The Gunthers of Baltimore Maryland adopted Tom when he was five years old and Tom moved to the farm they owned. Tom's life would change again when he was just 10 years old when his adopted father also passed away and was buried on Christmas Eve of 1955. Tom's mother sold the farm and moved to a small brick house a few miles away.
Tom Gunther was a mischievous child who regularly got himself into trouble - even getting himself kicked out of school early in his high school years. He was always honest and polite, but a character with a very friendly and outgoing personality who was usually the class clown.
Upon graduation from high school, Tom went to work for a local machine shop for a couple of years. He also during this time began his own cabinet making shop out of the basement of his mother's home. Tom would later become a dispatcher for the local stone quarry, a job that he held until he left Baltimore to go to Bible college in Chicago.
Tom married Priscilla Bridner who ironically lived on the very same road, but several miles away. They had know each other through church outings and had gone to the same school at various times.
They married on May 7 1967 at Salem United Methodist Church.
Tom and Priscilla moved into the first floor of Tom's mother's home so they could care for her due to her age. Tom and Priscilla had their first son 'Wes' in 1970 and their second son 'Brett' in 1973. Priscilla during this time was a public school history teacher.
Tom and Priscilla and their two sons began attending the Grace Bible Baptist Church in the Catonsville area in 1973, just a year after the church was founded. They became deeply involved in the ministry and in 1975 left for Chicago so that Tom could go to Bible college.
The family spent the next four years in the Chicago area where Tom attended the Hyles Anderson College and worked full time for NAPA Autoparts. Upon graduation in 1979 the family headed back to Baltimore where Tom and Priscilla took jobs at the newly formed Grace Bible Baptist School at their home church.
In June of 1980 Tom accepted the call to Pastor the Independent Bible Church of Sand Beach near Hershey Pennsylvania. This was a church that Pastor Gunther pastored for just one year but saw growth from an average of 65 to an average of over 120 each Sunday morning. The church was not prepared for this type of growth, having been a small country church for many years.
In June of 1981 Tom resigned as Pastor of Sand Beach and within two weeks had formed a new church in a home in the town of Hummelstown PA. That first week saw 12 people in attendance but services quickly begin to reach the mid twenties in the weeks to follow. Soon a new facility was necessary and the newly formed congregation took the name of Grace & Truth Bible Church and rented space in a former Milton Hershey Orhphanage Home. This home still stands within the entrance now to Hersheypark and the Hershey Entertainment Complex.
In 1981 and 1983 Priscilla Gunther gave birth to a daughter, Bethany and then a third son, Stephen. Priscilla Gunther began to teach fourth grade at Mountain View Christian School. Priscilla now teaches fourth grade at Emmanuel Baptist Academy in Mechanicsburg and has taught fourth grade for the last 30 years.
In 1985 the church moved into their permanent facility on Pleasant View Road in Hummelstown on seven acres the Lord had provided where they erected a new church building.
In 1995 the church was able to dramatically ad to the facility with additional classrooms and a gymnasium. Pastor Gunther would pastor at Grace & Truth until his death in 1999.
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