Born in a small farming community in Overton County, James Thurman Seber said he was named after no one special. "Just like Forrest Gump, no particular reason," Seber told the Review with a chuckle.
"I was born in a little community called Allens just north of Livingston. All the locals call it Needmore," Seber shared. "I went to school at the Needmore (Allens) Elementary School, and went to high school at Livingston Academy."
His father was Cordell Seber, a farmer who did it the hard way. "My dad was a truck farmer," Seber said. "He had a mule or two but we never had a tractor. I grew up a country boy in the little community of Needmore on truck farms."
His mother, Ona Vee Seber, had a talent for sewing. "She was a seamstress, and worked at the shirt factory. That shirt factory probably saved Overton County when it came in with some jobs," he said.
Seber said his behavior as a young man led many of his peers to believe he was headed for trouble.
"I think the people where I grew up are amazed at how well I turned out," Seber said. "I don’t think most of them had much hope for me. I probably exceeded all expectations, but the expectations were pretty low. I was very much on the wrong pathway. I went to college for a year and ran out of money. If I hadn’t gotten a little scholarship I wouldn’t have been able to go the year I went. My parents did all they could, but we were poor folks. We didn’t know we were poor. We thought we were middle class, but looking back we were pretty broke.
"When the money ran out I went to Indiana to get rich," he continued. "That didn’t work out, but I did become a Christian there. God called me to preach soon after that. Sometimes I go back and preach revivals where I grew up, and I think some people show up just to see if it’s really me. They ask if I’m the same Thurman Seber they went to school or played ball with, and I say ‘No, that old boy died years ago."
He met his wife Laura in Needmore, but stories about their courtship apparently vary.
"We went to school together, but I was a couple of years ahead of her, and I didn’t really know who she was," said Seber. My story is that she kind of got struck on me from afar, and sent word by one of her girlfriends that she sure would like to go out with me. So I went strolling up Cedar Street where she lived and asked her. Now she’s got a little different version. She denies all that first part of the story, but at least the last part’s accurate. I did go ask her out. We had a couple months courtship, we didn’t go out very long, and we got married. Now, that’s not supposed to work, but it did for us because God was in the thing. If you go into it like it’s a trial marriage that’s what it will be, it’ll be a trial. You’ll always be trying to figure out who’s the most guilty."
He said that adult life brought adult problems.
"We got married, and the kids started coming along," he said, "I worked as a welder for a while, then a church called me to be their full-time pastor. We started in a little church that paid us $50 a month. I kept my welding job while we were there to keep from starving to death. Then I took another job as a full-time pastor. They were paying me $50 a week. I pastored that little church, I worked part-time at the shirt factory, I cut tobacco, I started doing some carpenter work on the side, I cleaned out chicken houses, any way I could find to make a dollar. They had two grades of bologna at the store, the 25-cent bologna and the 50-cent bologna. We ate the 25-cent bologna. But God blessed us, and we made it," Seber said.
"I pastored there for three or four years, and then we went to Kentucky," he went on, "I was there for five years, and while I was there I went back to seminary school in Louisville for three years and finished my education. Soon after I finished Prosperity Baptist on Highway 96 called me as pastor. We spent about eight years there, and Salem Baptist Association, which is the Southern Baptist churches in DeKalb and Cannon counties, wanted me to come be the director of missions. I did that for 13 years, then went to Upper Helton Baptist in Alexandria. We were there for 7 or 8 years when Salem Baptist Association asked me to come back. I went back and stayed two more years and then I felt the leadership of God to go into full-time evangelism. The devil kept telling me I would starve to death preaching revivals, but we tried it, and God took care of us. For the last 11 years that’s what I’ve been doing."
He said that his family was sheltered from tragedy for years, but when it came it was a big one.
"I felt like we were like Job in the Bible," he said "God had a hedge built around us. Nothing bad ever seemed to happen at our house. I’d see other people with kids on drugs; our kids weren’t. Other people were telling me sad stories about how their children went wrong; ours didn’t. Laura may have felt like killing me a few times, but she never has felt like divorcing me. We stayed together. But this past year our oldest son died of cancer. When you lose a child your life is not the same for whatever time you have left. It’s changed. But God’s still good, and he’s blessed us with 10 grandchildren, and all of our children are in church every Sunday, and active in church, and turned out to be hard-working, good people. Our oldest son (David) who passed away was a doctor. He was here in Dowelltown for a while. We have two that teach school, one (Daniel) here at the local high school, and our oldest daughter Peggy teaches fourth grade at Auburntown. Our youngest daughter Sandy works with the juvenile justice system in Wilson County. I have three grandkids who are preaching. Thank God; I believe they were better kids than I was."
He said that he has never had any trouble filling what little leisure time preaching left him.
"I’ve always liked to hunt and fish, and I played ball in high school. Really I’ve played ball all my life. I never met a ball I didn’t like. Five heart bypasses when I was 51, and that pretty well ended that. I still play a round of golf now and then. I’ve made furniture, I’ve always liked to build stuff. I’ve raised beagle hounds, these days I keep a project going on around the house, building a deck, or adding on. I’ve got an old building out behind the house I’ve reworked, but my primary pastime these days is hanging out at the Rook parlor in Alexandria. It’s at the Senior Center, where all the old guys - and me- go to hang out."
Seber has been preaching nearly 54 years and has turned out hundreds of sermons.
"If I stay active, in the next couple of years I should reach my 400th revival, which is an awful lot more than I ever dreamed," he shared. "I preached a revival in all 34 churches in the Salem Baptist Association except one while I was director of missions, I’ve never done a revival at Smithville First Baptist, but I’ve preached there numerous times over the years. God has used me more as an evangelist than anything else. That’s where my heart’s been for years. My happiest days have been late in the afternoon when time came to get ready to preach a revival. I usually leave the house humming or whistling. Now were getting to the good part. We get to go preach. I think it’s what God gifted me to do. I should have gone into full-time evangelism 40 years ago, but I had a wife and four little kids at home, and I just couldn’t pull the trigger. A few years ago God told me it was time to pick which horse I was gonna ride, and we went into preaching revivals full time."
Seber said that he feels a man’s legacy lies with his family.
"I guess I’d like for my family to remember me as the right kind of person. My son, hours before his passing, there in the hospital, said ‘Dad, people have always said you were a good man, but I’ve watched you up close, and you’re the real deal.’ I’d like to be remembered well by the people who knew me the best. I’ve seen too many people who looked pretty good to the public, but I’ve heard their family tell me a whole different story. I believe that if your children, and the people who know you best, if they can say ‘Dad was the real deal’ that’s the best anyone can hope for. If I could leave one piece of advice for future generations it would be trust the Lord with your life, and it’ll all work out alright. It’s worked for me," Seber concluded.
