Glenn Coon, Jr. was born on Grenada, an exotic island in the Caribbean in 1932. His parents, Glenn & Ethel Coon had been missionaries in the British West Indies, and returned to the United States when Glenn was two years old.

For the next five years he lived with his parents, and sister - Nita - in New Jersey, where his father engaged in public evangelism. One of the first memories of his life was of an out-of-control fire consuming their ‘tabernacle’ home. This happened in the city of Elizabeth New Jersey.

His father - Glenn Sr. - had always engaged in big-city evangelism. So large were the crowds, that they must either rent a large theater, pitch a huge tent or - in this case - erect a building. The large wooden structure was called a ‘tabernacle.’ The Coon family lived in the two side rooms that adjoined the speaker’s platform.

One cold winter day the kerosene heater tipped over, and in no time there was a raging fire. Glenn Jr. was five at the time.