According to R. Shepard Brown’s book Stringfellow of the Fourth, “Frank tried his hand farming at ‘Wakefield’  in Fairfax County where he and Emma began their marriage. But there was no joy to be had from the land. He was being pushed by a dream that had always been with him, and by a bargain half-made during those long, lonely months in Canada. There was a bigger, more satisfying work for him to do. He was ready to wage a new campaign—that of saving souls. 

After months of study, Stringfellow entered the Episcopal Seminary of Virginia, and became an ordained minister in 1876 at age 36. He now had two children, the first of six, and his new life of service was just beginning.

In the years that followed, he held charges in Powhatan, Middlesex, Farmville, Martinsville, Boydton and other counties of Virginia. He didn’t stay long in one place. He told friends when they urged him to settle down, ‘I don’t think it’s good for a minister to hold a church too long. His congregation gets used to him, and they’re likely to stop listening to what he says.” 

Stringfellow was a modest man, and did very little talking to his family and friends about his exploits in the war. But he was not averse to telling the public about his experiences if it served a purpose in his work. Over the years, he lectured in countless towns across the nation. The scrapbook in the Virginia Historical Society contains clippings of the huge crowds he drew—900 were expected in Baltimore. He would climb to the platform without a single note and start ‘remembering,’ re-creating for his audience those days of scout life when danger and death rode beside him. An editorial writer of a Lexington, Kentucky put it this way:

 The conversation of Mr. Stringfellow last night at the Opera House was charming. Conversation we call it justly, for it was nothing like a lecture, but was a plain talk about most wonderful adventures. The audience was held spellbound the whole time and regretted only that the recital of the scout was so short. 

Stringfellow never accepted a penny of the lecture proceeds for himself, but used the money for church expenses and construction, plus Confederate charities. But in spite of all this, it appears he received criticism for his lectures. His Bishop called him in and indicated no one would believe one man could have done all those things and advised him to ‘tone it down a bit.’ There’s no indication this stopped Stringfellow from telling the full truth.

 In 1897, Stringfellow became the first chaplain of the Woodberry Forest School for Boys, a topnotch preparatory school in Orange, Virginia. He was working, he told friends, ‘with the seeds of the nation.’ It was his responsibility to provide the ‘spiritual sun and water to help them grow up strong and healthy.’” 

Rev. Stringfellow was what we would today call  a “rainmaker.” He built churches everywhere he served in the impoverished South, and employed his well-honed ingenuity and humor to solve any problem. Stay tuned for the next amusing segment—“Building a rectory in Boydton.”*

*From Stringfellow of the Fourth by R. Shepard Brown