(NOTE: If you know of good souls like Doodle Pate, please email their stories to me at crawfolk@gmail.com.)

“If a gas line ruptured. Get Doodle. If the power went out. Get Doodle. If a family needed shelter. Get Doodle.”

Federal Judge Mike Mills used the late Virgil “Doodle” Pate of Fulton to emphatically illustrate how some good souls live their faith in good works. Mr. Pate, a lifelong Baptist, was a founder of the volunteer fire department, later fire chief for 10 years, and Mike’s indefatigable “assistant” Boy Scout master. He also served as president of the Mississippi Fire Chiefs’ Association and helped start the state fire academy.

We Mississippians may not intellectually grasp the esoteric theologies of the soul, but we know good souls when we see them.

“Doodle never missed a community gathering whether PTA, political rally, cake sale or revival,” continued Mike. “Yet he never pushed himself to the forefront. He was a man of remarkable authenticity. Truly humble. He spent his life quietly urging everyone around him to be as good as they could be. He had a gift of making everyone else feel special, regardless of color or class in our little community. He could not conceive of being mean, rude or selfish. He truly lived to serve others.”

“I saw Doodle last year in Fulton at a City Park fundraiser,” said Mike. “He was 94. I asked how he was doing. He looked at me, as though we were back in 1970, and said, I just cannot believe how good I have had it.”

Virgil Pate passed away in December 2019 at age 95. His son, Gary, told Mike that he is now seeing how fortunate he was to be Doodle’s son. He said many people came up to him at the funeral to tell him about the positive impact his father had on their lives.

Asked how Doodle became a good soul, Gary said his father had a “resilience and persistence of character” that never varied, so his character took root early in life. “I think the influence of Dad’s parents in his formative years and his deep desire to know and follow the teachings and examples of Jesus Christ in his everyday life explains why he was the man he was.”

Gary told a story about his grandmother who during the depression years would fill bags of groceries and make flour sack clothes to give to the less fortunate, black and white. He told another about Doodle who, when he was rejected by the Army in WWII for a heart murmur, moved into a boarding house with his father in Jackson County to help build battleships at Ingalls Shipyard. It was a Bible reading family committed to “helping out,” he said.

Mississippi has been blessed with many good souls like Doodle Pate, the nurturers, the givers, and the difference makers in our schools, churches, and communities. We need to learn to grow more.

“What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” – Matthew 16:26.

Bill Crawford is a syndicated columnist from Jackson.