Lawrence Cousins attended grade school in Thayer, Missouri, and then graduated from high school in Streeter, Illinois. He attended Culver-Stockton Christian Church College in Canton, Missouri, and received his master’s degree from Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1933. He was ordained a minister in the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, and taught humanities for six years in Edwards, Mississippi. He and his wife moved to Walla Walla, Washington in 1940, and the following year he became associate pastor of the Central Christian Church there. During World War II he left his parish to be commissioned a U.S. Army chaplain, serving in Europe where he earned a Silver Star and later retired as a U.S. Army major. After the war he returned to Walla Walla and served as the U.S. Veterans Administration Medical Center’s chaplain from 1946 to his retirement in 1970. He continued in a limited ministry in retirement, conducting marriages and funerals, counseling, and participating in many community services.