Herbert Spaugh papers

Herbert Spaugh, Moravian bishop, author, musician, and newspaper columnist, was born in Salem (now Winston-Salem), N.C., on September 30, 1896. The son of Rufus A. and Anna Louise Hege Spaugh, he was graduated from Moravian College in 1916, received a B.Div. from Moravian Theological Seminary in 1924, and earned an M.A. from Davidson College in 1931. He also received honorary degrees from Davidson (D.Div.) and Moravian (LL.D.) colleges in 1944 and 1958, respectively. During World War I, he served in the U.S. Army at Fort Jackson, S.C. Following a short stint in the furniture manufacturing business (1918-22), Spaugh entered the ministry in 1924, when he became pastor of a Moravian Church in Charlotte. Under his guidance, the Little Church on the Lane grew from 11 members to 250 families. In 1959, he was consecrated a bishop. Beginning in 1933, Spaugh wrote a weekly religious feature for the Charlotte News called "Musings of a Minister." The column evolved into a daily feature of The News and the Twin-City Sentinel of Winston-Salem and eventually a syndicated column carried by 30 newspapers throughout the South. He also wrote three books: Pathway to Contentment (1946); Everyday Counsel for Everyday Living (1951); and Pathway to a Happy Marriage (1953). Spaugh was consecrated a bishop of the Moravian Church on December 27, 1959. Spaugh organized the state's first Alcoholics Anonymous group, served as a trustee of Salem College and of Moravian College in Pennsylvania, was chaplain of Civitan International and the American Legion, and was an active member of the North Carolina Council of Churches, The National Conference of Christians and Jews, the North Carolina State School Boards Association, and the American Guild of Organists. He also built pipe organs and served as organist and choir director for churches in Winston-Salem and Bethlehem, Pa., and organized and directed the Charlotte Boy Scout Band, which evolved into the Charlotte public school system's music program. He himself played the French horn in the Charlotte Symphony. In 1920, he married Ida Brown Efird of Winston-Salem. They became the parents of three children: Earle Frederick, Herbert Jr., and Carolyn. Herbert Spaugh died in Charlotte on November 22, 1978. [For additional information, see: Barbara Harding, The Boy, the Man, and the Bishop (1970); Leonard E. Johnson and Lloyd M. Smith, Men of Achievement in the Carolinas (1952); and William S. Powell, ed., North Carolina Lives (1962) and Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, vol. 5 (1994).