Hatched, Matched and Despatched. The privileges of ordained women and men



In the absence of a Rector at St. Boniface Church, Sarasota FL, (he retired) and with the vacation of St. Boniface’s wonderful Assistant Rector Andrea Taylor, it has fallen to my lot to officiate at a funeral on Sunday evening for Kathryn Stickney.

I have been privileged to get to know Kathy Stickney in the final months of her life, and to pray with her and her family as she moved towards death (which she welcomed).

It will also be my privilege to be “back in the saddle” for the service.  We’ll all pray together in St. Boniface’s Chapel, and then pray again as her cremated remains are lovingly placed in the parish columbarium.

Being a clergyman is not always great.  We, the ordained are a strange breed.  

But with all of my ordained friends I rejoice that we are able to be present with many people in the great turning points of their lives: births, marriages, divorces, graduations, illnesses and deaths, as well as the more mundane week by week tasks of praying and preaching at Sunday services.

My sense that the Holy One called me to ordained ministry back in 1972 leads me to gratitude and a certain sense of awe.

Here is Kathy’s obituary as published in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.


Stickney, Kathryn
Sept. 16, 1926 - July 5, 2011

Kathryn "Kathy" Stickney, of Sarasota, formerly of Greenwich, Conn. died July 5, 2011.
Services will be held at 5:30 p.m. Sunday at St. Boniface Episcopal Church

Kathy graduated from Stephens College in Missouri. She had a wide variety of interests and held many positions including bringing displaced prisoners of WW11 back to their original homelands as well as bringing Rabbis to Israel. 

Kathy was most proud of her work with FEMA, especially during the L.A. riots in California. 

She also held numerous volunteer positions in Greenwich Ct. This included work at the Red Cross, Blue Cross, and Greenwich Hospital. in her children's schools and as the president of the community Chest. 

In Sarasota Florida, she worked at the homeless shelter, Resurrection House, and Sarasota Hospital. 

Kathy worked for many years as a real estate agent in both Sarasota and Greenwich.

Kathy was a loving mother and most proud of her surviving three children, Bob Stickney and his wife Alison, Susan Rohrer, and Robin Henry and her husband Rick. Kathy also has 4 beloved grand children and 3 step grand children. She will be profoundly missed by family and friends.


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