St. Jean

In Memoriam: St. Jean Purdy

Sometime late 19th or early 20th century, the back wall of Trinity, Apalachicola was opened up and extended to build on a “sanctuary” as part of a catholic liturgical reform that also split the gated pews from centered Protestant style with two wide side aisles to create a center aisle, move the pulpit to the side near a window, create a “chancel” for the choir, create three levels in the worship space (as in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), and make the Altar the center and focus of worship. Again catholic style at the time, the Altar was and still is built into the back wall of the “sanctuary”. All this is shown in old photograph display that graces the wall in the back of the nave (to use terms nave, chancel and sanctuary that slowly faded from use as “sanctuary” came to apply to the entire interior not only of Protestant and Evangelical church buildings, but also, strongly resisted by diehard old timers most of whom have indeed died, during the late 20th century “fading”, now applies in the Episcopal Church as well.

But that’s not my story and remembrance this morning after yesterday’s celebration of All Saints.     

It would have been 1985, maybe 1986, when I finished greeting worshipers at the door after church and walked slowly back down the aisle toward the sacristy to take off my vestments and head to the adjacent rectory for Sunday dinner and my high priestly nap, that I saw some woman, a stranger, inside the customarily forbidden space behind the Altar rail inside the Sanctuary, stepping off the distance from the wall behind the Altar to the first step. “Good morning,” sezz-I, “who are you and what are you doing?”

“I’m seeing if there’s room to move this Altar out from the wall,” says the bold and brassy one. “I’m Jean Purdy and I’ve just come here from San Diego.” 

That late Sunday morning began thirty-odd years of knowing Jean, whom as her priest I experienced not as “feisty” which sounds soft, cute and precious, but moving down the spectrum past scratchy and bitey ... 

Linda looked after Jean, who moved from Apalachicola to StAndrewsTower at the end of Harrison Avenue about the time late 1998 we retired from Trinity and moved home to PC, all those nearly twenty years. There are lots of Jean Stories, I’ll recall only one more: at some point in our Trinity years together, Jean volunteered to help out in the church office by meticulously keeping the Parish Register that she said she knew how, having been entrusted with that task and serious responsibility at her previous church in San Diego. The Parish Register is not only a local church record, it may also be a legal document to prove fact and dates of birth, marriage, death, and must be kept and preserved carefully, as I had been careful with it, so I felt easy with Jean doing it when she told me of her experience. After Jean had taken charge of it for a month or so, I picked up the Parish Register one day and looked through. To my horror, Jean had lined out, deleting, page after page, years of entries and neatly written her own “correct” entries. “Oh my God, what have you done?” I did so gently, but she’s the only parishioner volunteer I ever fired in my years as a parish priest.

Jean died yesterday afternoon, the day after being admitted to hospice. She died of lung cancer, only just diagnosed earlier this year. She married young and her husband, whose name she never told, was immediately thereafter killed during World War Two. Her only relative her son David, whom she birthed out of wedlock and gave up for adoption a bit more than seventy years ago. David searched and found Jean a couple years ago, contacted her and they stayed close in touch. David flew down from New England to meet and visit Jean a few months back, and we took them out for a hearty seafood lunch. That day she was happily her old self or even more so.

Ninety-five coming up on 96, Jean Purdy was the very soul of one of those most unlikely saints of God who are just folks like me.

DThos+