Generations

My grandparents David and Grace (Willard) Andrews, parents Rick and Patsy (Brooks) Andrews, great-grandparents Helen (Hafer) and Elmer Andrews...and me.

One of the fun facts about my own ministry is that it comes four generations in--tracing back to my great-grandfather, Elmer Andrews, through my grandfather David Andrews, my father Rick Andrews, and eventually to me, and for the final years of his life, my brother Daniel. Four generations is notable, and I do bear that legacy with pride.

What is also notable, however, are all of those in my family tree who, without ordination lived into their own ministries, as lay people, clergy spouses, founding member of churches, and much more.

Featured in the photo in this post are all four generations of Andrews clergy. The photo was taken in the unfortunately narrow window when my great-grandfather's life overlapped mine (just over a year). I am told that this photo was taken when my paternal grandparents and great-grandparents ventured down to North Carolina to visit my parents and me while Dad was serving as a student local pastor during his seminary studies at Duke.

So yes, all four generations of clergy are in this photo, but also four generations of laity. My great-grandmother Helen, who I have fleeting memories of, including the smell of her house when we visited and I was told she was making sauerkraut. She worked as a teacher at a time when pastor's spouses--only women then--did not. I later learned that at least some of those years teaching she lived in town by her school during the week, and returned home with great-granddad on the weekends.

My grandmother Grace, also in the photo, told me a story once about advice, or reflection, I guess, my great-grandfather had offered her. The context was Grandma home with an infant, living with great-granddad, while Granddad was off at school and great-grandma was away during the week teaching. In the midst of what I can only imagine was overwhelming for her on her own with her father in law as a young mother, Grandma recounted that great-granddad told her parenting was always hard, and that there was something to be valued about having your kids young enough that you always knew what they were up to and where they were. It got harder, he explain, once their lives tipped toward independence.

Great-grandma's teaching career has recently come into greater focus for me as I sorted through a box recently passed along to my by my aunt, who has spent the years since Grandma's death (coming several years after Granddad's) patiently sorting through all of their belongings and passing them along with hopes we can help unearth and appreciate their treasures. There always seems to be a new box finding its way into my car truck when I visit. The most recent box contained a letter from the county teachers association congratulating Great-Grandma on her retirement. In that same box were mementos of her church involvement--programs from Methodist Women's events, her father's hymn book, and other items revealing her deep involvement in the church even as she was busy with work in a time that would be been quite remarkable for a married woman.

My grandmother Grace was no less formidable. She too worked throughout much of Granddad's active ministry. For her, nursing was a calling that provide opportunity to help others and to forge community among colleagues. Several years ago I was asked to record as part of a video curriculum the Baltimore-Washington Conference was creating which included historical reflection. My section was about how the 1968 merger of the Evangelical United Brethren Church with the Methodist Church provided a powerful bookend to the segregated church structure embedded in the Central Jurisdiction. Also included in that section, and indeed recording on the same day, was Bishop Forest Stith. As Bishop Stith and his wife arrived, when she learned who I was (or rather whose I was, who my family was), she lit up and quickly began sharing her gratitude for my grandmother, with whom she overlapped as a cabinet spouse (both Bishop Stith and Granddad served on the Baltimore Conference cabinet as district superintendents at the same time). Bishop Stith was then the only African-American on the cabinet, and his wife the only African-American spouse. Mrs. Stith explained it was common for African-American clergy wives to work, as salaries were lower in many of their churches and their families needed the extra support. However for white pastors, it was indeed rare for a wife to work. And on the cabinet, none did. Except my grandmother. Mrs. Stith shared how welcome my grandmother has made her feel, and how important having someone to share that similar experience with was.

One of my favorite parts of that story was the part of the cabinet spouse (wife) story that Grandma had told me. At one gathering (it seems to have been not uncommon for the spouses to have organized conversations perhaps when their husbands were meeting), the bishop's wife asked all the DS wives what they liked best about being the wife of a DS. My grandmother told me that she realized she couldn't offer the true answer. Nothing. There was nothing she liked about it. So she came up with something, and the conversation moved along. Grandma was very often very polite, but always with an opinion. Even if she most often kept that to herself in public.

I could share so much about my Grandma's influence on me, my life, my ministry. That will need to be a post all its own. Or the ways my own mother, raised Catholic, becoming Baptist in college (including a stint as president of the Baptist student group on campus, ended up marrying a would-be United Methodist minister. The ways she steadily instilled faith in us. I could also write so much more.

For now though, when I look at this photo I am grateful not only for the generations of clergy, but for all in my family who helped craft the foundations upon which I stand. Those who paved the road I would tread into ministry. Four generations of faithfulness in this photo, and so many more in the cloud of witnesses surrounding me.