W. A. Criswell

==Early life==
Criswell was born in [[Eldorado, Oklahoma|Eldorado]] in [[Jackson County, Oklahoma|Jackson County]] in southwestern [[Oklahoma]]<ref name="tribute">[http://www.sbc.net/criswell/news.asp A Tribute to W. A. Criswell], [[Southern Baptist Convention]] (accessed May 26, 2010).</ref> to Wallie Amos and Anna Currie Criswell. It was not uncommon at the time for boys to be named with initials, and he was simply called "W. A.". In later years when a full name was required for his passport Criswell supplied his father's first and middle names. Criswell grew up in [[Texline, Texas|Texline]] in [[Dallam County, Texas|Dallam County]], the most northwesterly community in the [[Texas Panhandle]], where his cowboy-barber father moved the family in 1915.<ref>Criswell, W. A. ''Why I Preach That the Bible Is Literally True''.  Nashville: B&H, 1969.</ref>

At age ten, young W. A. professed faith in Christ at a revival meeting led by the evangelist Reverend John Hicks. Two years later Criswell publicly committed his life to the gospel ministry.  Criswell was licensed to preach at the age of seventeen and soon thereafter held part-time pastorates at Devil's Bend and Pulltight, Texas.<ref name="tribute"/> While attending [[Baylor University]] in [[Waco, Texas|Waco]], [[Texas]], from 1928 to 1931 he ministered in Marlow, White Mound, and  [[Pecan Grove, Texas|Pecan Grove]], the latter in [[Fort Bend County, Texas|Fort Bend County]], Texas. During his graduate and post-graduate years, including a [[Ph.D.]] at the [[Southern Baptist Theological Seminary]] in [[Louisville, Kentucky|Louisville]], [[Kentucky]], Criswell was the pastor of Baptist churches in [[Mount Washington, Kentucky|Mount Washington]] in [[Bullitt County, Kentucky|Bullitt County]] near Louisville and [[Oakland, Warren County, Kentucky|Oakland]] in [[Warren County, Kentucky|Warren County]] near [[Bowling Green, Kentucky|Bowling Green]], Kentucky.  After completing his degrees, Criswell in 1937 accepted the pastorate of the First Baptist Church of [[Chickasha, Oklahoma|Chickasha]] in [[Grady County, Oklahoma|Grady County]] in central Oklahoma. In 1941, he moved to First Baptist Church of [[Muskogee, Oklahoma|Muskogee]] in eastern Oklahoma. In 1935, Criswell married the former Bessie Marie "Betty" Harris (1913–2006), the pianist of the Mount Washington church and an education graduate of [[Western Kentucky University]] in Bowling Green.<ref name=bessiecris>{{cite web|url=http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=23733|title=Obituary of Betty Harris Criswell|publisher=Baptist Press News|access-date=April 6, 2012}}</ref> Their daughter Mabel Ann was born in Chickasha in 1939. Mabel Ann possessed an exceptional operatic voice and recorded three albums of sacred music in the late 1960s and early 1970s, two with the [[Ralph Carmichael]] orchestra. She died in 2002, some six months after her father's passing.<ref name=bessiecris/>