During his 40 years as a United Methodist pastor in Virginia, the Rev. Jack Hampton Arnold started two churches, led 13 churches and was associate pastor at three more.

In 1951, he helped start Buckroe Beach Methodist Church at Buckroe Beach, said his wife of 58 years, Jo Ann Brittingham Arnold.

"[Our church] met in a fire station. Often the alarm would go off during the 11 a.m. service. Half the congregation would get up and get into the fire truck. The house next to the church burned once. We really put out fires at that church."

Mr. Arnold, who retired from the ministry in 1990, died Friday in a Williamsburg health-care center. The 83-year-old former Hampton resident had been ailing for six years.

A funeral will be held Monday at 11 a.m. at Central United Methodist Church in Hampton, where he sang in the choir and was a member of United Methodist Men. Burial will be Monday at 1 p.m. in Olive Branch Cemetery in Portsmouth.

A Portsmouth native, "Jack grew up in Monumental Methodist Church and just loved the preachers in his church and I think maybe that's what inspired him to go into the ministry," his wife said.

After attending Randolph-Macon College for a year, he joined the Navy, which put him in a military chaplaincy program at the University of Virginia that would have sent him into World War II and financed his education. He earned a bachelor's degree at U.Va., but the war ended before he could be sent overseas.

Mr. Arnold began service with the Virginia Annual Conference of the Methodist Church in 1949 after earning a master of theology degree from Emory University.

He served at churches near Newport News and in Riverton, Marshall, Eastern Shore, Alexandria, Mount Vernon, Purcellville, Woodbridge, Richmond, Fairfax, Martinsville and Axton.

"He always enjoyed visitation with the sick and helping with the grief of others. He helped people learn to read. He enjoyed teaching," his wife said.

"At home he enjoyed Bible study and worked his way through 12 volumes of the Interpreters Bible."

In his spare time, he kept an eye out to add to his collection of antique clocks. He had 40 in his study, including three cuckoo clocks.

Survivors, in addition to his wife, include two daughters, Catherine Ann Hamilton of Chesterfield County and Mary Ann Mason of Martinsville; and two granddaughters and one great-granddaughter.