Roy Larkin Stamper was born in 1896 in eastern Kentucky. As a child, he went to Oklahoma with his father, who was running from the law. They settled near Locust Grove and bought some rocky land, which is still the Stamper Quarter Horse Ranch. Stamper was a preacher and until his last days, called himself “a fisherman for souls.” At age 104 he married Josephine Williams and they had nine months together before he died.

R. L. has been preaching for about seventy years now. In the thirties,he travelled the region, preaching wherever he could,mostly in rural communities, like the one he's from. And he says he often got in trouble for it, got beat up because some people didn't like him preaching what’s known as ”holiness”;conservative, moralistic lessons. He tells me over and over that he never took any money for preaching, always gave the collection back, often to a parishoner on hard times. He takes long detours into what I call "What-the-Bible-Says-About-That", stories that mostly did not engage me, but instead gave me long stretches of time to think about him or watch him. So this moment when my hair stood on end surprised me. I don't believe the end of the world is coming, but he does, and I can feel the fire that's burning him up. He wants to save souls. He wants to save me. But more importantly he wants to get out in the world and, as he says, be a fisherman for souls. But he can't. He's stuck here on the ranch. He has family around, his son and his grandson and his daughter and many grandchildren all live nearby, but he's lonely for work. And he has no wife to look after him and help him. His third wife died last year. "My little wife, she was Indian. She was one of the best women that ever lived in the world. Real sweet lady. She spoilt me. A real dandy. She waited on me like I was a baby. And when she died, they carried a hundred and fifty dresses out of here. That's the kind of husband I am." And then comes the big pitch. "I need a companion, real bad. But I don't mix and I don't see nobody and the one I'd have probably wouldn't have me. What would a woman want with an old man?" He answers his own question. "I've got income I could give a woman. Fifty dollars a day. I've got property. I've got a Cadillac worth fifteen, twenty thousand dollars. I've got a home. I've got a lot to offer a woman yet, but I sit here, and it's real boresome. If you didn't have the Lord, you'd crack up." He means this. He's thought it out. "I can preach from a wheelchair and I don't have to have the Bible. I couldn't take a woman my age, I'd have to have a younger woman. It would have to be a miracle from God. Somebody who'd have a missionary spirit and a love for the Lord to come and drive me. Because if I'm able to talk to you, I'm able to preach. The Bible said, 'When you're old you can still bear fruit and be fat and flourishing.' Well, I like that. That's me." This talk of a new wife seems outlandish to me. He's one hundred and three years old. But he is not kidding. He says he has a burden for lost