Dr. Norman S. Deaton

Norman Deaton tried to find out once why the husband of a church member was so reluctant to attend services. The man confessed he didn't feel comfortable in church because a pastor somewhere else had looked down on his smoking habit. "Well, smoking doesn't make you go to hell," Deaton told the man. "It just might get you to heaven a little bit quicker." The combination of having a way with both words and people made Deaton a natural at ministry, his family said. Deaton spent years preaching, including at both First Baptist and Grace Baptist churches in the Eustis area. Deaton, of Eustis, died Tuesday of pneumonia. He was 81. "People went to his church that would never darken the door of a church because he loved them," said his daughter, Dale Deaton of Eustis. Deaton was born in Memphis, where he met his wife, Betsy. The two were childhood sweethearts. "He just knew so much about so many things. He was a good conversationalist," Betsy Deaton said. The couple married while both attended Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., in 1957. Betsy Deaton said her husband "always wanted to do something for the Lord." Dale Deaton said her father "had a very big heart and liked to help people. That was a profession he thought he could help people." Deaton worked at a number of churches around the country after attending seminary. He came to Lake County from Clearwater in 1982. He was pastor of First Baptist Church in Eustis, then founding pastor of nearby Grace Baptist Church. He retired in 1998 and later did missionary work in the Philippines. He also taught Sunday school in various churches after retirement. The editor of his high school newspaper and an avid reader throughout his life, Deaton was "brilliant with words," his daughter said. He had a way of boiling down complicated concepts in a way people could easily understand. Despite his busy schedule as a pastor, Deaton always made time for his four children, his daughter said. "My dad was at our things more than the other kids' parents were," she said. "When I went to all my high school reunions, all the kids just talked about my dad the whole time. My dad would do stuff with them a lot of times their own parents wouldn't." Norman Deaton also enjoyed hunting and was a whiz at Trivial Pursuit. In addition to his wife and daughter, Deaton is survived by three sons, Daniel of Pineville, La.; Donald of Mason, Ohio, and David of Raleigh, N.C.; brothers Tom of Chattanooga, Tenn., and Dorsey of Atlanta; 11 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. Arrangements are being handled by Harden/Pauli Funeral Home, Eustis.