wfn.org | Woman Dies on Mission

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (3250 notes).

Note 3249 by UMNS on Oct. 22, 1996 at 15:35 Eastern (7427 characters).

SEARCH: volunteer in mission, mission, St. Maarten, Edith Peercy,
Carribean
Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

CONTACT: Thomas S. McAnally                    535(10-21-71){3249}
         Nashville, Tenn. (615) 742-5470             Oct. 22, 1996

Oklahoma volunteer dies
from injury in St. Maarten

                        A UMNS News Feature
                         by Boyce Bowden*

     "Mother was doing the Lord's work.  That's the way she lived
and there's no better way she could have died," said Betty Payne
of Tulsa, Okla.
     Her mother -- Edith Peercy, 88, of Pryor, Okla.-- died Oct. 8
after she was struck by a car while serving as a United Methodist
Volunteer-In-Mission on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten.
     The accident happened about six o'clock Sunday morning, Oct.
6.  The 17-member Oklahoma Conference team had arrived the night
before to help repair damage done by Hurricane Marilyn.
     Peercy was among the first missioners to rise that morning. 
On her four previous missions, she had been the team cook.  This
time members of the Methodist Church at St. Maarten were preparing
breakfast, which meant Edith was free to add some extra touches to
brighten the day. Lifting the spirits was what she enjoyed doing
most on missions, as well as back home.
     According to Paula Kelcy of Oklahoma City, leader of the
team, Edith was picking wildflowers beside the road in front of
the church to decorate the breakfast tables.  "They were bright
pink," said Paula.  "Local people called them weeds, but to Edith
-- who was always looking for beauty -- they were beautiful."
     It is unclear how the accident happened.  "The road didn't
have any shoulders and the weeds alongside the road were tall
enough to block the driver's view of Edith and Edith's view of the
car.  We don't know whether Edith was crossing the road or
standing beside the road picking flowers when she was hit.  When
we got to her, flowers that she had picked were scattered on the
road beside her."
     Within less than an hour after the accident, a team member
called Larry Acton at his home in Oklahoma City.  Immediately,
Acton notified Bill Hathaway, Edith's pastor at First United
Methodist Church in Pryor.  Hathaway then called Edith's daughter,
Betty.
     At the worship service in Pryor that morning, Hathaway
reported the grim news, and the congregation joined in prayer for
Edith, her family, and the mission team.  That same morning,
Lester Bowers, pastor of the Methodist Church in St. Maarten, led
his congregation in prayer, and they gathered around the team
members to support them.
     The accident did not kill Edith immediately. A CAT scan
revealed that she had a major skull fracture near her left ear. 
Surgery was performed.  She was still unconscious, stabilized but
in critical condition.
     On Monday morning, Acton received a phone call from Bowers. 
"He said Edith was at the point of death and needed to be
evacuated.  I called Betty.  She requested that we try to get her
mother to a Tulsa hospital, so she could be with her.  And we
began working out arrangements."
     Acton and his wife, Rose, got to Hillcrest Hospital in Tulsa
at 10 p.m. Monday to be with Betty and to wait for Edith.  Edith's
pastor and his wife -- Bill and Ginny Hathaway -- were already
there visiting with Betty and with Pam, the daughter of Edith's
son Robert Peercy, who recently retired from the Navy.
     "Edith arrived at the hospital about 3 a.m.  She was
comatose," Acton recalled. "Her living will requested no life
support assistance be given and the hospital honored the will. In
about 15 minutes after the life support was removed, she was
pronounced dead."
     After learning of her death, the Methodists of St. Maarten
had  a service of thanksgiving in memory of Edith.  They gathered
flowers from the roadside -- from the patch where she had been
picking when the accident occurred -- and placed them on the
altar.
     St. Maarten Methodists sent greetings to Edith's family,
expressing their sympathy and appreciation.
     About 10 days after Edith's funeral, Betty sorted through her
mother's belongings and reflected on the experience.  "I'm just
overwhelmed at how so many people have been touched by my mother's
death.  I know she loved everybody and did for everybody.  Things
people say about her just bring back to me what my mother did, and
they remind me of how dedicated she was to the Lord and his work."
     Remembering her mother's lifetime of compassion, she
said,"Nobody in the world was any more generous with their love. 
"She had a little neighbor who was several years younger, but in
poor health. Every day or so she took him food and checked on him.
She was always doing for shut-ins and 'old folks' as she called
them, even though she knew she was older than them."
     At her church in Pryor, Edith worked with Mobile Meals.  The
day before she left on the St. Maarten mission, she helped cook
for the Rotary Club meeting at the church, just as she had been
doing for years.
     "Mother had a straw hat that she wore on mission trips,"
Betty recalled.  "It must have been 15 years old, and it was just
about worn out.  When she was on a mission in Louisiana, two boys
who were on the team noticed her hat had holes in it, and so they
patched it with some leaves.  Mother was deeply touched by their
caring.  She couldn't report the story without her eyes filling."
     Before Edith's funeral, the boys asked Betty if Edith's hat
could be on the communion rail during the service.  She consented. 
"I told them that the hat belonged at the church, and they are
keeping it as a tribute to Mother and her commitment to missions."
     Hathaway said Edith was " a great spirit", always cheerful
and witty.  "'She told me once,'At my age I'm already supposed to
be dead.  So I'll just do whatever I want to do and do it without
reservations.'  And that's what she did."
     Kurt Gwaltney worked on a Pryor United Methodist Church
mission team with Edith before he went to Iliff School of Theology
in Denver, where he is now a ministerial student.
     "Edith was one of the most inspiring souls I have known,"
said Gwaltney.  "She was quite a sight in her beauty smock and
floppy straw hat. Her paintbrush was seldom still as she and other
team members worked to spruce up the McCurdy School in New Mexico. 
Our team was intergenerational with Edith at one end of the
spectrum and junior high youth at the other.  What a blessing it
was for the young people to work alongside an eager and
enthusiastic senior adult!"
     Acton said Edith personified the ideal Volunteer-in-Mission. 
"She was a servant who lifted people up and made life more
beautiful. Edith shared Christ's love and made a Christian
difference."
     In keeping with her request, Edith's body was donated to
Oklahoma Medical Research, just as the body of her husband Bill
was following his death in 1983.
     Survivors, in addition to her daughter Betty, include a son
and daughter, four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
                              #  #  #

     * Bowden is director of communications for the Oklahoma
Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church and editor of the
conference's newspaper, The Oklahoma Contact.   

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