en Place came to worship at St. Stephen's in 1953 because her husband, David, had been baptized and confirmed here - all on the

same day when he was sixteen! It was his church; so she came along.  Their son, Elliot, was baptized the following year by the Rev. Bradford Tite (St. Stephen's Rector from 1951 - 1960).
     I hadn't been to church in years," said Pen.  "We travelled a good deal when I was a child.  My father was Unitarian. My mother was Episcopalian, but she found the Episcopal Church to be cold.  I'm a questioner, a searcher.  I've looked at many religions.
     When I first came to St. Stephen's, I stood back from it all. Many times I attended the Inquirers' class for Confirmation. I was full of questions. I wasn't confirmed until I was 50 years old."
     When Pen did get involved, it was with both feet. Her first job was heading Social Concerns (Outreach today). The Diocese mandated that a certain percentage of outreach funds would go to a country in need. The year Pen was in charge, the country in need was Japan. Pen and her committee served a Japanese dinner for 125 people. The menu involved freshly sauteed meat and vegetables. For this, they used a series of electric fry pans; so many in fact, that fuses blew left and right and there was no electricity!
     Pen's real ministry among us has been her leadership in elevating women to positions of authority within the Episcopal Church. When she first came to St. Stephen's, women did not serve on the Vestry. The clergy were always men. They performed the whole service including the reading of the lessons and communion. They prepared Communion with their backs to the parishioners. Then came Vatican II.
     The Second Vatican Council (1962 - 1962) was announced by Pope John XXIII. While initiated by a Catholic pope, it had a far ecumenical reach. This period through the 1970s marked a time of great reform. The two reforms that had the most impact on the Episcopal Church were the greater involvement of the laity, such as the use of lay readers and lay chalice bearers, and the reform of the Payer Book in vernacular language, which created Rite II, or as Pen would say, "the days of the avocado Prayer Book". While Rite II was being perfected, an interim avocado-colored paperback Prayer Book was used. Churches also turned their altars away from the wall so that the priest could face the congregation in the way Jesus did at the Last Supper. At St. Stephen's, you can still see where the altar once stood against the wall under the cross.
     Lee Richards was Rector (1960 - 1970) when he asked Pen, who was chair of the Nominating Committee, to find the first woman to serve on the Vestry. They chose Helen Boyt. It wouldn't be until Dick Muir was Rector (1970 - 1984) that they chose Elvy Turner as Junior Warden. Lee also asked her to organize Lay Readers. There were five originally, and they had training in how to project their voices. Under Dick Muir, John Seavey and Pen were asked to be Chalice Bearers. Dick's wife, Ruth, told her about Theological Opportunities Program lectures at Harvard. Pen attended. She was told that because she was in this program, she was entitled to two free classes at the Harvard Divinity School. Pen studied

Theology under Richard Naiebuhr, who Pen said was a low-key, great teacher, and Old Testament under Paul Hanson, a vibrant scholar with archeological training. She then pursued a Master of Divinity. The first two years were great, but in the third year, she got sick. She was going part time; so she changed her masters program to Master of Theological Study. She completed her course work in June 1980.
     After three weeks living part-time in Washington, following her husband, David, then counsel to the U.S. Air Force, she returned to Cohasset. While he was counsel, they travelled to Japan, Germany and Egypt. Pen returned to Harvard Divinity School. She was the first lay person and the first woman asked to perform the oral examination of candidates to be ordained - an intimidating process. The clergymen all wore black and sat behind a table. Pen said that they looked like "old crows". They needed a woman to help them "size up" the first women. Pen proved herself spotting a problem with one candidate. After that first interview, in the three years she served, the committee gave her the perceived "difficult" women candidates.
     This month Pen celebrates her 85th birthday. She'll be preparing for pansies in the courtyard garden along with her Angelic Gardeners, paving the way for us in our faith journeys into St. Stephen's Church and beyond.