Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 25, 1994 TAG: 9412270035
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
Not only does he serve the congregation, where about 70 people worship each Sunday, but he also teaches philosophy three days a week at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, teaches a black studies course at Virginia Tech, is husband to the Rev. Andrea Cornett-Scott and is the father of two collegians and a preschooler. Since he lives in Roanoke with his wife, the pastor of Ebenezer A.M.E. Church, he says with a big laugh, "I-81 is my life."
Lately, Scott's responsibilities have expanded further to include his father-in-law, who left his home in Cincinnati, Ohio, to live with the Scotts. The older man , a widower who is chronically ill, cheerfully calls Edward Scott and Andrea Cornett-Scott "my parents."
Extended family has always been important to the family, who has taken into its home assorted relatives who needed temporary shelter. Caring for people has been bred in the bones of Andrea Cornett-Scott, who comes from a long line of A.M.E. folk reaching back to slave times.
Edward Scott has a different background. Proudly he shows a picture of his great-grandmother, a slave who lived near Charlottesville who he says bore 12 children to her white master. But Scott himself grew up in a rough housing project in Pittsburgh. His mother, wanting a good education for her two sons, sent them to a Roman Catholic school. In time, the family started practicing that faith.
By the time he was a teen-ager, he had grown sick of the church and enrolled in philosophy at Slippery Rock State University.
His future wife, however, had decided at the age of 7 to become a minister. Active in her church in Cincinnati, Andrea Cornett-Scott cites as examples many female leaders in the historic black denomination such as the Rev. Garena Lee, active in the early 19th century.
Edward Scott pursued his academic interests, married too young, he says now, and soon had two children, Naima and Jacob, over whom he fought two custody battles. Eventually, after completing studies for a doctorate from Duquesne University, he grew into a relationship with the A.M.E. Church. This was helped along, he says, by his mother becoming an A.M.E. pastor. He found a "happy balance" of Baptist ancestors and Catholic upbringing in the denomination.
He spent two years in Nigeria teaching philosophy at the University of Calabar. Returning to the United States, he won the right to rear his children who were then 7 and 10. He became a professor at Wilberforce University in Ohio.
One day, Scott's wife recalls with a smile, she met his two children who shared her apartment house. A seminary student at Wilberforce, she asked who they were. When their father appeared, she jokingly told a mutual friend, "He's the man I'll marry."
And indeed it happened that way. Three years and many family encounters later, Edward Scott and Andrea Cornett were married and began the adventure of a ready-made household. Andrea Cornett-Scott says the bonding was strong from the beginning. Naima Scott, now a student at James Madison University, is especially close to her father's wife.
Now the parsonage in Roanoke includes Edward Kennedy Ellington Scott, a 3-year-old adopted soon after birth. The boy was named for the late great band leader Duke Ellington.
The couple moved to Monmouth, Ill., where Edward taught at a college. Andrea, who had been ordained an A.M.E. elder following graduation from the Wilberforce seminary, worked as black student coordinator while seeking a pastorate.
It was anything but easy, she recalls, despite long official approval of women clergy in the A.M.E. denomination and an assignment system that should have quickly won her a place in a pulpit.
"The old boy system definitely prevailed in Illinois. I was harassed and humiliated," she said. This was especially true after she asked at the Annual Conference why no women were part of the assignment process. She perceived that she was branded as a trouble maker, and the couple sought to relocate.
The story is vastly different among Virginia A.M.E. leadership, both say. Though Andrea Cornett-Scott was first assigned to the smallest A.M.E. congregation in the state - Bethel in Harrisonburg, where fewer than a dozen people worship - the church grew in two years to a vital place for students. Meanwhile, Edward Scott took the teaching job at the Staunton college and remains there, commuting more than 150 miles round trip three times a week. The other two days he drives the 80-mile round trip to Blacksburg for his church duties and teaching at Virginia Tech.
Because the female pastor did so well at tiny Bethel, she was assigned in 1993 to the considerably larger Ebenezer parish in Roanoke. There she serves about 150 members with 75 attending on an average Sunday.
After trying to combine teaching and preaching in Illinois, Scott said he vowed never to try it again. He began at St. Paul in Blacksburg as an interim but was asked in May to remain for a permanent appointment. Now he said he loves the academic community despite his far-flung travels.
"The beauty of [Interstate] 81 makes it worthwhile."
Lately, he has started a choir at St. Paul which fulfills his love of music and interest in students. As for Andrea, she's got her church family, her personal family and a sense that "God has brought us to the right place."
Keywords:
PROFILE
by CNB