January 5, 2000
'Daddy Dave' speaks from experience to reassure Buckner kids in Beaumont
___By Russ Dilday
___Buckner News Service
___GROVES--Thunder rumbled as the mother led her three children through the rain to a Port Arthur train station in the dark, early hours of the morning. Wading the deepening pools of water behind her were her sons, aged 13 and 4, and a 12-year-old daughter. The four silently boarded the train, bound for Buckner Orphans' Home in Dallas.
___Surprisingly, it is the 4-year-old who recalls that morning most vividly. "I canremember us arriving at the Buckner receiving house," he recalled. "I can remember my mother. Her last gesture to me was a wooden shoe bank--it was apparently a treasure of mine, and she turned and handed that to me.
'DADDY DAVE' hugs a resident of the Buckner children's campus in Beaumont. (Photo by Russ Dilday)
___"I don't know how a 4-year-old knows," he said, his now adult voice softening with emotion, "but I looked into her eyes and I knew this was final. We had been left before, but I knew it was final this time. I didn't understand why we were going to Buckner. We had only known heartache, we had never known any stability in our lives."
___And then there was the fence. "As we drove up there, I saw a fence surrounding the campus. In my 4-year-old mind, I thought that fence was going to separate me from happiness, whatever it was. I knew happiness was always out there away from where I was. I was determined to get over that fence."
___The story is that of David Bleakley, now an adult and a services trainer for DuPont in Groves. His experience as a "Buckner boy" for seven years forever changed his life for the better, he said.
___When talking about how his life was affected by the Orphans' Home, now known as Buckner Childrens' Home, he repeatedly stops to remark about "the wonder of it all." Buckner is a social service ministry supported by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___Following the breakup of his parents' marriage in the early 1940s, the siblings were "literally passed around," he said. Struggling, his mother soon had to find someone to care for the children. After discovering the difficult family situation, a Baptist minister in Port Arthur told his mother about Buckner.
___"We were fortunate to get into Buckner," he said, "because they could take all three of us."
___He recalls not feeling so fortunate at the time, however. "I made up in my mind that I would be over that fence before the sun set. They put us in a large play room, and there were children everywhere. I came up with a scheme. I began to cry. I was upsetting the other children and the matron was trying to calm me down.
___"She asked me, 'Is there anything I can do? You're upsetting the other children.' So I said, 'Yes, can we go outside and play?'
___"The wonder of it all," he said. "There were people there who understood hurting children and what's going on in their minds. They agreed, but they held me close. Before that day was over, I knew what love was."
___In time, Bleakley came to understand it was love that kept him inside the home's perimeter, not a fence. "It changed it from what could have been a prison to a home. Love so permeated the entire setting that I never did again even want to think about going to the fence, let alone over it. People who are hurting have different reference points. You may not understand their reference points, but you can love them."
___Love still keeps him close to Buckner. He is a consistent visitor to Buckner's Beaumont children's campus, serving as an encourager to staff and a role model and mentor to the children living there, who know him as "Daddy Dave." He also gives his testimony to churches and civic organizations, telling the Buckner story wherever he's invited.
___He and his wife, known similarly as "Mama Anne" to residents and staff, have two children of their own. Their family also supports the Beaumont home's residents during the holidays with presents and by hosting them in their home.
___"Daddy Dave has given back in so many ways," commented Michelle Harris, administrator of the Beaumont facility. "I think he has touched the hearts of our kids and our staff in ways that are pretty measurable: First, he has given a sense of history our kids and our staff have been able to appreciate.
___ "If you hear that history from somebody who's been there, who knows what it's like to be separated from their family, to be scared, to not know what's in store for them, it touches them because it's what they are living, it's what they know," Harris emphasized. "For them to see in the flesh somebody who's come through that in a loving and appreciative way, it is an experience they can't get anywhere else. That's Daddy Dave's gift."
Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!
