Page 55 - MLD Book

The beginning of the year saw yet another clergy assistant grace Calvary, this one in the person of Emily Schwartz. She came as a Deacon, and then on September 8, she was ordained a priest and became Assistant to the Rector. Funny how these titles all got bandied about, and I suspect humility wasn’t ever the motivating factor! She had a lovely singing voice, and that was a welcome departure from some other clergy over the years. Not fair assessment, I guess though, as many of them were. That does not include any Bishop of our diocese! We got along fine except occasionally Emily wanted to put me in my place, as I was
Mary Redden now assumed the role of Junior Choir Director – I think they dropped the SONGBIRDS label sometime along the way. She managed to entice some high school kids, starting with her own two by command, so the choir sounded pretty good.
In one of the many CONNECTION editions I presented to the congregation, I usually tried to feature a particular member who had contributed much to Calvary. There were two for 2008, Clyde Warner and Downey Gray, but for different circumstances, as one is still very much alive at 96 and the other died at 87 on August 8. Clyde’s father, as I mentioned previously, was property chair when I arrived, and after our brief skirmish about who was to maintain the organ, we got along great. Same still with Clyde, who knows everything mechanical about Calvary. I regret that some of the younger ones, as is so often the case, now do not treasure his advice as they should. But what do old people know? LOTS!!! After serving multiple terms on the vestry in multiple capacities, devoting multiple years to fixing everything, his reward was last year to be defeated for election to the vestry. How I hated that for him. I still say ASK CLYDE if you want to know something, or get something done. As an architect, he knows everything about Calvary there is to know. He was always very supportive of everything musical I tried to do, and formed the Warner Music Fund in memory of his parents so I could get some things that were not in the budget. (Hardly anything musical was ever in the budget!!) Later, as I mentioned before, that fund became the Warner Snyder Fund upon Harold Snyder’s death, with the same purpose continued. It still exists, and I am not privy to what Shawn uses it for.
Downey was the other one at Calvary who always got stuff done and deserved the label ASK DOWNEY. He was on the board of the Episcopal Church Home, and was always able to get parishioners and others needing a place into the ECH, Melvin included, for rehab. He served on the vestry in every capacity, like Clyde. As I also mentioned, he was on the search committee with me when we went to Memphis and got Ben. Downey’s funeral was in
not ordained. I recall one very unusual incident in the upstairs hallway, where both she and Callie confronted me because I had on my own taken a meal to Susan Baker when Nick was in the hospital. They both thought I had violated the usual crisis care channels ion order to do that. Never mind that the Bakers are neighbors and we had
done a number of
fundraisers together at the Bach Haus! I was sort of mystified at their confrontation but I guess they felt threatened. How dumb.
CHOICES