Lakewood Lore

Pastor Balliett's proclivity for verse sure isn't a curse

Bitten by the creativity bug, former pastor Paul R. Balliett is a compulsive poet who during his 74 years has written 2,000 verses, 1,400 life-story eulogies for funeral services and 100 songs (lyrics and music).

The poems rhyme and have a meter and a message. They are inspirational, with love his major mission.

They flow from his pen almost effortlessly and so fast that he records at the end of each, the hour and minute it was written as well as the day. One Easter morning he composed seven poems in an hour and 15 minutes.

Balliett delivers his eulogies at funerals after thorough research into the lives of the deceased.

“They are written in first person as if talking to family and friends,” he explained.

“I enjoy doing them because I feel everyone is very important,” he said, pointing out that he once wrote a eulogy for a one-day-old child.

“Now you may wonder what could be written in first person for one so newly born,” he went on. “Well, I found the baby had a message for its parents -- a special legacy.

“I started out by having it say, ‘You didn’t think you could have a baby. You tried without success for six long years. I showed you that you could, so now you can have another.’”

Bard Balliett churns out poems for all occasions -- marriages, birthdays, baptisms, wedding anniversaries, graduations and just plain friendship-professing. He also composes college songs and specialized lyrics to be sung to favorite popular tunes.

Any monies he receives for his outpourings, which includes two books -- “Parson’s Parables” and “June’s Choices ... The Perfect Gift” -- are given to charity and worthy causes.

Our prolific versifier was one of seven children born in Lakewood to Clyde and Flora Mae Balliett. He grew up in West Park, graduated from Fenn College, earned a master of theology degree from Drew University at Madison, N.J. in 1942, and the same year was married to the former Marjorie Goetz.

Through the years he was pastor of numerous Methodist churches, serving locally in Collinwood, Bedford, Lorain and finally Maple Heights. He retired in 1982. The Ballietts, who now live in Rocky River, have four children and nine grandchildren.

Always a lover of sports, Balliett still swims, golfs and plays tennis. While at West High School, he pitched baseball and quarterbacked on the football team. However, his quarterbacking was limited because unfortunately he was a classmate of the great Kenneth Noble, West High’s all-scholastic quarterback of the early ‘30s.

“I warmed the bench as a backup for Ken and often recall what was a humbling experience,” Balliett confessed.

“Early in one game, the coach, Walter Schupp, called me over. Hoping to get in, I was all anticipation.

“‘Let me have your shoes,’ he said. I took them off -- they were size 13s. The coach gave them to a 240-pound tackle who had split a shoe.

“Swallowing my pride, I returned to the bench where I sat dangling my stockinged feet and knowing I would never get in the day because I had no shoes.”

This article by Dan Chabek appeared in the Lakewood Sun Post November 15, 1990. Reprinted with permission.

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