#45: The Converted Gambler

#45: The Converted Gambler

Note: The Love Thy Neighborhood podcast is made for the ear, and not the eye. We would encourage you to listen to the audio for the full emotional emphasis of this episode. The following transcription may contain errors. Please refer to the audio before quoting any content from this episode. 

JESSE EUBANKS: You’re listening to the Love Thy Neighborhood podcast. This type of storytelling and journalism is made possible by donations from people just like you. So to keep this type of content coming to your podcast feed, please make a donation today at lovethyneighborhood.org/donate. Again, that’s lovethyneighborhood.org/donate.

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JESSE EUBANKS: Hey guys, it’s Jesse. As many of you know, I worked on staff at a homeless shelter for nine years in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. To be honest, I was on staff for a very long time not really understanding the history or the origins of the ministry, but somewhere around my fifth year on staff, one of my coworkers decided, you know, we should actually know where we came from. In their research, they uncovered one of the most dramatic and incredible stories that I’ve ever heard. It is full of murder and intrigue, romance, and this incredible encounter with Jesus. So on today’s episode, producer Rachel Szabo is going to share with you the story of the origin of that homeless rescue mission and a man named Steve P. Holcomb.

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JESSE EUBANKS: This is the Love Thy Neighborhood podcast. Today’s episode – “The Converted Gambler.” Welcome to our corner of the urban universe.

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RACHEL SZABO: One of the oldest recorded stories we have of Steve P. Holcomb is from 1841. He would’ve been five, maybe six years old. He walked into an old shed and found a man lying there. The man, it turns out, had been roughed up by some other men at the local bar and had managed to crawl his way into the shed, but was now two weak to move. They had roughed him up pretty bad, and young Steve, moved with compassion, left and came back with some food and water. The next day, Steve went to the shed again with more food and more water – and the next day and the next. He took care of the stranger every day for two weeks until he was well enough to move on. It was totally a good Samaritan story in action. So how did young Steve go from being the caring Samaritan to being a gambler, a drunkard, a murderer, and being called by his own mother the very devil himself? It all started with the steamboats.

Steve P. Holcomb was born in Shipping Port, Kentucky. It’s a small triangle-shaped island along the Ohio River sandwiched between Louisville’s Portland neighborhood to the south and Falls of the Ohio to the north. If you go to Shipping Port today, it’s mostly just a field of trees. But back in the early 1800s, Shipping Port rivaled the city of Louisville for the title of Kentucky’s largest port and the steamboats carrying cotton and sugar – and even people – were a regular part of daily life. But Steve Holcomb must have been, as they say, dealt a bad hand because by the time he first opened his eyes in the year 1835, a canal had been dug at Shipping Port, allowing the steamboats to bypass the docks, putting Shipping Port off the map of booming port towns and putting most of the 300 to 400 people who lived there into poverty – including Steve’s parents. His father was a professional drunkard. He spent most of his time in ballrooms or sleeping on the streets of the town. He was rarely at home. His mother had a compassionate side to her, which Steve would inherit, hence the story about the stranger in the old shed. But his mother also had a savage temper, thus Steve was beaten more times than he could remember for any sort of infraction. But anyway, back to the steam boats. 

At seven years old, Steve had his first run-in with the steamboats. Even though the canal was there, the boats still had to wait for clear passage through, sometimes leaving a train of boats stalled out near the wharf. So his mother would load him up with cakes and pies and send him to the canal to sell the baked goods to the boat passengers as they waited their turn. And spending time at the canal, Steve grew a kind of a fascination, not with the boats themselves, but with a certain kind of passenger aboard the boats – men who were decked out in expensive clothes and threw money around like it was not in short supply, men who called themselves professional gamblers. Now if you know anything about steamboats in the 1800s, then you know that not only were they a wonder of modern technology, there were also respected hubs for gambling. The crew, rich people who could afford this type of travel, respectable businessmen on work trips – anyone and everyone participated in gambling on the steamboats. But then there were the black legs, as professional gamblers were called in those days. Always luxuriously dressed, they seemed to live like kings. So it was during his bake sale days, carting his mother’s wares up and down the canal, that Steve decided what he wanted to be when he grew up. He wanted to be a bonafide black leg.

He wasted no time in getting started. At first, he would hold back some of the money from his mother’s makeshift bake sale and play gambling games with his friends. By the time he was eight years old, he had graduated from playing with his friends to playing cards against grown men in local ballrooms. The company he kept was questionable at best. The gamblers at the bars would drink, the boys his age passed the time with petty theft, but he did have one friend who was a good influence. That friend was Mary Evans. Mary was a schoolmate, a sweet brown-haired girl and the complete opposite of Steve. Her parents were of the utmost moral character. She did not participate in the antics of Steve and his friends. But for some unknown reason, she liked Steve. And as much as a 10-year-old can comprehend the term, she thought she might even love him, much to the chagrin of her parents. But they needn’t worry about their daughter getting mixed up with the little white-headed pirate, which was Steve’s boyhood nickname around town, because at age 11 Steve found employment on a steam boat traveling the Tennessee River and began what would be his first round of steamboat excursions and gambling.

Throughout his teenage years, Steve gambled up and down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, riding steam boats to Memphis, to Florence, Alabama, to New Orleans. And if his childhood was a foundation for his gambling, his teenage years were a foundation for his temper. On one boat, a deck hand insulted him, and in response, Steve picked up a meat cleaver. Thankfully, the cook grabbed Steve’s arm and intervened before he could take action. On another boat, Steve had an altercation with the steward and ran at the steward with an ice pick in hand, more than ready to chip at him like one would a windshield in the winter. Thankfully, the steward retreated to his office, locking the door behind him. Perhaps one of the saddest occasions came when he and some friends were roaming the city in between boat trips. They heard a man crying out in the night begging for water. Steve’s compassionate side got the better of him, and he convinced his friends that they should go help the man. But when they found him, it became clear that the man was not in dire need, but was simply causing a ruckus. So out of anger, Steve and his friends started beating the man, kicking him in the head until he was in and out of consciousness. When their anger was satisfied, they walked away. The next morning, Steve felt a whisper of compassion and went back to the spot where they had left the man. He remembered that stranger he had found in the old shed all those years ago and thought maybe he could bring some food and water to this poor man as well. But when he got to the spot, he saw the coroner kneeling over the man just half a mile from the place where they had knocked him down. Conviction is a funny thing. It can make you decide to reform, or it can have the opposite effect – convincing you that you’ll never change, leading you into a dark despair and even further into the behavior that you felt convicted about in the first place. Steve’s conviction was the latter. His outburst of anger got him kicked off his next boat ride. They dropped him ashore in Kansas City. He wasted no time joining the gambling circuit there, wagering everything he had earned on all those steamboat excursions. But the card games in Kansas City were different than what he was used to, and he lost – everything. With no money, no friends, he wandered the streets, a homeless, drunken gambler. A choking loneliness came upon him. He wore it like those professional black legs wore their fancy clothes, except he didn’t have any fancy clothes, didn’t have any money, and he had no one to turn to. His father, a drunkard, was dead, had been about seven years now. His mother – he didn’t think he could face the fit of rage she would have if he went home now. And as for God? He didn’t know much about God, only that he and God were not square. Here’s how Steve recounts his own sense of spirituality. Quote, “When a child, I used to dream it seems to me almost every night that the devil had me, and sometimes my dreams were so real that I would say to myself while dreaming, ‘Now this is no dream, he’s got me this time sure enough.’ I always had a fear of death and a dread of the future. The rattling of clods on a coffin filled me with awe and dread. When I thought about my soul, I would always say to myself, ‘I am going to get good before I go into the presence of God, but now I wanna keep those thoughts out of mind so I can do as I please and not have to suffer and struggle and fight against sin,'” end quote. So Steve P. Holcomb sat, now a young adult, penniless, drunk, and alone on the strange streets of a strange city. And then, an image flashed across his mind. It was a girl, a sweet-faced, brown-haired girl, the one who had never gambled during their childhood antics, the one who had been perhaps the only good thing in his life, Mary Evans. And an idea began to form in Steve’s mind. Maybe she could help him. Maybe, just maybe, she could set him right.

JESSE EUBANKS: When we come back, cards and Christ are calling. Stay with us.

COMMERCIAL

JESSE EUBANKS: It’s Jesse Eubanks. This is the Love Thy Neighborhood podcast. And today’s episode – “The Converted Gambler.” Producer Rachel Szabo has been telling the incredible story of Steve P. Holcomb, who is now homeless, penniless, and he comes up with a desperate plan to try to put his life back together. That’s where we’ll pick up.

RACHEL SZABO: You and I both know that no problem ever got solved by getting married, at least I hope you know that. But Steve Holcomb, now in his twenties, didn’t know that as he made his way back to Louisville with the intention of calling on his childhood friend Mary Evans and asking her to marry him. Steve was not allowed to set foot on the Evans property due to the fact that her father regarded him much like Voldemort in the Harry Potter series, refusing to even let his name be mentioned in their household. So Steve arranged for them to meet at a friend’s house and abruptly gave a marriage proposal, saying they should elope that very night. Mary was at first taken aback by his boldness, but she had never stopped loving him, even with all the rumors around town of what he had been up to the past decade and even when Steve’s own mother advised her against the marriage, warning her that she would be marrying the very devil himself. Mary said yes, and they eloped the next day without the approval of either set of parents. And at first, Mary seemed to be just what Steve needed. He cleaned up his act. He started going to church, though neither he or Mary were Christians. He took up fishing as an occupation instead of gambling. No one can say Steve didn’t try to reform. He really did. But you can’t ride the river boats as a gambler for 10 years and not expect that life to follow you. It happened during a fishing trip. Steve and a buddy had gone up to Illinois where supposedly the fish were biting particularly well that season, and as they were walking along the docks back to their lodging after a full day of fishing, they could just make out a figure sitting in the dark. That figure pulled out a knife from his boot. “I heard some gamblers have come to town,” he said. He was referring to Steve and his friends. “And I can whip any man along the Ohio River.” It was a threat, a challenge to a game of cards. Steve felt he had no option but to accept. The three men walked to the nearest ballroom, and in due time, they had plenty of alcohol and a game of poker at the ready. It’s important to know that, after all his years of practice, Steve was a good gambler. He could hold his own, especially against this stranger who seemed to be all sass and no skill, and that is how Steve was able to notice during the game that the man was holding back certain cards in the deck. He was cheating. Luckily, Steve also had a good poker face. He made no indication that he knew what the man was doing and simply made his bet. The man saw his bet and raised it, to which Steve raised it again, to which the man raised it again and again. And back and forth it went until both men had all the money they possessed out on the table. The man revealed his hand – four Ace’s. That’s a good hand, a really good hand. In fact, Steve himself said, “That’s a pretty good hand, but I have a better one,” and he hit the man in the head, knocked him to the floor, took his money, and ran. And that was all it took. The rush of gambling all came back. The images of his boyhood fascinations, those gamblers dressed like princes, the allure of the steamboats – that was the life he wanted, not fishing in podunk Shipping Port. He didn’t even tell Mary where he was going. She was at home with their firstborn son. From Illinois, he jumped on a steamboat, headed to New Orleans, and started his second round of steamboat gambling excursions. This time Steve discovered a brand new card game called Farobank, or Faro for short. It was more fast paced than poker and had higher odds of winning. It felt all around more exhilarating. Steve liked Faro. It was quick, up to 10 people could play, and there was more money in it than other games, which is what made Steve think that this was how he could become the rich black leg he wanted to be. He returned to Louisville, saw his family of course, but more importantly, he opened up his very own Farobank gambling house on Jefferson Street. One might wonder what Mary thought of all this. For the most part, Mary was patient. She never gave up hope that Steve might one day be a different man. She bore him several more children and concerned herself with raising them with a level of morality. Their oldest son, William, or Willie as he was called, ended up taking an interest in the Temperance Movement, advocating for abstinence from alcohol. Surely part of that interest was personal. He would often see his own father out on the street drinking, and he always made it a point to stop, beg his father to go home. Miraculously, Mary’s patience and Willie’s persistence came to fruition in the year 1877. The Temperance Movement was in full swing, and one day 17-year-old Willie brought home a piece of paper that said the following – “I, the undersigned, do pledge my word and honor, God helping me, to abstain from all intoxicating liquors as a beverage, and then I will, by all honorable means, encourage others to abstain.” It was a pledge card, and underneath the words was Willie’s signature. He showed it to his father, and for perhaps the first time Steve saw how much the boy cared about him. He thought of his own father who had died when Steve was just 11 out on the streets drinking every day and night. Steve didn’t wanna be that for his children. He was so emotionally moved by that one pledge card signed by his son that he attended a temperance meeting himself the very next night and signed his very own pledge card. But there was still the issue of Steve’s gambling.

Willie, in addition to signing the pledge, had also arranged to be baptized at Broadway Baptist Church and invited his parents to come to the service. Baptism is an outward display of an inward reality, the reality of forgiveness and cleansing. And as Steve sat in Broadway Baptist, watching his son go under the waters, he was again moved with emotion. Walking outta the doors after the service, he turned to Mary and declared, “I will never play another card.” And he meant it. His gambling days were over. The Farobank houses were shut down, the family lived in a house in the Portland neighborhood, and Steve went into the business of produce sales. He was done drinking, he was done gambling, but he was still not right with God.

Then, in October 1877, a gentleman entered Steve’s office looking for housing. By that time, the Holcombs had taken to renting out their own home in order to make ends meet. The gentleman’s name was Reverend Gross Alexander, a young Methodist minister who had been recently assigned to a church in the Portland neighborhood, and he had come to inquire about the Holcombs’ house in Portland as a possible place to stay. But as soon as Steve realized the man was a minister, he quickly refused. “I’m a notorious gambler,” he said, “and of course you would not want to live in a house of mine.” Steve did not feel worthy to have a man of God set foot in his house, but the minister put a hand on Steve’s shoulder and said, “Oh no, my brother, I do not object to living in your house. And who knows, but that this will result in good to us both in more ways than one.” Steve was puzzled that such a godly man would refer to him as brother, but he acquiesced. So the Reverend Alexander took up residence in the Holcomb house, and, on personal invitation, the Holcombs joined his church the next Sunday. But for Steve, something still wasn’t right. He had given up drinking. He had given up gambling. He was now part of a church. But his past haunted him. Here’s how he recounts it. Quote, “I found something was yet wanting. I began to see that I could not make any advance in goodness and happiness, so long as I was burdened with the unforgiven guilt of 40 years of sin and crime. It grew worse and heavier until I felt I must have relief if relief could be had. One day I went to the back office of my business house after the others had all gone home and shut myself up and determined to stay there and pray until I should find relief,” end quote. It’s not known how long Steve stayed in that dark backroom office, but what is known is that by the end he was only thinking three words and praying those three words over and over again – “Jesus of Nazareth.”

At 42 years old, Steve Holcomb was now truly a new man. He had a clear conscience for the first time in his life, but clear consciences don’t make money and right now money was what the Holcombs needed. So Steve took up another job, this time at the fire department polishing the engines, but what he really wanted to be doing was helping folks just like himself – the drunks, the addicts, the men in town whose lives were in shambles. His first attempts to help such men may have been unwise. On more than one occasion, he took men into his home. One of them was a young alcoholic. One night, this man suffered terrible delirium, hearing voices telling him that if he didn’t kill the Holcombs, they would kill him. The young man grabbed his razor, opened the door to the Holcombs’ bedroom. Mrs. Holcomb awoke to see the deranged man standing over the bed, razor in hand. She screamed, which woke her husband. Steve disarmed the man. He then sat up with him all night, mostly listening to the man speak to imaginary beings, and these were the people Steve felt burdened to help. His desires did not go unnoticed by his pastor, the Reverend Gross Alexander, but he clearly needed guidance. So Reverend Alexander took to visiting Steve at the fire station where he worked in order to disciple him one-on-one. Steve was also brought up as a topic of conversation at the next Methodist ministers’ gathering. Clearly the man had a passion and gifts that could be used. Couldn’t the church provide some formal avenue for the man to help the poor and destitute in the city? Couldn’t the church be of some help? The Walnut Street Methodist Church said yes. They had been looking for a way to extend help to the lower social classes of the city. They would provide the means if Steve was willing to provide the time.

In the year 1881, four years after Steve’s conversion, a man walked into the fire station and found Steve rubbing down the engine. This man was Reverend Morris from the Walnut Street Church. He told Steve that he had been authorized to start a mission house in the central part of the city, and would Steve be willing to accept a position from the church to work at this mission house? Steve’s eyes filled with tears. This was exactly what he wanted to do – work in the service of his Lord. He accepted the position immediately. Steve and Reverend Morris held a simple service at noon every day except Sunday. There was no excitement or show. Steve spoke the truth with frankness and sobriety. This was the start of the mission. It quickly gained curiosity from people all over the city. Reverend Morris has reflected on it this way. Quote, “There were strong, wise, honorable businessmen, and there were tramps and drunkards, with all the classes that lie between these two. The gathering looked more like that in the police courts of a great city on Monday morning than like a religious meeting,” end quote. These meetings were held in a building on Jefferson Street between Third and Fourth, just two blocks away from where Steve had once opened his Farobank houses. Some of Steve’s old gambling friends even came to the service, to see with their own eyes if the rumors were true that the notorious gambler had reformed and was now living a Christian life. Some of these old friends ended up donating $500 to the mission. After just three months, the mission outgrew the space and had to move to a larger facility just one block away. They added hymn books and an organ. The services expanded to include singing, prayer, a scripture reading, followed by a message from Steve Holcomb. Sometimes men got up and gave testimony to how the mission had changed their life – men like Whiskey Jim, who was a well-known drunk in the city. In fact, for the past 23 years, no one could ever remember seeing the guy sober. He was seen as a hopeless addict, likely to only make it another year or two before his alcohol consumption would start consuming his vital organs. Steve had approached Whiskey Jim one day and said, “If you’re bound to have whiskey, at least come to the mission and let me give it to you.” At the mission, Steve did indeed give him alcohol, but only a little, and invited him to attend the services. Whiskey Jim obliged, coming every night the doors were open. Then, he started coming for the meals that the mission provided, and after several weeks hanging around the mission, Whiskey Jim decided to give up drinking altogether. He sobered up, not without great difficulty, mind you, and cried the first time he was able to set foot in a church on a Sunday morning, something he hadn’t done since he was a boy. Mind you, not every encounter was like this one. Sometimes men would visit the mission with ill intent just to cause a ruckus, make a scene. But Steve the Christian was no less a force to be reckoned with than Steve the gambler had been. He knew firsthand the world these men were coming from and had no tolerance for belligerent behavior. On more than one occasion, he threw those kind of men out of the service, but his heart was always one of compassion. When the number of men became too many for Steve to take them into his own home, he instituted a social enterprise at the mission, where men had the opportunity to earn food and lodging by working for at least an hour, sawing kindling wood. The wood was then taken out and sold to help fund the mission, and this arrangement provided the most destitute of men with work and sanctuary with a clear gospel influence. On days when service was not being held at the mission, Steve would take to the streets, preaching anywhere he could be heard, including on the courthouse steps. Steve Holcomb and his mission became a tourist attraction, with out-of-town visitors looking up service times so they could come and hear the famous gambler turned preacher.

It’s not known exactly how many lives were changed at the mission, but what is known is that if you tried counting, you would easily lose track. By 1884, the mission had expanded to include a Sunday school for children and a kindergarten. In 1886, the surrounding evangelical churches in the city asked if they could be a part of supporting the mission, and it was officially given the name The Union Gospel Mission. The mission has gone through several name changes since Steve Holcomb ran it, but it still stands today on Jefferson Street and it still focuses on the same work Steve was passionate about all those years ago – aiding Louisville’s homeless and destitute population with lodging and meals and the hope of the gospel.

I’d like to leave you with part of a sermon from Steve Holcomb, a message he preached centered on the passage of John 3:16 – “I am a living witness. He saved me. He can save others like me from all these awful effects of sin, even after they have lived in it for scores of years as I did. This eternal life, this life forever in heaven, I expect – I fully expect – to get. Though I was a poor gambler and swearer and adulterer and all I could be that was sinful for 40 years, yes, I expect to get it. I know I’m on my way, though I am not perfect. Won’t you come and go with us? Oh, won’t you come?”

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JESSE EUBANKS: Steve Holcomb’s mission, now called Re:Center Ministries, is a service site partner of Love Thy Neighborhood. To see what the mission is doing today, visit their website at recenterministries.org. And if you’d like to hear a more recent story of transformation from Re:Center, check out episode number three of this podcast – “Where the Gospel Meets Homelessness.”

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JESSE EUBANKS: If you benefited at all from this podcast, please help us out by leaving a review wherever it is that you listen to podcasts. Your review will help other people discover our show.

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JESSE EUBANKS: This episode was adapted from the book Steve P. Holcomb, The Converted Gambler: His Life and Work by Reverend Gross Alexander and the book The Gambler’s Mission by Adam Garland Winters. Today’s episode was hosted by me, Jesse Eubanks. Rachel Szabo is our media director and narrator for today’s episode. 

RACHEL SZABO: Much to the chagrin of her parents. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Our audio engineer is Anna Tran. Music for today’s episode comes from Lee Rosevere and Blue Dot Sessions. Theme music and commercial music by Murphy DX. If you’d like to join Steve Holcomb’s mission of aiding the homeless and hurting of Louisville, come serve with Love Thy Neighborhood. We offer social action internships for young adults, including internships at Re:Center Ministries. You can serve with us for a summer or for an entire year. You’ll grow in your faith and life skills as we help you navigate what it means to be a young adult and a Christian in today’s context. Learn more at lovethyneighborhood.org. Which of these was a neighbor to the man in need? The one who showed mercy. Jesus tells us, “Go, and do likewise.”