Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 15, 1991 TAG: 9104150144
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE RELIGION WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It was a desire she would shelter and fan and nurture for 78 years - until it was fulfilled just a few months ago with her ordination to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church.
Though she was reluctant at first to talk about it, Turner's story has become widely noted, primarily because she is believed to be the oldest person ever to have been ordained in the denomination.
"As for personal publicity, I could care less," the 87-year-old resident of The Park-Oak Grove retirement community said. "However, the publicity gives evidence that the Episcopal Church respects the capabilities of older people, and I hope it has reminded readers that the more progressive retirement homes have live-in chaplains."
The Southwest Roanoke retirement home is the third one for which Turner has served as chaplain, and its residents are Turner's congregation for weekly vesper services and once-a-month communion.
"I have dedicated my life to helping older people to live more productively and experience a closer relationship with God in their advancing years," she said last week.
Turner says she considers it a "privilege to work with older people.
"The only thing I have to remember . . . well, I sometimes forget that I am an older person."
Her ordination to the priesthood last December is only one way she blasts stereotypes about older people.
She "takes exercise every day" - more, she figured on a recent morning, than either the reporter or photographer who had come to visit her.
She projects intellect and humor, vitality and spirit.
Turner's biography is a story of persistent effort to fulfill the religious calling she felt even as a child.
At 21, the desire to be a minister was burning. She went to her Episcopal priest to talk about entering a religious order, since women were not ordained then. The priest thought she was too young to make such a decision.
"Go to the university, marry, have a family, a nice home, then we'll talk," he said.
Turner did head off to the University of Minnesota, her mother's alma mater, and received her bachelor's degree in education. She married a physician, Delos A. Turner, and continued her education, obtaining a master's in sociology from Northwestern University.
After she was widowed, she went back to school and earned a doctorate in psychiatric social work from Washington University in St. Louis in 1946.
She went from there to an assistant professorship at Arizona State College (now a university), and later started a private counseling practice in Tempe, just outside Phoenix.
During that practice, she accumulated data for a book on the type of counseling she was providing: "God-Centered Therapy."
"I advocated the position that a relationship cannot be productive or satisfying unless there is a constant awareness of the omnipresence of God," she said.
"That desire or calling to the ministry in the Episcopal Church never subsided," she said, but the denomination continued to deny ordination to women.
Eventually, she turned to the Divine Science Church for ordination. That church is "very spiritual, very positive, with an emphasis on the omnipresence of God."
It was as a minister in that church that Turner first came to Roanoke 22 years ago to found the still-active Divine Science congregation.
She remains very positive about that denomination, but admits that she "remained an Episcopalian emotionally."
In the mid-1970s, the first women were being ordained in the Episcopal Church, but there continued to be a reluctance on the part of some bishops to accept them. Turner, therefore, waited a few years before writing bishops to see if she might be ordained.
She was finally accepted as an aspirant by Bishop David Birney of the Diocese of Idaho. After a three-year mentorship under a priest in Boise, she was finally ordained a deacon - one step below full priesthood - on Dec. 6, 1983.
Not long thereafter, she was writing bishops again to see if she could study for the priesthood. Again and again, her request was rejected because of her age, she said.
The exception was A. Heath Light, bishop of the Diocese of Southwest Virginia.
Turner came to Roanoke and joined St. John's church, where she served two years in the pastoral-care ministry, "calling on older members who for one reason or another had difficulty attending services."
That congregation eventually sponsored her for ordination to the priesthood, which she celebrated on Dec. 13.
She still is a member at St. John's, but wanted to return to the chaplaincy at a nursing home.
That opportunity came from The Park-Oak Grove, where she is known for much more than her packed weekly services. She doesn't proselytize, which she considers offensive, but visits residents who call on her and tries to help new residents adjust to their surroundings.
"I try to help them recognize the value of prayer and listening to spiritual guidance.
"I maintain that every prayer is answered, [although] God's timetable and our own may not be the same.
"God may put you on hold, but he'll never hang up on you."
Turner also has a weekly radio show - another ministry she has been conducting for the past 22 years - that now airs Sunday's at 5:55 p.m. on WRIS-AM.
The program is called "Growing Older Graciously," which she always ends with the line: "Life is what you make it. Now, you can make it over."
Keywords:
PROFILE
by CNB