Pastor's Wife

The Vocation of "Pastor's Wife"

Tribute to Beatrice Drury May 16, 1913—April 7, 2002

My mother died yesterday morning while most churches were holding their morning service. Good timing. She died as she had lived for 88 years--as a "preacher's wife."

Beatrice Drury was a preacher's wife (later called "pastor's wife") in an era when this was a vocation. It was something like being "first lady" of a nation--an unpaid job with powerful influence. Her memorial service this Friday morning will be held in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania where she served her longest term--from 1957 to her retirement in 1975.

In my mother’s day a church got a "twofer" in their pastor--a husband and wife team who worked together in the church, even though only one got a paycheck. For the pastor's wife to "get her own job" in those days would be like a President's wife continuing work as a lawyer instead of "working with her husband as a team"--something that still hasn't happened in our nation. Though unwritten, the job description was well defined. My mother did her assignments well. Her work as pastor's wife describes that disappearing vocation. Describing what she “did all day” might help my students understand the history of this work. Occasionally even today graduating seniors are asked in a church interview, "Does your wife play the piano?" The reason they might still ask that is the history of the work—the work my mother did until she died yesterday--her "vocation."

1. A pastor's wife "played the piano."

Many small churches had a piano but nobody to play it. The piano sat there silently awaiting a new convert who could play… or a pastor’s wife. It was convenient for a pastor headed out to preach to take along his own musician. Wherever they went there would be an guaranteed pianist—his wife. Remember, this was in a day before music ministers. The pastor was the worship leader and led all the singing. Thus, the pastor and wife were their own musicians and led the “song service” which came before the “preaching service” followed. My mother learned enough piano to survive. In smaller churches she did her duty. However, everywhere my dad & mom served, the church grew. Growing churches raise up their children to be second-generation pianists, so my mother got off the hook over time, though she was always the backup pianist when someone didn't show up. Even in her late 80s she put a keyboard on her lap and played "In Times Like These" or "Amazing Grace" remembering her role as preacher’s wife pianist.

2. A pastor's wife taught Sunday School.

In my mother’s day men went to college and most of the women simply waiting to get married. My mother--like many women of that day--was brilliant, even smarter than my father. She loved to read, to study, and to argue with her family (though never with people in the church). I honed my mental skills (and my argument skills) at her knee and across the table from her. She loved it when I came home from college with new ideas for her to debate, reject, partially accept, alter and often persuaded me alter them too. I often learned more on spring break than I had at college the previous semester. She was always giving me "good questions to ask my professors” when I returned to campus (a few of them got me into trouble too.)

My mom turned down a college scholarship in 1930 to marry what she called “the best looking man in Elizabeth," Leonard Drury, who was graduating from college and entering the ministry. Even without college she taught herself as she sought to satisfy her hungry mind. This, of course led to her teaching an adult Sunday school class. In those days there were only two adult classes in a church: the "Woman's Bible Class" and the "Men's Bible Class." She taught women for years, but eventually wound up teaching in an innovative new class launched in the 1960's—the “Young Adult Bible Class," which included both men and women and her class jammed the room with up to 50 people. She studied--usually two hours a day—preparing to teach the lesson. I sometimes tell my college students that my mother studied more for her Sunday school class than most preachers today study for their Sunday sermon. She continued teaching Sunday school long into her retirement, even inspiring many to "read their lesson" like homework before they came each week. Today we may scoff at the non-prestigious role of the traditional "pastor's wife." But, we must not think the women who filled these roles were mindless airheads--many were just like my mother, brilliant women more capable at study and teaching than their husband-pastor.

3. A pastor's wife "entertained."

Like the "First Lady" is expected to supervise state dinners, pastor's wives in my mother's era were expected to "entertain." As brilliant as my mother was, her reputation at “entertaining" was what she was known most for. In those days there were two "revivals" each years, often ten days long, so she was expected to "entertain" the traveling evangelist in the "parsonage." That meant putting on a spread fit for a king at every meal--breakfast, lunch, dinner, and the expected after-church snack. She planned the meals, purchased the food, turned ordinary radishes into blooming flowers, carved grapefruits into breakfast baskets, and generally "set her table" to look like a five star restaurant. Beyond these twice-a-year revivals she entertained a throng of visiting speakers, denominational officials, local leaders, and just about every new family who visited the church. "Entertaining" was such a part of her vocation she always "set the table" (including fancy napkins stuck-in-the-fork like Turkey-tails) even after she retired. A month ago, before she died at 88—and more than a decade after she had quit actually eating at a table, she still “set the table” on her nursing home hospital food stand, complete with a placemats, napkins and plates. Just before she died one of the nursing home aides who brought her meal-on-a-tray must have asked her why she did not go to the dining room to eat. I just found her response to the woman in her Bible (she probably never gave it to her). It reads,

To the girl who brought my dinner asking why I didn't eat in the dining room: I would like to let you know that from 1935 to 1975 I bought, cooked, served and did the dishes for dozens of evangelists, singers, preachers (and even hobos who asked for a hand-out). Now I am entitled to a little help to carry my tray to my room. So just keep up the good work and may God bless you. -- Beatrice Drury

Good point. She "entertained" for 40 years--that's what pastor's wives did. To "go out to a restaurant" would be to admit she was incapable of this important duty. My dad made his own sermons and would have never thought of playing a recording of another preacher’s sermon in worship as a substitute. My mom did her own entertaining and made and served her own meals too. That was the way it was then.

4. A pastor's wife was a model to admire.

Like we expect a youth pastor to be a model for the teens--a person like what we want our teens to become, so was a pastor's wife in her days for women. She spoke, acted, walked, dressed and fixed her hair in a way most lay women in her church emulated. She was a model mother, wife, and Christian. She was what the laywoman wanted to become. While this placed severe pressure on pastor's wives, and sometimes caused them to act in public differently than they actually were in private, my mother worked hard to become what she thought women in the church should be.

And many women did try to become like her. Today we shudder at terms like "Queen of the parsonage" but in my mother's days it was a term of endearment--it meant people looked up to her, admired her, and modeled their life after her. This forced pastor's wives to carefully cultivate and protect a public image that most folk in today's tell-all culture would consider fake. It was a hard assignment, but my mother took it on and was always portrayed "what a godly woman ought to be" so that other women could follow her model.

While we might happily kiss goodbye that pressure for public modeling, we might at least consider the importance of younger women having smart, strong older women as models. Scores of women in the six churches where she ministered still model their life on her example. Just a week ago my mother received a note from such a women, Mary Farr. Mary, a laywomen in Warren Pennsylvania, had written to her "model preacher's wife." My mother left that church in 1945 and has not seen Mary Farr for 57 years. Yet she still received regular notes from Mary thanking my mom for my her influence "on me as a girl." Are there people we are influencing today who will still be thanking us regularly 57 years from now? The role of a "minister's spouse" has certainly changed today as it should have, but the importance of having a massive impact on people, no matter what one's role, has not changed.

5. A pastor's wife accompanied her husband.

A pastor's wife in my mother’s day was a teammate with her husband. She accompanied him wherever he went as his reliable side-kick. My mom was my father's Tonto. She traveled with him as company for him on long trips. She attended conventions with him and sat through countless local church "annual conferences" when he served as a district Superintendent. She was his confident--if you told my dad, my mother always knew. She was his partner--where Leonard showed up, Beatrice was there. She was his wall to bounce new ideas off of, and she refined good ideas and sunk bad ones long before a church board ever got to hear them.

In my dad's era of ministry a pastor primarily did two things: "Preach and call." Preaching was a half-time job for it involved reading and preparing for three sermons a week-- Sunday morning, Sunday night, and a "prayer meeting" meditation. The other half of his time was spent in "pastoral calling," balancing the public proclamation ministry with this private relational one. "Calling" meant going to people's homes for a visit to get to know the people and their spiritual needs, to talk about spiritual things, and to pray. Today we might call this “personal mentoring” or “family discipleship.” Then it was simply “calling.” The laity in those days always served up some pie or ice cream to the pastor on a "pastoral call" which may explain the tradition of chubby ministers. Pastors actually tried to call every single month at every single home in their church! If nobody was there they'd do a "re-call." My mother accompanied my dad on most of these in-home calls, not just as a witness (in the case of calling on single women) but as a minister. She listened and talked just as much as my father did--it was "couple counseling" at it best. While few today would praise letting a woman be the Lone Ranger's "Tonto," in my mother’s day that’s the way the world was. It was a married woman’s access to ministry. She did it well.

6. A pastor's wife prayed.

Today we’d consider my mother as a "kept women." She did not have to get up at 5:30 am to go to the office and give her all to a job, then squeeze in ministry in her evenings and weekends. My mother—like most pastor’s wives of her day-- was in full-time ministry even though she never got a paycheck. She saw herself as being in full time ministry. Laywomen had day jobs, but most minister's wives did church work full time, without a salary. And my mother considered prayer part of her job description. She really believed "behind every successful minister or church is a praying wife."

Today we might dismiss the value of serious and long prayer times, but my mother did not. She meticulously set aside an hour every day to pray--not to prepare her Sunday school lesson or read the Bible, but to pray. It was as if many pastors delegated the “heavy praying” to their wife. All through high school I never saw my mother in the mornings. My dad awakened me, made breakfast for us, and took me to school. My mother prayed. Occasionally I’d sneak to her bedroom door to listen. She sometimes talked to the Lord about me. But, not just her family. She prayed for the needs of the entire church, and named people as she went. She prayed that God would "anoint" her husband's preaching. It went on for an hour each day. Most of us today don't believe this much in prayer. Even if we do we don’t seem to have the time for it. My mother really believed that time on her knees beside her bed every morning could change the world. Who knows, maybe it did?

In today’s world my mother would have been an ordained minister herself, likely a senior pastor with her own staff. But in those days she did what she had to do to be in full time ministry—she served as a “preacher’s wife.”

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Keith Drury April, 2002.

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