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BY LINDA WORTHINGTON
UMCONNECTION STAFF

Family and friends of those clergy, clergy spouses and lay members of conference who have died since annual conference last year were honored guests at the service of remembrance yesterday afternoon. Audience

members stood as the Rev Al Clipp, conference secretary, read the name of their friend or family member and a family representative placed a lighted candle on the altar.

The Rev. Terri Rae Chattin, superintendent of the Frederick District, preached on 'The Best Ending of All.'

'I have three words for today,' Chattin said, 'the Word of God, a word of comfort, and a word of hope.

The 'Word of God' was the Scripture of the seed in the ground, that when planted bears much fruit, but if left alone is just a seed. 'If that grain lives just to itself, that?s all it is,' she said. 'But if it gives of itself, it becomes part of a whole field.'

As a word of comfort, Chattin shared something about each person honored.

'I read about each one lifted up here today,' she said. 'Each was a single seed grain, which bore much fruit.'

She mentioned something special about each one: one has a church parlor named after her, one received a D. Min. at age 65, one held the highest Girl Scout honor, Golden Eagle. Many were involved in wars, particularly Korea. One pastor helped liberate Dachau concentration camp, one was a secretary to a Russian colonel in WWII. One at age 99 put on a single woman art show in the nursing home with 65 paintings; one was a social worker with pregnant teenage girls in the 1940s, another was the first African-American employee in the conference. One took her honeymoon in Haiti on a VIM trip, one pastor?s hobby was as a pyrotechnician, one was known for memorizing 6,000 Bible verses. Some couples had been married more than 70 years before one died.

'These are wonderful stories,' Chattin said. 'Look at the field we have planted here this day.'

'We?re not only receivers of words of hope,' Chattin said. 'All of us are stewards to witness to that word of hope.'

'There is only one possible ending to the Christian story,' a dying parishioner told her. 'It is the same message in success or failure. The events do not change the ending of life for us.'

Whether we die at 13, 33 or 103, the ending is the same, she said. 'Whether it is a sudden death or a long process, the ending is God?s gift to us,' she said, given to us to share with fellow pilgrims in a technological and scientific world. 'Hope is God?s gift to us, the rarest gift of all.'

For all the saints:

Clergy

Rev. Andrew Joseph 'Joe' Donick, 57, Oct. 8, 2005
Rev. Jacquelyn 'Jacqui' S. Jones, 57, Nov. 10, 2005
Rev. Alpha Estes Brown, 54, Feb. 1, 2006
Rev. Elaine V. McCarthy Emeth, 57, Feb. 6, 2006
Rev. Barbara Ottinger Bunker Vercelli, 61, April 25, 2006

Retired Clergy

Rev. John Olan Price, 70, May 23, 2005
Rev. Robert W. Richardson, 79, July 16, 2005
Rev. Gerald 'Jerry' Thurman Scheffey, 75, Aug. 5, 2005
Rev. William E. Brown, 87, Aug. 19, 2005
Rev. William Clyde Durrett, 90, Sept. 26, 2005
Rev. Charles Thomas Subock Sr., 79, Oct. 24, 2005
Rev. Raymond Lytle, 86, Nov. 13, 2005
Rev. Donald Earl Lewis, 80, Nov. 22, 2005
Rev. Lavely Dorsey Gruber, 95, Dec. 30, 2005
Rev. Charles Winfield Hall, 85, Jan. 28, 2006
Rev. James Howard 'Jake' Simpson, 91, Feb. 7, 2006
Rev. Harold A. Milstead, 92, March 23, 2006

Spouses of living clergy

'Midge' Metzger Keene, 62, May 28, 2005
Patricia Ann 'Tootsie' Watts, 62, Oct. 5, 2005
Audree Miller Bauman, 83, July 16, 2005
Edith Stewart, 57, Nov. 15, 2005
Katherine 'Kitty' Harris Coleman, 85, Jan. 12, 2006
Doris L. Mitzel, 83, April 6, 2006

Surviving spouses

Venera 'Vee' Richards Foy, 95, April 22, 2005
Ada Wilson Anderson Miller, 92, June 8, 2005
Lucille 'Lu' E. Barrington, 88, June 25, 2005
Sherry Bowling Gill, 66, June 27, 2005
Ruth E. Zimmerman, 86, July 17, 2005
Ellen I. Smith Culp, 95, Aug. 8, 2005
Drewry Elizabeth Woody Harpold, 92, Oct. 14, 2005
Lyda D. Williams, 102, Dec. 8, 2005
Doris White Durrett, 87, Jan. 28, 2006
Louise Nicholson Hall, 90, March 8, 2006
Dorothy Siddons Kirkley, 83, March 3, 2006
Bernice Rouse Thayer, 66, March 25, 2006
Marjorie 'Jenny' Virginia (Haugh) Allen, 87, April 6, 2006
Geneva Schott Traugh Baughman, 100, Feb. 6, 2006
Jane Hart Cowperthwait Read, 86, April 21, 2006

Lay members of conference

Muriel Cline, 81, Sept. 24, 2004, Brook Hill UMC
Marion J. Adams, 64, May 7, 2005, St. Lukes UMC
Florence Thompson, Oct. 3, 2005, New Waverly UMC
Elizabeth 'Betty' Sherman, 66, Jan. 18, 2006, Mill Creek Parish
Henry Laessle 'Les' Taylor, 86, Feb. 3, 2006, Glenmont UMC
Richard Green, 81, Feb. 12, 2006, Catoctin UMC
Miriam Palmer, 88, Feb. 20, 2006Mt. Olive UMC