Eugene McLaurin

Eugene William McLaurin (1888-1978) was a Presbyterian minister and educator in Texas. He was a 1916 graduate of Austin Seminary who left his parish in Edna, Texas, to serve on the Western front during World War I. He served as a private with the American Expeditionary Forces with the 315th Supply Train of the 90th Division. He worked as the assistant to the battalion chaplain, and during his service, McLaurin buried several hundred American soldiers with brief funeral services. He would often write to the families of the men he buried and continued to keep in touch with many of them after the end of the war.

McLaurin grew up and attended college in Mississippi before coming to Texas to further his studies at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and the University of Texas. Licensed and ordained in 1916, McLaurin held pastorates at Edna (1916-1920), Sweetwater (1920-1923), and Ballinger (1923-1936), Texas. While serving as pastor in Ballinger, McLaurin received a Doctor of Divinity from Daniel Baker College in 1932. He moved to Houston to act as superintendent of home missions for the Brazos Presbytery from 1936-1938. He returned to Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary as a professor of systematic theology and New Testament language and exegesis from 1938-1958. After his service in World War I, McLaurin married his sweetheart, Myrtle Alice Arthur, and they had one son, Lauchlin Arthur McLaurin. McLaurin retired honorably to the small east Texas town of Waskom in 1958 and passed away in 1978.

In addition to his work as a pastor and educator, McLaurin served on the Ad Interim Committee on Changes in Confession of Faith and Catechisms of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, U.S. in 1941. He also served as moderator for the Synod of Texas in 1949.