Marion Joshua Hite

In the Pro-life work many people are heros that will not be recognized. One of which passed away recently. Looking at the Obituary we would not think anything about his pro-life work.

Marion Joshua Hite
Recitation of the rosary followed by a funeral Mass will be at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 11, 2008, in Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Portland for Marion Joshua "Doc" Hite of Beaverton, who died Oct. 4 at age 102.
Marion Joshua Hite was born Dec. 9, 1905, in Boring. A farmer in Gresham and a truck driver, he also owned a body-and-fender business. He was a member of the church.
Survivors include his sisters, Pearl Barger and Marie Spencer.
Remembrances to Human Life International. Arrangements by Zeller.

Looking at his life you would wonder why non of his work was recognized. Here is a better example of this mans life.

A gentle legend in the pro-life world has died.
Each day for decades, Doc Hite walked, stood, sat and eventually slumped outside a Portland abortion clinic, urging adoption over abortion. His mission was persistent testimony to what he considered a slaughter of innocents. Hite, a member of Holy Rosary Parish, kept up his protest until he was 100.
He died Oct. 4 at age 102, after several years of sickness thwarted his mission. There was a rosary and funeral Mass at Holy Rosary last weekend.
“Only the dear Lord knows how many babies he actually saved,” says Thomas Di Novo, a Beaverton member of a Catholic men’s association that included Hite as its spiritual inspiration. “I know we are not to declare anyone a saint before the church does, but there are many who thought of him as a living saint.”
Hite received honors for his work from the church and pro-life groups, but not until he was well into his 90s. For decades before that, the former cowboy and berry farmer kept lonely vigil outside the Lovejoy Surgicenter, a clinic in a chic Portland neighborhood. Rain or shine, he always took the bus from the low-rent side of town, toting signs, a lawn chair and an umbrella.
He did not usually speak harshly of others, but did have some words for Christians who would not join him. “I quoted Scripture,” he told the Sentinel in 1999. “‘Naked and you clothed me, thirsty and gave me drink.’ What will He say to them? ‘I was being tortured and killed by the abortionists and you never lifted a finger to stop it!’”
He was more vocal in the 1970s and early 1980s, when he was part of a larger protest group that even blocked the clinic doors with their bodies. Hite was arrested seven times and spent a month in jail, praying and reading. He mellowed with age, but kept up at Lovejoy after the crowds faded. Court injunctions kept him from positioning himself directly in front of the clinic.
Hite always spoke respectfully if pleadingly to the women he encountered outside the building, urging them to call a 1-800 number for information about adoption. He was rarely, if ever, harsh and leaned toward compassion.
There are about 10,000 abortions in Oregon each year and usually about one in three are performed at Lovejoy.
Hite’s motivation, he told the Sentinel in 1999, is “love of God and children.”Some of the women who did not abort because of his presence at the clinic would bring their babies to see him. You could count them on one hand, but most people assume there were many others who made their decisions without telling him.
Hite grew up on a small farm between Sandy and Boring. A lifelong Catholic, he was raised in the faith at St. Michael Parish in Sandy, the second oldest of seven children.
He attended Benson Polytechnic High School and then he headed to Mount Angel Seminary, intent on becoming a priest. He says that he was forced to leave because of an illness. “General sickness, I guess,” he says.
There began a long series of roughneck and often lonely jobs. He tended sheep and rustled cattle in eastern Oregon. He worked in logging camps around the state and fixed dents in cars.
His given name was Marion. His cowboy nickname, Dock, morphed into Doc.Hite retired in the early 1970s, just after the U.S. Supreme Court decision that opened the door to legal abortion. It was then that he decided he had better do something.
“Thou shalt not stand idly by when human life is at stake,” he said, briefly breaking into King James English. “I’m afraid that is what a lot of people are doing.”He never wed. At 100, he admitted it might have been nice to have children.He is survived by two sisters, Pearl Barger and Marie Spencer, and many nieces and nephews.

This story can be found at http://www.sentinel.org/node/9533