What happens
Reverend William Spence and his wife Hope raise their growing family while moving from one small parsonage to another across the American Midwest. Their hardships include a shabby first house, a parsonage next to a noisy firehouse, and a shortage of money. The minister's principles and his wife's patience are tested by the congregation's expectations. This Lux Radio Theatre production, broadcast in 1942 and starring Frederick March and Martha Scott, dramatizes the true story of the author's own family. In the portion of the play presented here, Will's plans to replace the parsonage and build a new church begin to draw objections from prominent members of the congregation.
Small American towns and cities in the Midwest and Southwest, from the early 1900s through the 1920s, centred on a Methodist church and its parsonage.
Characters: Will Spence, Hope Spence, Mother, Mrs. Sandow, Preston Thurston, Luella Digby, Samson
Listen for: Will's sermon and the parsonage problems, then the clash with Mrs. Sandow over the gardener Samson and the building committee's objections to the new church plans.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.