ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times

DATE: Saturday, December 30, 1995            TAG: 9601020057
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-3  EDITION: METRO 
                                             TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: LISA K. GARCIA

FORMER VINTON MINISTER DIES

The Rev. Richard Forrester, former minister to Thrasher Memorial United Methodist Church in Vinton, died Thursday in Richmond at age 88.

Forrester served a different church every four years but, when he retired in 1972, he came back to Vinton to serve as an associate minister until 1982 and remained a pastor emeritus until his death.

After actively practicing ministry for 50 years, Forrester looked back on a career that began during the Depression and ended in the comparatively booming economy of the '80s.

Groceries often substituted for a cash salary during the Depression.

``When it was hog-killing time, for instance, you had more hog meat than you knew what to do with,'' Forrester said in a 1982 interview. ``That was a very rural situation. You had poverty then, but your poverty was all over, and they didn't know it.''

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