Letters From Grandpa #539

• LETTERS FROM GRANDPA
• 539

Dearest grandchild,

Today’ letter will be about 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.” The Apostle Paul once described himself as the “chief of sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15) yet he was transformed by Christ into a man who wrote more books of the Bible than any other. The miracle of conversion is real and takes place thousands of times every day all over the world. The “new creation” is perennial evidence for the reality of God.

Here is an example of the miracle of conversion in more modern times. Don Umphreys wrote about it in his book THE MEANEST MAN IN TEXAS. It is about the conversion of the late Clyde Vernon Thompson. Clyde was a preacher's kid gone bad. He murdered his first two victims in 1928. He was imprisoned in the infamous Huntsville prison where 600 executions have taken place. More executions there than any other U.S. prison. They called the electric chair, "Old Sparky", and after an execution the hallway would be filled with the horrible stench of burning flesh and hair. When Clyde was sentenced to die he was totally unafraid and laughed hysterically. His execution number was 83. Each time a prisoner was put to death, every other prisoner was moved one cell closer to the death chamber. Incredibly, Clyde's date with death was commuted by Gov. Sterling just seven hours before his execution.

As the years went by, Clyde’s meanness became legendary. The Ft. Worth Star Telegram accumulated a file with fifty stories about him. His first attempted escape came in 1932. It failed and Clyde was caught. He was punished by being placed in a grueling work detail. The torture, however, only made him meaner. His reputation for toughness was a source of constant trouble. Guards felt that they had to try and intimidate him. They couldn’t! Once a guard didn't like his attitude and threatened to shoot him. Clyde responded by cursing the guard and throwing a hoe at him. Then he ripped open his shirt, popping the buttons, and dared the guard to shoot him in the heart. He didn't! This time Clyde was stripped naked and placed in the hole. His hands were manacled behind his back and his feet were chained. To make the torture even more severe, his feet were drawn backward and padlocked to the hand cuffs. Then he was left in the darkness with no way to protect himself from hungry bugs and mosquitoes. As before, the torture only made him meaner.

In 1933 he tried again to escape. This time a fellow convict was killed and Clyde's hat was shot off of his head. Remarkably, Clyde was unscratched. This time he was severely beaten by a guard resulting in numerous injuries including several broken ribs. When Clyde found out that fellow prisoner Tommy Ries had ratted him out, Clyde killed him with a home made knife smuggled out of the prison blacksmith shop. This time Clyde took a "caning" without uttering a sound. Again he was stripped naked and held down by four guards. The fifth guard beat him with a leather "bat" about thirty inches long. After quietly suffering twenty-one strokes, Clyde merely got up and asked someone to give him a light for his cigarette. Apparently prisons were more punitive in those days.

On May 29, 1935 a prisoner named Everett Melvin tried to force him to perform a homosexual act. Clyde killed him too. When the guards came, he said to the Captain: "Well, Cap, it looks like I'm in trouble again." In 1937 he tried again to escape. This time three men were killed and Clyde was wounded in the shoulder. Finally, to protect the other prisoners, Clyde was placed in solitary confinement in a concrete morgue. The walls were two feet thick and the morgue featured six concrete slabs for coffins. The only ventilation, and source of light, were two small holes opposite the steel door. They were about three inches in diameter and six feet apart. His toilet was a five-gallon bucket. He ate

in the dark with his hands because he was not trusted with eating utensils. It was only later that a twelve-inch hole was cut in the steel door to provide more light.

From the morbid isolation of that morgue, Clyde asked for something to read. A guard wisely sold him a Bible using the meager funds he had in the office. Even though his dad was a preacher, Clyde always assumed the Bible was full of contradictions. By studying the Bible, however, he found otherwise. There was only enough light to read for five hours a day, but Clyde studied hard and scratched notes upon the cement wall to help him resolve apparent contradictions. The more he read the Bible, the more his faith grew. Ultimately he surrendered to Christ. Soon he was shouting Scriptures out of the small window in his door. Soon the area outside the steel door of his morgue became a meeting place for believers. The "new" Clyde Thompson was as different from the old as a butterfly is from a caterpillar.

After several failed attempts to be pardoned, Clyde was finally released on Nov. 1, 1955. He died of a heart attack on July 2, 1979. Those last 23 years of his life proved without a doubt that Clyde was indeed a “new creation”. He went to Bible College, got married, and served as a minister from 1957–1970. During this time he also was the superintendent of the Manuelito Navajo Christian Children’s Home. As servants of Christ Clyde and his wife adopted a Navajo infant named Shirley Anne. From 1970 to 1977 Clyde operated the Prisoners Aid Center in Huntsville, Texas. In 1977 he and his family moved to Lubbock where he served as chaplain of the Lubbock Co. Jail. To the day of his death he was faithful to Christ and proved to skeptics that his jail house conversion was real. Clyde was indeed a “new creation” in Christ Jesus. "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" (Rom. 11:33)

Everyone who becomes a Christian can divide their life into the same two parts as Clyde. Interestingly, all of human history is divided into the same two parts: (1) B.C. - Before Christ. (2) A.D. - The year of our Lord. The years Clyde spent with Lord were far better!

I love you,

Grandpa Boyce