Pastor Jack

The Authorized Biography of Jack Hayford

S. David Moore

• Publisher: David C Cook
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780830781126
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Jack Hayford is rightly known as a "pastor of pastors." The facts bear this out: he is the author of over 50 books, the writer of 600 hymns and choruses (including the internationally popular "Majesty"), and a pentecostal leader committed to building bridges while maintaining the integrity of the gospel. For Pastor Jack, David Moore was granted unrestricted access to Hayford's journals and personal correspondence and completed over 60 hours of personal interviews to offer the first authorized biography of this extraordinary man. From the miraculous healings he experienced as a child to the moment he sensed God calling him to the pastorate for more than 60 years of fruitful ministry, Hayford has witnessed and proclaimed God's mighty works with boldness and grace. This exploration of his life and legacy will inspire Hayford's lifelong followers as well as those new to his words and faith.

Part One

The Early Years

Chapter 1

A Proper Child

The Vision

Dolores Hayford knew something was wrong when the nurse shouted “Orderly!” With a tiny foot visible in the birth canal, Mrs. Hayford was rushed into the delivery room at the Los Angeles County Hospital. Barely eighteen years old and giving birth to her first child, she didn’t realize how dangerous breech birth was, especially in 1934. Still, she was aware of the obvious concern of those attending her as the doctor decided to anesthetize her and try to push the foot back and see if the baby could be turned, which he was unable to do. It was early in the morning on June 25.

As she later recounted in her journal, once anesthetized, she “lost contact with the physical world” and “entered a place of great light.” ¹ Dolores found the vision very difficult to describe. She saw what she called a vortex-like “great spiral,” spinning with “intense speed,” which she and her husband had entered. The vortex was rushing them back to the creation of Adam and Eve, at which point the vortex reversed, bringing them back to the present. In both directions of the whirling vortex, she sensed they were passing other couples. The vision ended and the great light and spiral disappeared. Minutes later, at 3:26 a.m., Jack Williams Hayford Jr. was born.

It was not until she later reflected on the experience that she understood what the vision meant. She realized that the couples she and her husband had passed in the spiral were the parents of God’s special, predestined messengers, and she and her husband were blessed to join these parents in bearing a chosen child of promise. ² She would later say, borrowing the King James Version phrase referring to the infant Moses, that her son Jack was a “proper child,” ³ specially chosen and graced by God. She realized her son was called to be a servant of the Lord; he would be a peculiarly good boy growing up. ⁴

Dolores Hayford never told the story of her vision publicly, and she told Jack only after he had entered the ministry. ⁵ On the rare occasions when she privately communicated the vision, it was without undue drama. She simply told the facts, always cautiously aware that it could easily be misunderstood or sensationalized. Nevertheless, the vision characterizes the enchanted world that she would chap1duce to her son as he grew up. For Dolores, the invisible dimensions the Bible described were inseparably linked to the visible realities of everyday life.

Daddy and Mamma

In the summer of 1934, America was experiencing the worst of the Great Depression. Southern California, with its more diverse economic base and supported by the Depression-resistant movie and defense industries, was faring a little better than other parts of the nation. As a result, thousands of migrants streamed west, only to discover, as Woody Guthrie sang, that California only looked like the garden of Eden. Steady jobs were hard to come by. “Hardship and suffering were not in short supply, especially in the early years of the decade.” ⁶

Jack Williams Hayford Sr. had avoided many of these struggles while serving as a United States Navy Seaman from 1929 to 1933. ⁷ He met his future wife, Dolores Farnsworth, in 1931 at a naval base open house in Long Beach, California. Hayford was one of the sailors leading groups through his ship, the USS West Virginia. Dolores, just fifteen, was with her family on one of the tours, and Hayford took a liking to her. Dolores was impressed by the way he treated her like a woman although she was so young. Hayford pointedly pursued her and, since she was so young, had to arrange dates without her parents’ permission.

Over the next year, they carried on a surreptitious courtship and, without her parents’ knowledge or consent, they were married on September 28, 1932. ⁸ She was just sixteen years old, and Jack Sr., who had lied about his age to get into the Navy, had turned nineteen only in August. ⁹ It was the beginning of a tumultuous relationship.

The couple rented a small house and would meet in the afternoons when Hayford got off work at the naval base about 4:00 p.m. Dolores, still living at home, would go back to her parents’ house every night at dinnertime. The secret marriage went undiscovered by the Farnsworth family for six months.

The Long Beach earthquake on March 10, 1933, severely damaged the Farnsworth home, so they went to stay with an aunt as repairs were made to their house. While they were there, a high school acquaintance of Dolores’, who lived next door to the aunt, saw her going in and out with her family. The girl knew that Dolores was married and told her mother, and this was quickly communicated to Dolores’ parents. They could not believe the news. ¹⁰

Dolores’ father quickly found out where the little house was, went to the place, barged in, and found Jack and Dolores in bed together. It was an embarrassing moment. The intrusion enraged Jack Hayford Sr. and left him angry at Dolores’ family for years. Later, when his children were born, he was never comfortable with the children seeing their maternal grandparents. After the marriage was discovered, Dolores quit high school and moved in permanently with her husband. ¹¹ Obviously, the whole circumstance added strain to the unconventional marriage.

Struggle and stress were not new to Jack Hayford Sr. He had had a very difficult childhood. He was born in Montana on August 16, 1913, to Allyn and Margaret Hayford, and they lived there for at least six years. ¹² The family then moved to Ajo, Arizona, a small but thriving copper-mining community in the southwestern part of the state.

Jack Hayford Sr.’s father was an alcoholic and he was very strict and demanding. When his thirteen-year-old son was caught with a group of other boys breaking into a local school, Allyn Hayford was outraged. Because one of the boys had taken a few coins from the librarian’s drawer, Hayford’s father felt that his son had shamed the family, and he promptly kicked him out of the home. He gave his son directions on how to catch freight trains and hobo his way from Arizona to Oakland, California, to live with his older brother, who was twenty-three at the time. ¹³ The incident forever scarred the young boy. Dolores would later say her husband was a “broken and abused vessel.” ¹⁴

Jack Hayford Sr. finally found a home when he joined the Navy at sixteen. He loved the discipline and regimen of the Navy, and it would forever shape his approach to life. He also loved the travel and adventure. He became the stereotypical strong, brawling, hard-drinking, womanizing sailor. ¹⁵ This too would leave its mark on his life. His hard living, however, was interrupted when he met Dolores, who was very different from the women he had met in other ports. She was sweet, kind, and naive, and he fell in love with her. He realized he had found someone special, and he made sure he treated her that way.

Dolores Farnsworth was born on April 20, 1916, in Fort Morgan, Colorado, where, except for a brief stay in Wyoming, she lived until she was five. ¹⁶ Her father found work driving a truck in Phoenix, Arizona, where the family then lived for nearly ten years. Her dad had been in and out of jail before the move but stayed out of trouble in Arizona, eventually doing quite well selling Chrysler automobiles.

When Dolores was fifteen, her family moved to Long Beach, where her father continued to work in the automobile business. Despite her father’s troubles when she was very young, most of Dolores’ childhood was stable and pleasant. ¹⁷ Her mother, Marguerite, was a bright and vibrant woman who brought a cultured sensitivity to her home.

However, the discovery of Dolores’ marriage put an abrupt end to her home life.

Married Life

Jack and Dolores struggled to make the marriage work. After leaving the Navy, Jack had to scramble to provide a survivable income. He worked various jobs for the next two years. They managed to make a living the way many did during the Depression, learning to make do and deal with what came their way. From 1933 to 1938, they lived in some seventeen different houses. ¹⁸ Jack Sr., growing up as he did and drawing on his Navy experience, learned to be especially resourceful for such a young man, fixing and repairing things and helping out others around him. It was an ability that would endear him to many throughout his life.

Dolores and Jack Hayford Sr.

Their young age, along with their financial challenges and the disapproval of the marriage by Dolores’ parents, put severe stress on Jack and Dolores’ relationship. Their contrasting childhood experiences had helped create two very different people who struggled to get along together. After four years in the Navy traveling the world, Jack saw things very differently than how the more sheltered Dolores saw them. Also, Jack’s short temper did not help the two get along. All this contributed to four painful separations during their first four years of m...