Heather and I had just prepared our morning coffee and tea. We were sitting outside the camper and watching the sun come up over one of our favorite places — Delaware Seashore State Park. The campground is located on the Indian River, where it empties into the ocean. It’s a great place to fish along the rocks and surf. It was about 6:30 a.m.
My phone rang. My oldest brother, Bill, doesn’t call me that early in the morning. As I lifted the phone to answer the call, I said to Heather, “This can’t be good.”
It wasn’t. My dad had suffered a massive stroke — paralyzing his entire left side. There are moments in life — sudden moments — when you realize life will never be the same again. We’ve all had moments like that. We quickly gathered ourselves and drove to the Lehigh Valley Hospital Center in Allentown.
What we found was an incredibly active and strong 88-year-old man who was now imprisoned by a body no longer able to do what he asked of it. He could barely feed himself, and his speech was greatly impaired by the paralysis in his face and tongue. For the first time in my life, I saw my dad helpless. It really shook me.
Dad was a kicker on his high school football team. He graduated in 1953. While serving in the Army as an Airborne paratrooper, he married my mom, Dorothy, on April 6, 1957. They would end up having four sons. I am number three.
Dad initially worked for UGI, where he was severely burned in a gas explosion. He had red hair and was covered with freckles from head to toe. After the explosion, all of the freckles were gone from his face, hands, and forearms. He was in the hospital for a long time.
When I was about eight years old, Dad decided to start his own business from scratch. He called it Hartzell Roofing and Siding. I wish I knew the story of what drove him to think he could start a business. I don’t think he had any experience in business or construction. Regardless, he bought an old pick-up truck and started roofing. For nearly 20 years, his business improved homes and buildings throughout the Lehigh Valley and provided employment for his sons, extended family, and the men he ministered to in the prisons and on the streets.
While raising a family and building a business, Dad also gave his life to sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. In the mid-1970s, he began doing prison ministry. Soon, he was also doing street ministry in center-city Allentown. He sought out the broken and weary wherever he went. Many of them were drug addicts, dealers, prostitutes and pimps. As they came to Christ, he began transporting them to a church out in the country for Sunday worship. The country folk weren’t too receptive to Dad’s crowd, so he decided to start a church in center-city Allentown. Even though he had no ministerial training or licensing, he rented a storefront on Sixth Street in what was then the “red light” district. There, he and my mom planted a church. I preached my first sermon in that little church forty years ago. As people came to Christ, they needed help with breaking addictions and overcoming poverty. In this setting, Dad became affectionately known in Allentown as “Brother Bill.”
As the storefront church grew, a traditional church building became available. Dad remodeled the church and established a healthy and growing congregation. Many people came to saving faith in Jesus Christ during those years of prison, street, and inner-city church ministry. Dad was specifically gifted by God to reach the people of the city, and Mom was his faithful companion in the work of life and ministry.
In his later life, Dad utilized his various construction skills to help churches remodel spaces for ministry use. He volunteered faithfully at a food bank in Allentown and continued serving people and preaching the good news of Jesus Christ right up until his stroke. He never retired from serving his Lord, his family, and his community.
Dr. Harry Wood, former General Superintendent of The Wesleyan Church, said about Dad: “I have never known a person, regardless of their status or gifts, who had a greater passion to win lost people to Jesus.”
Dad was an exceptional man. He never backed down from a challenge or worried about what other people thought about him. If he believed God was telling him to do something, he did it — and he did it well.
I wish I could tell you a miraculous story of how my dad got better and walked out of the hospital two weeks ago. He didn’t. Instead, God promoted him to heaven on June 4th.
This was my first Father’s Day without Dad. I am incredibly grateful to have been blessed by having him in my life for so long.
For Heather, this was her thirty-first Father’s Day without her dad. Ken Crosser was taken from us way too soon. He was a very good man. On Memorial Day, we visited his grave in Jersey Shore. Ken was in the Navy during World War II in the South Pacific. He was in a serious explosion that burned his face and arms severely.
Bill and Ken never complained about the difficulties they faced in life. They both loved Jesus and served their families, communities, and churches faithfully.
I imagine that many of you also had Father’s Day without Dad. I pray that your heart found comfort and peace in remembering all that was good and inspiring about your dad. Thank you for letting me share a little about my dad with you.
