Born: 23rd February to Emanuel Brandstater Jr and Wilhemina Darko in Collinsvale, Tasmania, Australia
Married: Frances Eastwood on 5th January 1926 in Perth, Australia
Children: Rhona, Bernard John, Murray Everett and Lynette Frances Passed away: 23rd March 1983 in Redlands, California
Roy was born in Bismarck, now Collinsvale, in Tasmania in 1898, the last of eight children of Emanuel Brandstater Jr and Wilhemina, both immigrants from East Prussia. He married Frances Eastwood from Kalgoorlie, daughter of an English immigrant James Wilkinson Eastwood and Louise Everett, in 1926. They had four children, Rhona, Bernard, Murray and Lynette.
After attending primary school in Collinsvale, in 1914, at the age of 16, Roy traveled to Cooranbong, NSW where he attended Australasian Missionary College (Avondale), graduating in 1920 from the ministerial course. Roy’s life was committed to the Seventh-day Adventist Church which he served as evangelist, church pastor, conference department head and missionary until his retirement in 1973.
For the first 10 years of his professional life, Roy worked as an evangelist in country towns throughout Western Australia, reaching out to the public by advertising meetings to be held in a large tent or rented halls. He worked in Albany, Manjimup, Kalgoorlie, Boulder City, Merredin and Perth. It was in Manjimup that he was able to establish a new church which he personally constructed of wood with his own hands. He also established a new church in Merredin. In 1931 he relocated to northern NSW where he continued his evangelistic work in Kurri Kurri, Weston, Cessnock, Maitland, Tamworth and the suburbs of Sydney. During this time he took some photography classes and with a special camera he was able to produce large glass black and white lantern slides that were hand tinted in color by his wife Frances. He used these slides extensively to illustrate his evangelistic presentations. He was sent to Woollongong in 1938 where he had another successful mission and was responsible for construction of a church building that was dedicated in 1940. From 1941-3 he conducted his last evangelistic campaign in Bathurst.
From 1944 to 1952 Roy served as head of the church conference departments of Youth and Sabbath School in Adelaide, South Australia and then moved to Melbourne to serve as pastor of churches in Ringwood, then East Prahran and Fern Tree Gully, all suburban churches in Melbourne, Victoria. Rather than retire, Roy spent 2 years as church pastor in Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and six months pastoring in Nicosia, Cypress. Finally in 1969 he relocated with Frances to join their four children in California where he served for three years as pastor of the SDA church in Fallbrook until he retired in Redlands.
Roy’s wife Frances contributed greatly to his success in the ministry. Roy had a musical flair, and embellished his meetings by playing his cornet or singing solos in his fine tenor voice. Frances would play the piano for community hymns or accompany him as he sang. She added color to his black and white lantern slides and painted many of his public advertising signs. And she was always willing to pack up her family and follow Roy wherever he was sent to serve. During his retirement in Redlands Roy started and directed a choir called Heritage Singers that specialized in Early Advent hymns and which gave performances in Southern California. Roy died peacefully in his sleep in Redlands in 1983.
Author: Murray Brandstater, son of Roy and Frances Brandstater
