Dr. Gladstone L. Brown

On August 2, 2012 our cher­ished father and grand­fa­ther entered eter­nity to the wel­com­ing arms of a large con­tin­gency of fam­ily and friends. Dr. Glad­stone L. Brown was born Sep­tem­ber 4, 1917 to Maude and Samuel Brown in Sebring, Ohio and was the youngest of nine children.

Glad­stone enjoyed a long and illus­tri­ous edu­ca­tion. He grad­u­ated from Sebring McKin­ley High School in 1935. This past June, he was given a Dis­tin­guished Alumni Award by the Sebring Alumni Asso­ci­a­tion. He attended Mt. Union Col­lege, major­ing in Eng­lish and his­tory. Before his grad­u­a­tion in 1939, he was active in stu­dent sen­ate, pres­i­dent of the cam­pus YMCA, mem­ber of the debate team and pres­i­dent of the Senior Class. He received his Mas­ters of Divin­ity from Ober­lin Col­lege in 1945 and his Ph.D. from Drew Uni­ver­sity in 1958.

While at Mt. Union Col­lege, Glad­stone met and mar­ried the love of his life, Anne Jeanette Wursthorn. They enjoyed seventy-two years of mar­riage before Anne’s death in June 2011.

Also pre­de­ceas­ing him are par­ents Maude and Samuel; brother, Ernest; sis­ters, Gertrude, Edith, Olive, Flo­rence, Made­line, Bryda and Ruth as well as many brother and sis­ter in-laws. He is sur­vived by daugh­ter Anne King Brown of Alliance, Ohio; son Dr. David Leslie Brown and his wife Terry of Oke­mos, Michi­gan; grand­son Matthew Samuel Brown of Cincin­nati, Ohio; grand­daugh­ter Kris­ten Eliz­a­beth Brown and fiancé Justin Zane Horine of Philadel­phia, PA; sis­ter in law, Mary Cur­tis of Cal­i­for­nia; and many nieces and nephews.

Dr. Brown had a long, suc­cess­ful career that took him from Ohio to Wis­con­sin, Penn­syl­va­nia and Michi­gan. Fol­low­ing grad­u­a­tion from Mt. Union Col­lege, he became Youth Direc­tor at Broad Street United Methodist Church in Colum­bus, Ohio. While obtain­ing advanced degrees, Glad­stone worked as a child wel­fare worker at Fair­mont Children’s Home and pas­tor at Waco and Mt. Zion United Methodist Churches. In 1945, he moved the fam­ily to Penn­syl­va­nia to become the pas­tor for Camp­town, Her­rickville, Stand­ing Stone and Beaver Mead­ows United Methodist Churches. In 1950, Glad­stone returned to Ohio to serve as pas­tor of Madi­son United Methodist Church, along with Chapel Church in North Madi­son. While there, he served as the first chap­lain of Lake County Hos­pi­tal in Painsville, Ohio and in 1957 became pas­tor of Mt. Gilead United Methodist Church.

In 1959, the fam­ily moved to their beloved Cha­grin Falls, where Glad­stone became pas­tor of the Cha­grin Falls United Methodist Church. The fam­ily remained there until his appoint­ment as super­in­ten­dent of the Youngstown Dis­trict and then super­in­ten­dent of the Cleve­land Dis­trict of the United Methodist Church.

In 1972 Glad­stone accepted the posi­tion of pas­tor at the Wauwatosa United Methodist Church in Wauwatosa, Wis­con­sin. He remained there until his appoint­ment in 1975 as Dean of the Chapel at Albion Col­lege in Albion, Michi­gan where he also taught phi­los­o­phy and world reli­gions. In 1981 he became Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent of Albion Col­lege. He held that posi­tion until his retire­ment in 1983. In addi­tion to his many achieve­ments, Glad­stone is a rec­og­nized author­ity on the sub­ject of the phi­los­o­phy of Karl Marx, lec­tur­ing widely on the sub­ject. The title of his dis­ser­ta­tion in 1958 was A Chris­t­ian Crit­i­cism of the Phi­los­o­phy of Karl Marx, With Spe­cial Ref­er­ence to the Prob­lem of Anthro­pol­ogy, Philo­soph­i­cally and The­o­log­i­cally Understood.

Immanuel Kant once said, “Live your life as though your every act were to become uni­ver­sal law.” Glad­stone held this belief very dear to his heart and lived each day with the moral­ity and ded­i­ca­tion required to be a leader in his com­mu­nity and to his fam­ily. His sto­ries, life lessons and ser­mons con­tinue to live on through the many peo­ple he reached and the com­mu­ni­ties he built.

He will be sorely missed.

A memo­r­ial ser­vice for Dr. Glad­stone L. Brown and his wife, Anne Jeanette Brown will be held at a later date in Cha­grin Falls, Ohio.

The fam­ily would like to extend a spe­cial thanks to Tammi Tay­lor for the care she pro­vided to Gladstone.

Arrange­ments are by Cassaday-Turkle-Christian Funeral Home, 75 S. Union Ave. Alliance, Ohio 44601. Friends may reg­is­ter online at www.ctcfuneral.com.

Writ­ten by Theresa Ann Brown and Kris­ten Eliz­a­beth Brown.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Aug 7 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.