ACH Study Groups
Ben & Fran Gilmore – Cofounders
7659 Gingerblossom Drive
Citrus Heights, CA 95621
916-722-2501 histbuff@garlic.com
www.ACHStudyGroups.com
June 3, 2017
This is a letter to our friends –
Bragging on a friend
I would like to tell you about a dear friend – Desta Garrett.
It must have been around 1975. We were heavily involved with Youth With A Mission (YWAM). Some of the leaders, knowing we were near San Francisco, asked me to meet their flight and drive them to the headquarters of the Foundation for American Christian Education (FACE). I met Miss Hall and Miss Slater there, because I was carrying the brief cases.
It was immediate awe and respect. These two ladies were on a mission to restore knowledge about America by documenting the Christian principles behind the movement that became America. They lived in a house in the Sunset District of San Francisco. It was FACE headquarters.
Miss Slater left a Stanford doctoral program to join Miss Hall in cofounding FACE. Miss Hall left a business career to follow her vision. Miss Slater was a teacher. Miss Hall was a historian. Both were avid readers. Christian school and home school industries were just beginning to blossom. FACE publications were spreading across America.
FACE headquarters was painted in colonial motif. Inside the home were areas representing north, central, and southern colonial furniture, and style. Everything could be used as an historical object lesson. The house was filled with precious books. I particularly enjoyed browsing the microfiche copies of colonial newspapers covering several centuries.
All that to introduce the ladies’ irreplaceable “girl Friday,” Desta Garrett. Desta was always busy on a project for the ladies. She learned to use computers and fought through the start-up battles that always seem to happen with computers. Desta became a professional book editor. She read and type-set the FACE books.
Desta’s daughter, Katheryn, and our Susan were blessed to be in the right place at the right time. Miss Slater missed the classroom and offered to teach the girls a course in Literature. Susan, now having completed homeschooling her own two kids cherishes her memories of that course.
Later, after Miss Hall passed in 1987, FACE headquarters and Miss Slater moved to Chesapeake, Virginia. Desta launched her own book editing business. I never knew her not to have several books that needed her expertise. Fran and I visited Desta’s family a number of times. Desta is a researcher as well. Her home was a treasure trove.
The Garrett’s have had their share of tragedies. Their adult son died, then Desta was widowed. She was a trooper. Always meticulous in her editing. We watched as one pressure after another built upon her. God is faithful! He will always make a way to escape so that we can bear it.
Katheryn, now married with a family of her own was able to couple her home and Desta’s into a larger one and move her mom into her own room in the larger southern California home.
We are so looking forward to thanking Desta for her work and sacrifices in behalf of the FACE vision come the big “Honoring The Vision” event on September 23rd in Rocklin, California. All the “old timers” will be there plus the next generation of vision restorers.
Come join us! HonoringTheVision.weebly.com
These columns are archived since 12/10/09
See www.ACHStudyGroups.com
“Ben’s Blog”
