Remembering Rector Dick Peard, A TRINITY LEGEND

Remembering Rector Dick Peard, A TRINITY LEGEND

By Denis Cotter

Still fondly remembered by his parishioners and friends, Reverend Richard Townsend Carroll Peard served as Rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Upperville for twelve years from 1979 until his death in 1991. A dynamic, much-loved individual, he revitalized his parish and had an enduring influence on the community.

In vestry notes and church newsletters, his abbreviation was RTCP, but everyone knew him simply as Dick Peard. He was born in Olmugee, Oklahoma, a few months before Pearl Harbor. His parents were from Williamsport, Pennsylvania and his father, Samuel Ulman John Peard, also was an Episcopalian minister.

Ordained in the late 1920s, Sam and his wife, Winona Lavina Merab Carroll, moved to Oklahoma in 1930 to serve as missionaries. Eleven years later, Dick, their only child, was born.

Dick’s life reveals an abiding commitment to caring for children and young people—both their physical and spiritual development. When Dick was three, the family moved to Mansfield, Ohio, where Dick grew up and his father spent the rest of his pastoral career.

On the surface, it was a typically uneventful Midwest upbringing of a talented and indulged only child. There were music lessons, Boy Scout camps, singing performances at Christmas and Easter at his father’s church, high school musicals and eventually enrollment at Ohio’s Wittenberg University.

He earned a degree in political science and philosophy. And years later, he revealed to friends it had not always been easy, particularly a short stint at Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana.

He told stories of public fat-shaming and being mercilessly teased and bullied because he was overweight. At Culver, the commander would yell “Is Peard fat?” and the corps would shout back, “Hell, yes, Peard is fat!”

The incidents clearly pierced his soul, but he also developed empathy without bounds and became particularly adept at helping high school and college age youngsters.

When he served on the board of The Hill School in Middleburg decades later, he reminded graduating eighth graders that they may have felt part of a larger family on campus, but the world would not always be so kind. He urged them to be patient, not to give up and “when you find your place in this world, remember to help others find theirs.”

His words are now inscribed in the compass rose on the entrance floor to the Peard Music and Lunch Room at Hill.

He was a brilliant student at Wittenberg, a Phi Beta Kappa officer, and musically gifted. He composed, directed and produced plays, including a musical comedy on Lizzie Borden, that New England girl who used an ax to transform her parents into chopped sirloins.

After his 1962 graduation, Dick took seven years before being ordained a deacon in 1969. First, he did graduate work at Ohio State in philosophy and literature before settling on a master’s in education and teaching at a middle school.

He got back on track towards a career in ministry with a master’s in divinity at Virginia Theological Seminary. At seminary in the summer of 1964, he served with four other students for 11 weeks as an interim chaplain at San Quentin Prison in California.

His mother died at age 58 the following year. Graduating in 1966, Dick became a social worker in Washington, D.C., then was a counselor to the hard-core unemployed in a Department of Labor program. Finally, he was ordained a priest in 1970.

Dick also served eight years at St. Albans Parish near the Washington National Cathedral. He ran the coffee house, turning it into a social and creative arts center for young people exposed to the drug culture, Vietnam war and ensuing protest movement.

He also served several years as associate pastor at St. Margaret’s in Washington before coming to Trinity in 1979. When he arrived at the beautiful granite church built by Paul Mellon in 1955, the congregation was quite small, as few as 35 members. It grew to well over 500.

Among his achievements were starting its Thrift Shop; opening the Piedmont Childcare Center and hiring long-time director Alice Duggan; the establishment of a food bank and active participation in Washington-based SOME (So Others Might Eat).

He also set up a scholarship program so underprivileged children could attend summer camps Dick led at Shrine Mont, the Episcopal retreat at Orkney Springs in western Shenandoah County. He also held weekly programs for children at Hill, and was an enthusiastic tennis player on the side.

Some of the programs he implemented occasionally drew criticism from various Trinity parishioners. But through any controversy, Dick remained true to his ministry and his faith, saying “our hearts can be loving, our hearts can be reaching out and our ears can always be listening. That is the business we are about in the vineyard, that is the business we are about as the people in the Kingdom of God.”

Sadly, in 1990, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He quickly organized his affairs, leaving significant bequests to educational institutions and many young people he had counseled and befriended.

Attended by his friend, physician Jim Sehn, Dick died in the old rectory beside the church, now the Peard House administrative building. His funeral was attended by hundreds. Ted Eastman, his friend and former boss at St. Albans and then Bishop of Maryland, gave the funeral sermon using Dick’s chosen text of the Good Shepherd.

Ted and Dick had once written a hymn together, “Holy and Creative Spirit,” with Dick writing the music and Ted the words. It was sung at the funeral and is still heard at Trinity today.

After the service, Dick was buried just outside the church, along the south wall, facing Route 50. After that, mourners participated in a champagne party on the north side. Knowing his love of holidays, long-time parishioner Ann MacLeod for many years placed a pumpkin on his grave at Halloween. At Christmas, friends still place a wreath there.

Dick’s tombstone is directly above his grave, embedded in the church wall. In words he chose himself, it reads: “Shout out our joy and let our faith resound.”

Amen.