Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

Ledora May Hubbard, Ron's long-suffering mother, and her husband Harry Ross Hubbard,
Ron's father, in the dress uniform of a US Navy officer. Ron remembered his mother
sometimes with affection, sometimes with deep dislike; his father found that promotion
eluded him and debtors pursued him.
give birth to her first child. With only a little more than a year between them, May and Toilie had
always been close, walking to and from school arm in arm, sharing a bedroom and incessantly
giggling together over childhood secrets.
Toilie was waiting at the railroad depot in Tilden at the end of February 1911 when May, helped by a
solicitous Hub, heaved herself down from the train. Although Tilden was still no more than four dirt
streets running north to south, intersected by four more running east-west, May noticed plenty of
changes in the short time she had been away - four grain elevators had been built, three saloons
and two pool halls had opened, Mrs Mayes was competing with the Botsford sisters in the millinery
trade and there was even a new 'opera house' - true, it had yet to stage its first opera, but the road
shows were always popular, particularly since Alexander's Ragtime Band had set the nation's feet
tapping.
May did not have long to wait for the 'blessed event'. She went into labour during the afternoon of
Friday 10 March, and Toilie arranged for her to be admitted immediately to Dr Campbell's hospital.
At one minute past two o'clock the following morning, she was delivered of a son. She and Hub had
already decided that if it was a boy, he would be named Lafayette Ronald Hubbard.
Ida and Lafe Waterbury did not see their first grandchild until Christmas 1911, when Hub, May and
the baby arrived to spend the holiday with them in Durant. Lafe, who had been out treating a
neighbour's horse, burst into the house, threw his hat on the floor and leaned over the crib to shake
his grandson's hand. Baby Ron smiled obligingly and Lafe whooped with pleasure, trumpeting at
his wife: 'Look, the little son of a bitch knows me already.'
The biggest surprise for the family was that Ron had a startling thatch of fluffy orange hair. Hub was