A Life Lived Wholly Unto God - Chapter 2: Heritage

A Testament of the Grace of God on His Servant
by Kathryn Currier with Doyle Davidson

The Davidsons are of Scottish and English heritage and came to America in the late 1600s to early 1700s initially settling in Virginia. There is also Irish and Cherokee lineage in his background. His great-great grandfather Joshua Davidson and Joshua’s father, Golden, born in Virginia, also lived in Tennessee and Alabama before migrating to Illinois where they are both buried. According to research, a number of them fought for this country. The Davidsons were land owners—farmers. His great-grandfather James Madison Davidson moved to Missouri from Illinois in the late 1800s and Doyle was told by an uncle that he farmed 100 acres of strawberries in Jasper County. He was also a house builder and Doyle remembers his Dad telling him that one of the houses he moved was built by his great-grandfather.

When he was a small boy the family moved to another farm and they used teams and wagons to transport their household items. He was about five, riding beside his Dad in the wagon and it was a cold day, “Bitter cold.” Doyle said. His Dad stopped the team and said, “Let’s get down and walk behind the wagon, it’ll be warmer,” and they did, Doyle having to almost run to keep up. As he shared that story with me he commented, “There was no place for weakness with the Davidsons.”

His mother’s paternal side of the family—the Millers, trace their ancestry to a group of people who came to America in the 1630s and settled in Rhode Island. They eventually established fellowships which later were called Six Principle churches following the foundation teachings in Hebrews 6. Samuel Gorton was one of those. He came to America with his family in 1636 and wrote: "I left my native country to enjoy the liberty of conscience in respect to faith towards God, and no other end." In researching original record, Samuel Gorton (http://www.doyledavidson.com/nation_fruit/samuel_gorton.shtml) was elected to office for many years and highly respected by his friends and neighbors. He was a friend to the Indians and believed in purchasing land from them rather than taking it by force. He and his friends were advocates of religious freedom and the separation of church and state, believing that government did not have the right or authority to dictate what men believed. One historian is quoted as saying that the government that had originally been formed on Aquidneck Island by Gorton and associates at Portsmouth, “operated like leaven in diffusing itself through the minds of the masses and formed the nucleus out of which sprang the Declaration of Independence.” He was a minister, governor and a man whose influence in the founding of this nation has been largely ignored.

Doyle’s great-grandfather Newell Miller was a cavalryman in the Civil War and he had ancestors who fought in nearly every military conflict from the early 1600s. Newell Miller settled in Newton County, Missouri in the late 1800s. He was a land owner and a farmer. His grandfather, Frank Miller was born in Michigan and came to Missouri with his family as a young lad. He was a farmer and also a constable for a time. Doyle talks of spending a great deal of time with his grandfather, listening to the grownups talk politics and he remembers that his Grandpa Miller hated socialism—“he could spot a socialist a mile away.”

His maternal grandmother Minnie Virkler traces her roots to Amish-Mennonites from Alsace-Lorraine, France who came to America in the 1800s, settling in New York. Her great-grandfather, Rudolph Virkler was born in France and the ninth of eleven children. Rudolph and Catherine Virkler and their family, along with at least two other families from the community, sailed for America in 1833 and by 1836, organized themselves as the first Amish-Mennonite congregation of Lewis County, New York, holding their meetings in homes. There were other immigrants that followed them to New York and in the mid-1800s many of the congregation left the group to form a new fellowship, because of a dispute over doctrine. The Virklers and others believed immersion was the scriptural form of baptism and rejected infant baptism, believing that there must be a conversion experience before baptism by immersion. Benedict Wyeneth was sent to America from Switzerland by Samuel Frohlich at the request of the Virklers about 1847 and by 1852 he organized and established the Apostolic Christian Church which later became known as the Evangelical Baptist Church. Later Joseph Virkler, the oldest son of Rudolph was ordained as a minster by Benedict Wyeneth. According to research, Rudolph’s grandson Joseph settled in Missouri and married Catherine Garber and their daughter Minnie was the sixth of nine children.

Doyle has told me, “My family and the neighbors I grew up with were honest, hard working people. We didn’t pay attention to what a person looked like, the color of their skin or how they talked, we didn’t care. We minded our own business and left people alone, that was the kind of community I was raised in.” 

Listening and writing about Doyle’s childhood, the strength and character of the people that God surrounded him with brings a new understanding to the words in Acts 17:

26) And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.

Other chapters of "A Life Lived Wholly Unto God:"

Introduction
Chapter 1: Early Years
Chapter 2: Heritage
Chapter 3: Like Jonah and the Whale
Chapter 4: Sell Out and Obey Me
Chapter 5: Return to the Land of Your Fathers
Chapter 6: Florida
Chapter 7: Back to Texas
Chapter 8: Israel - Called Into the Ministry
Chapter 9: Argyle
Chapter 10: Carrollton
Chapter 11: A Prophet to the Nations
Chapter 12: Water of Life Ministries
Chapter 13: Terry Mai
Chapter 14: Radio and Television Ministry
Chapter 15: Live Stream Broadcasting
Chapter 16: The False Anointing
Chapter 17: Water of Life Christian Training School
Chapter 18: Africa
Chapter 19: Medicine is Witchcraft

Posting Index