Everyone's life has a story. In "Lives," we tell some of those stories about North Shore people who have died recently. "Lives" runs Mondays in The Salem News.

TOPSFIELD — There are preachers who teach and teachers who preach. Teachers whose lives are prisms refracting the spectrum of their knowledge, experience and standards as beams illuminating paths for others. And themselves.

They set a high bar, sometimes higher than even they can clear, but that's no reason to lower it. The point, after all, is not to attain, but to keep striving.

Such a teacher was Carleton Kenerson, a man of God who squeezed as much as anyone could out of the 94 years he was given on this Earth, and who checked out owing it nothing.

The Holy Bible was his bible, but he didn't thump it; he lived it. He was neither saintly nor sanctimonious, and was comfortable enough in his beliefs that he could find humor in them.

During one of his many trips to help the poor in Haiti, the country was in a greater-than-normal state of revolt. Kenerson would later tell people he kept asking the Lord to give him a bit of Scripture that would make him feel better, "but all I could think of was how they brought John's head on a platter."

He was raised Catholic but became an evangelical Christian who neither liked nor disliked today's televangelists. For his was a black-and-white path, and when he set out on it, the Rev. Billy Graham was the public face of his beliefs. Kenerson was nothing if not loyal.

When Graham crusaded in Boston in 1982, Kenerson and his late, beloved wife of 69 years, Thelma, rented a bus on faith, believing there were enough people in the Topsfield area who wanted to make the trip to Nickerson Field to cover the cost. They were right.

He spent most of his working career as an educator but began as an auto mechanic at the old Daniels-LeSaffre dealership in Melrose, where he worked many years. He was always a Chrysler man.

"Until the dealership closed, I wouldn't have thought of buying anything else," daughter Ellen Mahoney said.

A home, a garden and charity

Kenerson and his wife moved to Topsfield when he took over as the head of the newly formed auto repair department at Northeast Regional Metro Technical Vocational School in Wakefield in 1971. The superintendent's mother had just bought a house on Main Street in Topsfield, but decided she hated it.

The Kenersons recognized a heck of a deal when they saw it and bought the house, on 2 acres no less, for $30,000.

On a large plot behind their home, they planted 1,000 chrysanthemums every spring, pinched them all back twice during the summer and sold the huge plants out of their driveway in the fall. The proceeds went to Teen Challenge Boston, a Christian residential drug recovery program.

Kenerson and longtime friend Tony Annis met for breakfast and Bible study every morning of the week for 20 years. It was only a half-hour or so, but you have to admire the commitment.

Through Partners With Haiti, Kenerson and his family visited the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere many times, building a schoolroom, a clinic and any number of homes. Kenerson was still going there, alone, into his 80s.

As a teacher, Kenerson had summers off, and Ellen said the family made the most of them. They bought an Airstream trailer and crisscrossed this country and Canada.

On a trip to the Seattle World's Fair in 1962, Kenerson stopped to help a man whose car had broken down. He turned out to have been the ranger at Glacier National Park in the 1920s. Through him, Kenerson got a job running a gas station in St. Mary's, Mont., where he was the only mechanic for 70 miles in any direction for several summers.

"I really had a perfect upbringing," Ellen said, a touch of amazement in her voice.

Naughty boy?

Kenerson was demanding of his students, so they might be surprised to learn his own youth was not so well-spent.

"I think he was a naughty boy," Ellen said. "My grandmother once said, 'I got so tired of the police coming here.'"

He was even held back one year in high school after he skipped 80 of the 180 days in the school year.

"You couldn't pull anything on him he hadn't already done," Ellen said.

Until just last year, Kenerson worked at the Rowley Country Club, mowing the greens and tending the equipment. He could never get his handicap under 18, so it's small wonder Ellen's son, Derek, was the apple of his eye. He's a 2-handicap.

Kenerson was diagnosed with acute leukemia on Oct. 9, but Ellen said he really fell ill the day Thelma died, May 30.

He was admitted to Beverly Hospital on Wednesday, Oct. 21. Doctors told Ellen her father was just hanging on for her.

So he was moved to Masconomet Healthcare Center in Topsfield two days later, and it turned out to be a 10-minute gift for father and daughter.

Because she lives so close, Ellen decided to run over and see her father as soon as he arrived.

"I took his hand and said, 'Dad, I'm here,'" Ellen said. "He gave a big sigh and died.

"Here I am at 60, and he didn't think I could take care of myself. He was just a true dad, that's what it was."

Staff writer Steve Landwehr can be reached at 978-338-2660 or by e-mail at slandwehr@salemnews.com.