Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, October 6, 1994                   TAG: 9411180002
SECTION: NEIGHBORS                    PAGE: S6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

LONGTIME CHAPLAIN FINDS WORK AT RICHFIELD FULFILLING

The remark touched Clay, the home's chaplain, because it expressed well what he has felt for the 12 years he has been Richfield's pastor in residence. He has gained from the retirement-age residents as much as he has given, he says.

What he calls "a compassionate ministry by those who are more sensitive to pain because they've suffered it" has given him some of his most fulfilling years, says the 73-year-old. Some say Clay is busier than many younger ministers. On Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday mornings, he works out of the Jane Morgan Harris Chapel on the Richfield Retirement Home property in Western Roanoke County. But he's also available for about 1,000 people - staff and more than 600 residents - his potential congregation.

Richfield, once a small nursing home called Mercy House, now has a skilled nursing care facility with about 325 patients as well as The Oaks, Ridgecrest, Knollwood, the Stuart Payne Center and a number of cottages for independent living.

Unlike many retirement homes, Richfield, since 1980, has had its own chapel with space for 175 to worship either from wheelchairs or from more customary seats. Every Sunday morning at 11, Clay conducts a full worship service.

Elsie Persinger, a veteran church musician, drives over to play the organ, and Callie Robinette directs a choir that has from eight to 15 members, depending on the weather, the chaplain says.

The service, Clay observes, attracts not only residents of the various care facilities but also many staff members and a few people from Salem and the Elliston area who are not connected with the home. Some started attending when their elderly relatives were in residence and now consider Clay their pastoral friend even when they no longer need to visit.

At each morning service, Clay relies on about 16 volunteers to bring residents in wheelchairs to the chapel. One of these is Frances Curd, a Salem woman whom the chaplain first knew years ago when he was a young pastor at Buchanan Presbyterian Church and she was a child member there. Now, Curd is a regular at helping Clay, as are Warren and Ruth Robinson, who drive 25 miles across the Roanoke Valley. Many others are just as devoted.

"I couldn't possibly have these services without the volunteers," Clay said. "Somebody has to be responsible for getting the bedridden folks out of their rooms and keeping careful watch on them while we're all together. This is an intense sort of ministry. Our volunteers are very sensitive to the needs of people who need certain kinds of help."

When not preparing for his Sunday services, the chaplain visits within the retirement complex. He contacts every new resident or staff person, he says. As a Presbyterian, he conducts worship according to a familiar Protestant form, but he works closely with representatives of other faiths who take turns leading a midweek service.

Last year, he conducted 17 funerals, not a large number, he says, for a congregation where death is growing nearer. Some pastors of conventional churches with many elderly members would have as many or more in a year.

He can remember the baptism of an elderly man and a young boy at the same service, and there are a few weddings, especially for staff members but occasionally for residents.

When Clay came to Richfield with his wife in 1982, he did not intend to stay. A native Roanoker, he had served congregations in Buchanan; Charleston, W.Va.; Winchester, Ky.; and Westaco, Texas, before Mary Lou Roberts Clay's elderly mother required a return to Virginia. The Clays last lived near Lynchburg before his retirement at 62 when he intended to pursue interim ministry.

Following a short period at West End Presbyterian Church in Roanoke, he was recommended to help at Richfield.

The first week, "I thought I couldn't stand it. I felt so depressed seeing all these old people in wheelchairs."

He gave himself "a talking to, and I said some prayers."

The frail elderly were not to be pitied so much as admired for their own courage, he discovered. "They were people like me, and children of God. They knew what it was to lose a spouse or see the world pass them by."

Clay learned, especially when Mary Lou died of cancer, how sustaining his friends were. And he's still learning.