THE LATE REV. DONALD TURNER, WITH WIFE, NORMA JEAN, IN THIS PHOTO FROM 2017. SECOND BAPTIST CHURCH, IN HOMESTEAD, HELD A MEMORIAL FOR REV. TURNER ON SATURDAY, AUG. 13, AT 4 P.M., AT THE CHURCH, 108 W. 12TH AVE.
Norma Jean Turner believes that it was legendary musician Fats Domino who performed on top of a police station that had all the young people flocking to her hometown of McDonald, Pa., 18 miles southwest of Pittsburgh.
But she knows for sure that whomever was the headliner, it didn’t really matter, for she met the man who would play the starring role in her life for over 60 years.
“That’s where I first met him,” Norma Jean Turner told the New Pittsburgh Courier.
“Him” was Donald Page Turner. Originally from Wellsburg, W.Va., he came up to McDonald for the performance, and the rest, they say, is history.
Donald Page Turner and Norma Jean Turner later married in 1958 and moved to Canonsburg, where Rev. Turner pastored Mount Olive Baptist Church for five years. Then the couple moved closer to Pittsburgh, where Rev. Turner became pastor of Second Baptist Church in Homestead in 1971.
He was the pastor there for 48 years until his retirement in 2019.
“He loved people,” Norma Jean told the Courier of her late husband, “so that’s why he loved his job as being the pastor. He always wanted to be among them doing whatever they were doing; painting the building, washing it down, making the garden…he just loved people.”
Reverend Turner passed away on May 29, at 11 a.m., according to his family, sur rounded by his wife and three children.
Reverend Turner’s funeral service was held, June 18, at New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, in Florida. His burial with military honors occurred on June 20 at Florida National Cemetery. Reverend Turner served in the U.S. Armed Forces from July 23, 1954 to July 12, 1957. He was a paratrooper and attained the rank of sergeant in the U.S. Army.
LOVING FAMILY (FILE PHOTO FROM 2013)—From left: Gabriele Randall, granddaughter; Norma Jean Turner, wife; Caleb Randall, grandson; Rev. Donald P. Turner, and Nicole Randall, daughter.
OnSaturday, Aug. 13, Second Baptist Church in Homestead had its own memorial service for their beloved pastor, beginning at 4 p.m. The church is located at 108 W. 12th Ave. Reverend Turner’s wife and three children (Stephen Craig, Dawn Nicole, Kristyn Page) attended the memorial.
“What I would love people to remember most about (Rev. Turner) is his extreme generosity,” voiced his first daughter, (Dawn) Nicole Randall. “How he spent his life giving not only to Second Baptist but to the community at-large. His jovial spirit…you’re always laughing or being uplifted in his presence. He spent his whole life serving others.”
Reverend Turner founded “Teens for Christ,” a group of young men and women who study God’s Word, and travel around the Pittsburgh region singing. Also under Rev. Turner’s leadership, the church’s Scholarship Committee was formed, and scholarships are now awarded each year to high school seniors, college students, trade school students and college graduates. Reverend Turner didn’t forget about the elementary and middle schoolers; he recognized their achievements in church at the end of the school year.
Reverend Turner also founded the Birthday Program at Second Baptist, where senior citizens at the church would be recognized and receive a monetary gift on their big day.
In the late ‘70s, Rev. Turner led a structural expansion and renovation of the church, providing an educational wing, pastor’s study room, additional restrooms, new facade, and remodeled kitchen. A working benevolent fund was started under Rev. Turner’s leadership that contributes to missionary work in the local community and abroad. From UPMC Children’s Hospital, to the Sickle Cell Foundation and the Salvation Army, Second Baptist Church has made contributions to constructive organizations.
Norma Jean Turner told the Courier of how much Rev. Turner enjoyed going to church-based conferences across the country. Not surprising for a man who loved the people, who loved interacting with the people.
Throughout the decades, Rev. Turner sat on Homestead Borough Council, was president of the Homestead Parking Authority, moderator of the Allegheny Union Baptist Association, discussion leader for the Lott Carey Youth Seminar, and chaplain committee member at the former UPMC Braddock Hospital.
On July 27, 2013, Homestead Borough honored Rev. Turner’s dedication to the Homestead area by renaming the 100 block of West 12th Ave. in Homestead, “Turner’s Place.”
In an obituary sent exclusively to the Courier, Rev. Turner’s family said that he was known as a “dynamic” preacher and teacher, but “singing was never one of his many gifts. Once in a while, he would be graciously given the opportunity by the male chorus to hold the lead microphone, to the worry of his family.”
In addition to his wife and three children, Rev. Turner is survived by four grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, two sisters and a host of nieces and nephews.
(Dawn) Nicole Randall, his daughter, told the Courier that her father always taught her that “love is sacrificial.”
“He always taught it through scripture, but the idea is…if there’s no sacrifice behind that love, then it’s not really love,” Randall said. “If someone’s not willing to do without so that you can have, or if someone is not willing to sacrifice time, or energy, or a talent or gift…if there’s no sacrifice attached to the love, then it’s just words. He (Rev. Turner) lived a life of that, and that is my measuring stick when people say they love me, and that’s what I try to give to the people that I love.”
Randall added: “It’s one of the things I build my life around, and I hope my kids also build their lives around it. The idea of sacrifice.”
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