wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] First female Presbyterian minister spoke softly,

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ECUNET.ORG>]

Note #9030 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05623
Nov. 21, 2005

First female Presbyterian minister
spoke softly, always walked her walk

Pioneer Margaret Towner at age 80: 'I've kept active. ... I'm not stopping'

by Toya Richards Hill

CHICAGO - In 1956, Margaret Towner was hardly a dyed-in-the-wool feminist
demanding equal rights for women in the Presbyterian Church.

	Her way was calm and non-aggressive. And that's exactly how she
handled being the first ordained female minister in the Presbyterian Church
in the United States of America (PCUSA).

	"I needed to go slowly and gently ... to break ground," Towner said
during a recent interview. "I needed to ... help people comprehend that women
could be pastors." 

	The denomination was entering a new era, and many members - "a good
many of them women," Towner says - didn't want change. So her careful
approach helped build "a sense of trust."

	Fifty years later, as the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) marks the 50th
anniversary of the first ordination of a woman as a minister of Word and
Sacrament, she says she wouldn't have handled things any differently. 

	The spry 80-year-old talked about her ordination and career with the
Presbyterian News Service during a Nov. 5-7 celebration of several women's
ordination landmarks. Presbyterian women were ordained as deacons in 1906, as
elders in 1930. The Chicago event was one of several taking place in 2005 and
2006 to mark the anniversaries.

	Towner, still vibrant and alert, said she turned down television
appearances and public-speaking invitations after her ordination on Oct. 24,
1956 in Syracuse, NY. 

	"I went right back to Allentown (PA) to my job" as minister of
education at First Presbyterian Church, Towner said, and spent the next few
years in reflection.

	"I really had a chance to say ... 'Where do you want me to go now
(God)? How do you want me to proceed?' I was constantly asking that," she
says.

	The group of male clergy who had pushed for her ordination encouraged
her. And Towner never changed the way she lived out her call. She kept
working as First church's minister of education until 1958, when she was
called to the same position at First Presbyterian Church in Kalamazoo, MI.
She stayed there until 1969.

	In the fall of that year, she became an associate pastor of
Northminster Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, IN. In 1973 she became
co-pastor of Kettle Moraine Parish in Wisconsin, where she stayed until her
retirement in 1990.

	Of the career path she chose, Towner says, "I just felt
overwhelmingly that I was not the pushy kind." 

	She recalls an important validation she got in 1981, when she was a
candidate for moderator of the General Assembly. The Rev. David McShane, a
friend and colleague, told her: "I'm convinced you were the one to be the
first." 

	Towner lost her bid to become moderator, but was appointed vice
moderator. 

	Towner's career choices have been endorsed by the thousands of women
who have been ordained as ministers since 1956. The exact number isn't clear,
but includes trailblazers, such as:

	* The Rev. Katie Canon, the first African-American Presbyterian woman
ordained (in 1974);

	* The Rev. Rebecca Reyes, the first female Hispanic-American
Presbyterian ordained (1979); and, 

	* The Rev. Holly Haile Smith, the first Native American Presbyterian
woman ordained (1987)

	There are scores of others whose names aren't in the record books -
like the Rev. Faye Fedlam, pastor of Sidney Presbyterian Church in Sidney,
IA, and the Rev. Mary Alice Haynie, pastor of Southport Presbyterian Church
in Southport, NC. Towner's advice to these and other women clergy: Find your
niche, whether in the pulpit or as a seminary administrator or as an author.

	"Find where your talents are best used, and where you would feel
comfortable being involved," she says. "Help to build a world where there is
peace. ... Work to be healers."

	Towner's own niche is one of service, executed with grace. The
resident of Sarasota (FL) and member of the Peace River Presbytery chairs the
presbytery's records and overtures committee. And she still preaches once in
a while.

	"I've kept active" since retirement, she says, and "I'm not
stopping."

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