wilbur got that just in time
when we moved over. His wife is still living, she's still at our church. Wilbur
is deceased, but as an eighteen-year-old boy who finished out of Dothan High
School, went to Howard College, and then went to the seminary, I look back and
see how the Lord used human personalities at very significant junctures to get
me--in other words, I think that James Clark helped me find my niche. I had
always enjoyed teaching and I realized that when people call on me to do
something it was usually teaching. I did some preaching at churches. Supplied,
that kind of thing but...I was doing what I should have done, teaching, so
Howard was about five hundred students I think, when I first went there as a
student. It was indeed the friendly college. I had some wonderful teachers. I
never had to apologize for my college training when I went to the seminary. I
started in my second year Greek, but I had had some Greek at Howard College. By
finishing at Howard, I was well prepared for seminary and friends that I had
known, friends that I had made, so many of them also went to the same seminary I
went to, so it was just like a little Howard College up there almost and some of
them are still friends. A lot are deceased of course, but it was a good place
for me to be. I should say that at the end of my freshman year at Howard, when I
first went to Howard, I had enough money that I figured would last me until
Thanksgiving. I had worked some my last year in high school. I had become
secretary of the church. A few churches, then my pastor, he and his wife had
seven children, Bryan. seven children. The way the church paid him was, he said
"I want my salary to be on a percentage basis." So if you wanted to have a
bigger salary you would (?) and he and his wife had seven children, what I would
call (?). As I was leaving for my freshman year, he and his wife gave me the
gift of seventy-five dollars. That’s a lot of money then. What they gave me
and what I had been able to earn myself, I figured it would last me about until
thanksgiving and it did, but they had (?) from ministerial students so I got
that (?) but I had to find me a job. I went down to Sear's and they were real
good in those days about hiring college students. I got a job working at a boy's
clothing department and instead of going home Thanksgiving I just stayed and
worked. Went for Christmas of course. Then that spring, as the spring semester
was ending, I'd think about "What am I going to do this summer?" I didn't want
to go to summer school and I got a letter from my home pastor. He said "Would
you be willing to serve as my assistant during the summer?" I said "You don't
know how much I would." I came back to Dothan and to my home church and helped
him do some Bible school and did a Bible school with the country churches where
the pastor was preaching. It was a wonderful summer and then when the fall came
I thought "What am I going to do during the fall?" I don't want to go back to
Sear’s. I got a letter from (?) Guffin who was pastor of the First Baptist
Church in Jasper. He said "We need someone to work with our young people to be
my assistant. We've had a student here. He's fixing to go to the seminary. Would
you be willing to come up and let us interview you?" So I went to Jasper that
Sunday, that weekend, rather, and this is toward the end of the summer. I talked
with him. He was a native Georgian. Dr. Guffin and he went to Eastern Baptist
Seminary where his teacher was Dr. W. W. Adams who was from Alabama. Lives out
here in Chelsea. I went up for that interview. I was doing a little singing in
those days. I could lead singing in the church and would sing solos once in a
while when they didn't have anybody else to sing. They were interested in that
part of my life but working with young people would be my main job. Visitation
at homes. They hired me. I found out, this was years ago, they only had two
people (?) and he was a real good musician, but he was a senior that year and
they probably would have chosen him but they said we could only have you for one
year. I was finishing my, I just finished my freshman year and on that basis
mainly I was chosen. Spent three happy years there working full time in the
summer, weekends during the school year, so during those last three years, I was
never on campus during the weekends. You would usually go to amateur (?) but
we...and we had other student gatherings on the campus. I was active in the life
of campus during the week. I always enjoyed my courses. I majored in history.
Dr. William Dale was my main professor. Most of the professors were gone due to
the war and what happened about my service, I never was in the service. I
thought I was going to be because I went there, I started in 1942. I'd just
finished in high school and I was the perfect age to be drafted and when I got
to college, Major Davis said, he wrote to all of the, what do you call them? He
wrote to all of the...

BRYAN KESSLER: Draft boards?

SIGURD BRYAN: That's right. He wrote to all of the draft boards that all of us
freshmen were ministerial students. He said "If we draft all these people, we
won't have any preachers when the war's over." He said "I want to urge you to
(?) so that when the war's over we'll have some preachers ready." They heeded
that and I never heard from my draft board anymore. Page, he was the same age I
was. Page got one of those letters too. He was not drafted. He wrote back and
said I want you to draft me." There was a question on the form that said "Are
you willing to go? Are you willing to be drafted?" He said "Yes." Do you think
you should? "Yes." That's the reason I didn't go to the service. I know I would
have been drafted otherwise. I feel like I missed something by not picking the
service, at the same time, that was four years, by the time I got to senior
year, some of those fellows had gone in our freshman year, had been drafted, and
they were just getting back to college. Some of them never came back. I look
back on a lot of times that I had a stewardship that some of them did not have.
At the same time I feel like there's a part of my life that I never did know.
The military life.

BRYAN KESSLER: You did say that at Howard, you said that the program sort of
changed to a Navy program or a Navy preparation. Can you explain a little bit more?

SIGURD BRYAN: The curriculum?

BRYAN KESSLER: Yes.

SIGURD BRYAN: It was a trimester system so they'd go to school year round and
try to get them out as soon as possible. We met some fine young people. One boy
especially I remember was a ministerial student but he was in the Navy and he
went on through, the war was over, so he began the seminary and (?) for a long
time. Wonderful young man. So we got to know a lot of them because we were in
classes together, we ate together in the dining hall. That one boy, especially,
was an outstanding pianist. He could play the piano. He would give concerts
while he was there. I know we had one other young man who was like myself,
wonderful voice, and then a young lady who was a good pianist. One night, Hank
Beavey was his name, Hank gave a concert, and these two friends were on stage
with him just to help him but they stayed back, you know, and he was playing,
what's that song? It's one of the familiar classical pieces. He was playing it
and these two friends were standing over there, just behind part of the curtain,
and they were crying. It was so beautiful, you know. Don't really know what
happened to him but he was in a music career. He was in the Navy.

BRYAN KESSLER: So they were taking classes with y'all in preparation before they
shipped out?

SIGURD BRYAN: I don't know what the Navy was training them for. It was called
the V-12 program and I guess a lot depended on--I don't know if they were
training them to be officers, but the Navy wanted them to have a college degree
and from there I don't know. I guess it depended on what the boys themselves
were interested in. That happened during my second year and my third year and by
the fourth year, they were through with that program and the war was about to
end. During my fourth year (?) in 1945 and then I graduated in the spring of
1946. By the time of my senior year, things were sort of back to normal again,
so I was under three systems. My first year, two semester system, normal for
college life, second year, third year, on the trimester system, as part of the
V-12 program. fourth year, we were back, we went on the quarter system. Semester
system, trimester system, quarter system. I've done had three systems while I
was there and then I graduated.

BRYAN KESSLER: What system were they on by the time you came back as a professor?

SIGURD BRYAN: What it is now. two semesters a year.

BRYAN KESSLER: Did they have the January term then as well?

SIGURD BRYAN: That was instituted after I came back. Started out January
term...I think it started after I came back.

BRYAN KESSLER: In terms of when you did come back as a professor, what was the
course load like? What was expected of you as a professor?

SIGURD BRYAN: I had heavy loads. Standard load, this was a standard load for a
full time professor, five courses...five courses. Big sections of the required
courses and then finally after Dr. Wheeler became the, well they came to call it
the provost. He was vice president for the teaching administration. He got it
reduced to four and then by the time I had my last years there, they changed it,
at least with arts and sciences, they had changed the curriculum again and
reduced the teaching load to three courses. From five to four to three, but they
raised the hours you could get with these courses. Three hour courses became
four hour courses.

SARAH BRYAN: Y'all want any water, lemonade, ginger ale, cranberry juice?

BRYAN KESSLER: I'll take a little water please.

SARAH BRYAN: OK. Sigurd?

SIGURD BRYAN: I'll take a little cranberry juice. That's right it was...there
was another program, Bryan, you may have heard of. They used all the teachers
for it. I can't even remember the name of it now. It did not affect me either
way. I just had my regular load.

BRYAN KESSLER: When did that come in? When was that?

SIGURD BRYAN: That was before they changed the curriculum in 1997, I guess.

BRYAN KESSLER: OK, because 1997 is when they instituted the core curriculum and
changed the hours.

SIGURD BRYAN: That's right. The new curriculum, it started in 1997, incorporated
some of the features of this...that did not impress everybody. You could choose
but I was never one of the teachers in that. Paid more than what the average
was. I think they were the two in our department that were not quite as (?) with
that new curriculum and then 1997 they revamped the whole arts and sciences. I
did not--my chief concern was with the required course. the whole time I was
there until then, the two courses that all students had to take, Old Testament
Survey, New Testament Survey and then they got where you could, some students
had to take only one of them and then they had that course and Christian Ethics,
they called it a substitute course. They put that it was, that basic course in
religion...the Old Testament Survey and New Testament Survey was sort of
combined and raised it to a four hour course and you only had to take one
religion course.

BRYAN KESSLER: And that's the biblical perspectives, what it became?

SIGURD BRYAN: I'm not sure what that was supposed to be. To me it was always a
vague type of course. I just ended up teaching passages from Old Testament and
New Testament surveys because I thought "How can I give a student a perspective
of the Bible until they know something of what the Bible is about?" So I never
did feel satisfied with the way I taught that. To me the Old Testament Survey
and New Testament survey was better than one course in Biblical Perspectives. I
guess it's that course, it's still, I know it's still with...

BRYAN KESSLER: In terms of being a professor in the religion department at a
Christian school teaching a required course that everybody's coming into, how
was the student reaction with that? I know those classes can sometimes be
challenging for students coming in. What was your experience teaching that class
to students?

SIGURD BRYAN: Well I found that many students looked forward to it. It was a
Christian college and taking something in Bible was sort of expected. Some of
them had looked forward to it. Some of them did not care for it, wondered why
they had to take it when they were majoring in something else. Most of them had
some appreciation for it, I think. I know one year I had a Roman Catholic girl
in class and I gave her this (?) and she didn't do very well at all on the first
test she had and she came by the office and she said "I want to apologize. I've
made a low grade. She said “I never studied the Bible before." Most of the
students grew up in Sunday school, they were somewhat familiar with the Bible.
She said "I appreciated it. I appreciate the Bible and I want to improve my
grade" and she did. She improved her grade tremendously but we didn't have many
people like that. Some of them came into class, "I've been in Sunday school all
my life, I know this." They didn't know as much as they thought they knew
because, you know, when you get down to it, actual teaching, I think that you
need some knowledge of it. You needed something of the content before you knew
about the perspective, but anyway, I know some of the professors were real good
at it. We had one man who, he would take one book in the New Testament, just one
book in the New Testament, and spend the whole semester with that. Some of them
had different ways of getting more Bible content in the course but I just didn't
really figure that I knew what was expected. I did not know how to give a
student a Biblical Perspective until I knew something about it.

BRYAN KESSLER: In terms of while you were a professor and then I guess as a
student as well, you were essentially there for the lives of presidents in
Howard's and Samford's history. I wonder your reflections upon the differences
each one brought in the role and how that impacted campus life, if there were
any big differences. Could you tell the changes when a different president was in?

SIGURD BRYAN: I guess those who worked with him (?) better than I but I was
there the last year of Major Davis'. Major Davis wanted to serve one year on the
new campus so I had his last year on the old campus and the first year on the
new campus but Dr. Wright was sort of his understudy. then Dr. Wright took over
and served for twenty-five years and he came to building the facilities--hired
him to build the new campus. He did. Amazing. He was a good man. He was a good
speaker. I knew him personally. I felt like he knew me personally. He was very
thoughtful to all of us in the religion department. He said "Y'all are gonna get
a lot of calls preaching churches, teaching churches. We encourage you to do
that. We realize we can't pay what you ought to be paid so you take all these
opportunities that you can" so all of the department who were interested in that
kind of thing, we had a lot of opportunities. He did not want us to take a
church that had a pastor. If he became an interim pastor, Dr. Wright would
prefer that you not stay too long. I don't know if he was able to hold that,
with all that going on but he would not hold it strictly. I never had any
problem with that and Dr. Wright, he was able to lead in the building, so many
things here, the basic campus, but when we started that fall, we had Samford
Hall, we had the library, we had the boys' dorm and the girls' dorm, one
building each, and then we had, we didn't have the religion building until 1960,
so we started out teaching classes in what is now the library upstairs. The
building it was temporary. I think we had Reid Chapel building, I think it was
built in 1960. When they added all the religion courses and we taught over
there, Dr. Wright called me in. Said it was appropriate that the big, what do
you call it, big center.

BRYAN KESSLER: The Wright Center.

SIGURD BRYAN: The Wright Center.

BRYAN KESSLER: The big fine arts center.

SIGURD BRYAN: The big fine arts building, that Wright, during his
administration, that it was named after him and then Dr. Corts came on the scene
and he was more of an academician I guess you'd say. He was a very learned man,
outstanding speaker, but he had majored in, what do you call that, when you
major in that area?

BRYAN KESSLER: Communication?

SIGURD BRYAN: No not communication...anyway he got his doctorate degree at
Indiana University. Just to give you an indication what that education was, last
year he was there, the senior class invited him to be the commencement speaker.
He was a very warm-hearted man. He was not raised down in the South. He was
raised in the Midwest in a large family. he was a good president and as the
school grew some more, they'd have, as they'd done with dr. Wright, some
building that was there...but he was just...he was what you'd think of when
you'd think of a college president. He really was learned and he was interested
in that kind of thing. When did Dr. Westmoreland come?

BRYAN KESSLER: In 2006.

SIGURD BRYAN: I retired in 2002, so Dr. Corts was still there. Did we have an
interim President?

BRYAN KESSLER: Dr. Corts was there up until Dr. Westmoreland.

SIGURD BRYAN: That's right. I guess I was at the full time, one year there with
Major Davis. Well two years, I guess. Dr. Wright was there twenty-five years. I was there
for all of his and almost all of Dr. Corts. He was a good man. He was different
from Major Davis was what the college students at the time, Dr. Wright helped
design, then Dr. Corts came in, got it well established, academic interest. I
think it was under him that the school became more and more known nationally.

BRYAN KESSLER: I know you have associations with a good number of programs
Samford's been involved with but I'm interested with a couple in particular, the
first being the Baptist Student Choir. I know you had some relationships with
that. I wonder about your experiences.

SIGURD BRYAN: I've always loved music. Never have been a musician, but I've
always loved music but have never been in a choir. Most college campuses used to
have them, a music choir, I guess I started teaching in 1956. This was about
1959. The (?) choir was led at the time by a student, Aubrey Edwards, over at
(?). I knew the pastor up there. North Alabama. Anyway, Aubrey was directing the
choir and they wanted to go tour before he--he was graduated. He graduated in
'69, so they said "Take a week." They picked out Mother's Day weekend that year
and they asked me if I would go along with them as kind of a backup sponsor so I
went with them and kind of gave advice and we, my wife was in that choir. She
was in choir for one year. That was the freshman year that she joined the choir.
We started out at Albertville, Alabama that Friday night. The next morning we
drove down to Panama City to the beach. That night we went to this Baptist
church in Panama City, had a concert. Next Sunday morning, we got out early, no,
Saturday night after we finished at Panama City, they had finished with the
concert, we had (?) and then drove down to, what's the name of that place down
there? Panama City, and then...

BRYAN KESSLER: Pensacola?

SIGURD BRYAN: No, before you get to Pensacola.

BRYAN KESSLER: Tallahassee? That’s about my Florida knowledge.

SIGURD BRYAN: Sarah?

SARAH BRYAN: Yeah?

SIGURD BRYAN: What's the name of that town in Florida where we went during the
summer several times?

SARAH BRYAN: Fort Walton?

SIGURD BRYAN: yeah, thank you. Fort Walton. We drove to Fort Walton Saturday
night. It was pretty late by the time we got there but the people were waiting
for us. They wanted to know where we were going to stay and early Sunday morning
we did a concert. we did a concert somewhere in the morning and then we would
have had the day before we went to the aquarium at Fort Walton and then we drove
down to another town in North Florida. One of the girls in the choir was from
there and we lodged at her home and then we drove down to Mobile and it was
going to be close, so they got a highway patrolman to go on ahead of us so we
would get--it was 2 cars, that escort, so we could drive fast, and we had a
concert, then we had a fellowship and then drove back to Birmingham. Aubrey
Edwards, the director of the choir, was beside us in seminary. That was my first
experience of the choir and then I continued working with him for about 20
years. Every spring we'd have graduation on Friday night or Saturday night, get
up early the next morning and head out. If we had a different part of the
country we'd go...had (?) as a sponsor. I just enjoyed being with the group. I
got to hear their music. I got to know some of the choir real well so it was a
pleasant experience for me. Did that about 20 years, at least, and then the
choir began to change. They all call it the...

BRYAN KESSLER: The University Ministries Choir now.

SIGURD BRYAN: Yeah the University Ministries Choir. They have a new director
every year. Usually a new pianist every year. I've had some great experiences
with--it's always work out that at least one day it'd (?). It was down near the
coast with the beach. They would always find a place where we would go and relax
and have fun together. Those were wonderful years for me because it gave me a
chance to be with a singing group which I had never been a part of. I got to
travel and see things I'd never seen before. We weren't too far from home. We
went as far as Jefferson City, Missouri one time. It was usually in Florida,
Georgia, not too far away. That was my chief extracurricular activity I guess
for a number of years.

BRYAN KESSLER: The other one that I know you got involved in as a director when
they sort of reformat it and changed some things up, I think now it's called
Samford Sunday but it used to be called H-Day. I wonder, the evolution being in
the religion department, you've seen the evolution of that program and your
involvement with it as well.

SIGURD BRYAN: That program started while I was in seminary but it was going when
I came back to teach in 1956. It was well underway and was flourishing and they
had a student who was the president, I guess you'd call it, and they would have
one student to (?) H-Day. It was usually the chairman was the main leader of it,
the H-Day chairman and then he would have an assistant that would help with
finances. They (?) 2 or 3 on one Sunday. We had that many students here.
Samford, when I first came back, had over a hundred ministerial students. Most
of them wanted to preach so that's how the program got started, by these fellows
and people who would come back after the war, felt they were called to preach
while they were in the service. They just wanted a place to preach without the
responsibility of being a pastor and this program was just made for them, so
every Sunday was a paid program and they would, just depending on the offering,
people would be given an opportunity to give an offering and they would use, the
first thing they would do would be to take out a tent ballot (?) and ask for a
mission of some kind, so they would take mission trips in the spring after
school was out. I only went with them one time. I had finished there and gone.
Another time up at Chicago, one of the older churches up there, one summer. I
didn't get to go with them on all their trips. They had a bunch to do and one
year they decided to buy a bus to help them with transportation but it could
only go to one place so then we'd have two H-Days the same day, so eventually it
(?) because it was costing more than it was worth. Always had to have an
approved driver, breakdowns on the bus, we just sold it. The program, after this
big group, went through college, I know ministerial students began dropping and
they finally said that girls could attend their meetings. Some of the fellas
didn't like that. One girl was elected president and some boys would quit coming
to the meetings, believe it or not. Anyway, it got less and less and eventually,
it looked like it was just all over, but then it was revived, the program was
revived, and changed the name of it to Samford Sunday instead of H-Day, but it
was going when I came back to teach and then I saw it when it (?) but it had
weekly meetings. They would participate in there. They'd sing every year. One
year they won the Sweepstakes. It was mainly singing at that time. It was judged
mainly by the singing. Now it's become more than just singing, but the
ministerial association stopped having their meetings. The H-Day program
suffered from that. I just thought it was gone, but then it revived and they
have it again, so what happened was, it was always under supervision, it was
always under the chair of the religion department and he would ask different
ones in the department the phase of it, so from time to time I had an
opportunity to work with it and then when I came back...yeah he was going pretty
strong again when I retired. In the summer after I retired that previous spring.
Dr. Barnett had moved into our department. He'd been campus minister. He moved
into our department to teach, but even then he taught one course and moved into
our department as full-fledged religion professor, so when he did, he inherited
the responsibility of the Samford Sunday program. Somewhere in that thing of it
(?). He came by one day and said "You're retiring now. Would you be interested
and  willing to work with the Samford Sunday program?" I told him I would. I had
worked with him for 10 years. That was in 2002 and this is 2012, so my term of
office, in the end, it was almost...and Wes Spears, senior student, do you know him?

BRYAN KESSLER: I do.

SIGURD BRYAN: He'll be the student coordinator this year. Dr. Barnett will be
working with Wes for the rest of the year. He'll be going out with them on
Sundays and we've got the program lined up for the whole year, for the fall and
for the spring, so churches, they already know what they're having. We did get
that much done before I retired from this program, but it's been a good thing. A
lot of fellows have learned a lot about preaching and I've told them "You need
to take Dr. Barnett's course in preaching, because you need to know how to
construct a sermon." I said "You really learn how to preach by preaching. You
preach in class if you take that course, but that won't be like preaching in a
real church service. That's what I advise you to do." We don't have a larger
pool to draw from than when I first came back. It was over a hundred ministerial
students and we had to have 2 or 3 Samford Sundays on a given Sunday because
that many students wanted to go and you had to sign up if you wanted to go. If
you didn't sign up you didn't get to go. It's been an interesting history
though, to see it, but it's still going and the churches still enjoy having us.
Not all churches want it. We tend not to go in the larger churches. They have
such a full program. We'd go to little country churches or to the smaller
churches, which is good. I've talked to various directors of missions. I've just
talked to them on the phone, but some of them aren't even students, some of
them, just to go on the program every year, will never know how much it meant to
them. But here's one of the byproducts of it, Bryan. Several years ago, this
young man, (?) used to, couldn't go every Sunday. Well he would go every Sunday
that they needed. Every Sunday. He came in my office one day and said "I won't
be going on Sundays anymore." That was a surprise though. "You've been going
regularly." He said "Well I've discovered that that is not what I'm supposed to
do. I thought I was called to preach, but since I've been going out and
preaching I've found out that’s not what I'm supposed to do." I said "Aren't
you glad you discovered this now rather than when you finished the seminary?" So
that's one value of the program. If a fella really has not been called to preach
after he does it a few times, he realizes it, but if he has, it confirms the
call. The more he does it, the more he likes it.

BRYAN KESSLER: I guess my last sort of segment of questions are in your
experience of Howard and Samford as a Christian college, and my question is, in
what way do you think the Christian part of that has impacted the school, that
the school has either reflected that or in what way has it shaped it or made it
distinctive in your experience?

SIGURD BRYAN: I've never been in college anywhere else, so I have that to keep
in mind. A combination of Christianity and learning and then I've appreciated
it. It's been gratifying to know that this is something that is throughout the
campus. I've always known that our president has been a Christian. Most of the
time, our president has been a Baptist I guess, that may not be true but each
one I know of is. Major Davis was a Baptist, Dr. Wright was a Baptist, Dr. Corts
was a Baptist, Dr. Westmoreland is a Baptist, and since we got support, we got a
good bit of money every year from the Alabama Baptist Convention, it started out
as an institution started by the Alabama Baptists, so we maintain that
relationship, so it's always been gratifying to know that our president is a
dedicated Christian and a Baptist. It's been gratifying to me, to know that some
of the finest Christians are not in the religion department. They're in other
departments teaching. Some of the most dedicated Christians you'll find teaching
another course, but they feel called to teach in a different field but they feel
at home in a Christian institution. I know that not all of our professors and
not all of our students are Christians. Some people think if you have a student
at Samford, they're automatically Christian, but not everybody's Christian on
campus. Some become Christians while they're here. I'm sure some leave the
campus and they're still not Christian. They've had a Christian atmosphere for
at least 4 years. That's been gratifying to me to meet some of these other
professors who are so charity oriented and they're just fine. I've enjoyed that
kind of atmosphere. Feel at home in that kind of atmosphere, never been any
pressure on me, I don't know if there's been any pressure on anyone else, that
you have to be Christian to teach here or to go to school here. I know that
Samford is known as a Christian institution. Turns some people onto getting an
education. I think that those people who come to Samford choose to come here.
They want to be in that kind of atmosphere. I feel that I never had to be
ashamed that I was a Christian preacher, to be a part of this school.

BRYAN KESSLER: You said you were going to Howard or I guess right around the
same time, your brother ended up going to Bob Jones, and I wonder if y'all had
ever talked or compared experiences between the two. Both are Christian
colleges. In what way, do you think going to Howard was different than going to
Bob Jones? I guess getting the Christian college aspect from that angle. Did
y'all ever talk about that, the differences?

SIGURD BRYAN: It's something we were both aware of but I don't know if we ever
had a conversation along that particular line. One thing that I was always aware
of, bob Jones himself, I think, was of Methodist background. That's OK. He was a
very fine preacher, devout Christian, and probably the students who went to Bob
Jones were outwardly speaking, more so than maybe our students. The college is
I'm sure still that way today. for one thing, Howard and Samford have this
Baptist background and while we hope that students who aren't Baptist feel good
on our campus, they don't have to be a Baptist to come to the school, and some
of them do and like it here, but I think the fact that it was a Baptist college
and I grew up as a Baptist, I can still (?) here. Bob Jones has got Christians,
all kinds of Christians, all kinds of denominations. Some people like that kind
of atmosphere. I think I could work in an atmosphere like that, but I've heard
that this kind of atmosphere--some of those schools, there's a concerted effort
about Christianity. I think it's done in good will. I think I can be happy in
some of those situations, but I think at Howard, Samford, that a feeling of
freedom that I might not have had at anywhere else. I think that's true.
Sometimes those schools have had some unusual requirements that many of us would
not have enjoyed having. At Samford--and that's part of being a Baptist.
Baptists believe in freedom, freedom of conscience, and I've always felt at home
in that kind of atmosphere.

BRYAN KESSLER: I guess to end, I told you I'd have an opportunity, I know
there's things I've missed, or things that I didn't know to ask about. Or there
any other sort of impressions from your time as a student or your time as a
faculty of Howard or Samford that you would like to share?

JOHNNY BRYAN: Hello!

SIGURD BRYAN: Hey, how are you?

JOHNNY BRYAN: Good and you?

SIGURD BRYAN: Good. Bryan Kessler this is my brother Johnny.

BRYAN KESSLER: Hey how are you?

SIGURD BRYAN: They're from Dothan. My hometown. He's the only one of us who
never left Dothan. There was 4 of us and my sister lives in Talladega, my
brother Wayne that runs his ministry in Louisiana, and Johnny has remained in
Dothan, and I have lived in Birmingham longer than any other place. I was in
Louisville 10 years. His wife is coming up for some surgery tomorrow. She's had
ovarian cancer and was cured--

Audio Information
Attribute	Value
Interviewer	Brian Kessler
Interviewee	Dr Sigurd Bryan
Repository	Samford University Oral History Collection
Accession	SUHist/SamfordHistory/012

Sigurd Bryan

Chapters

Early Life and Background

Coming to Howard College and the Call to Ministry

Student at Howard College

Seminary

Becoming a Teacher; Professor at Howard College

The Transition from East Lake to Homewood

More on life as a student at Howard

Changes to Howard during WWII

Life as a Professor; Expectations and changes to the Curriculum.

Reflections on University Presidents

Baptist Student Choir

H-Day

The Impact of Christianity on Samford

Transcript

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