These Retirees Have Centuries of Service to Faith

Dorothy Turnbull and her husband, Bob, spent their 1950 honeymoon on a three-week voyage to Egypt on a freighter, accompanying four purebred Jersey cattle for a livestock improvement project.

The Presbyterian missionaries then worked 37 years abroad, first in Egypt and later in Thailand, where they helped a community of people with leprosy (Hansen’s disease) raise chickens, pigs and fish.

Now Dorothy Turnbull, 80, whose husband is deceased, lives at Monte Vista Grove Homes, a Christian retirement community in Pasadena in the shadows of the San Gabriel Mountains. It’s an unusual center for 130 veteran Presbyterian leaders and their spouses, including many of whom have worked around the world.

She is able to keep in touch with her Egyptian days easily enough because seven other former missionaries to Egypt are her neighbors. Earlier this month, the group celebrated the Egyptian national holiday Shemennasim, meaning “Smell the Breeze,” during which Egyptians enjoy the outdoors.

Turnbull said she appreciated living at Monte Vista Grove, a collection of mostly cottage-like duplexes with full kitchens and fireplaces set on 14 acres.

“We are surrounded by beautiful grounds, roses and a very congenial crew that helps us with our own gardens in front of our houses,” she said.

Turnbull, who taught physical education at Radcliffe College before going overseas, also appreciates having a health center on the premises. When her husband was ill, she was able to live at home and walk to the nursing facility to be with him.

The Monte Vista Grove compound was established in 1924 by the regional governing body of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. and is partly subsidized by churches and donors.

To move in, one has to be between 65 and 80 years old and have served the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. for at least 20 years as a pastor, missionary, educator or musician or be the spouse of one. Each resident pays a $7,500 entry fee and a monthly bill varying from $225 to $650, depending on the unit’s size. Those with means usually contribute beyond the minimum fees.

Besides being an oasis of greenery in eastern Pasadena, the place also is a treasure-trove of human resources.

Living among its 95 units are internationally renowned theologians, teachers, public health experts -- even an architect.

While serving in Thailand, the Rev. Taylor M. Potter designed more than 100 churches, chapels, hospitals, auditoriums and schools. His wife, Betty Jo, also is an ordained Presbyterian minister.

At 77, he continues to travel to Thailand regularly to oversee his projects, which incorporate classic Thai motifs -- including upturned roofs -- into modern structures.

He enjoys the tranquillity of Monte Vista Grove, its well-kept grounds and beautiful roses in front of his house. He also likes the requirement that residents eat at least 20 to 22 communal meals a month in the dining room. “That’s a very good thing,” he said.

Even in retirement, many of these Presbyterians are busy. They volunteer at local churches, schools and nonprofit groups.

At home, they deliver mail, staff the reception desk, stand security watch at night, and help frail residents in the assisted living and skilled nursing facilities that are open to nonresidents.

For example, on Thursday, when residents gathered for a presentation of Mark Twain’s “The Diaries of Adam and Eve,” residents in wheelchairs from the assisted living quarters also were in the audience.

After a prayer and a hymn, the Rev. Donald Hawthorne -- also known as the whistler of Monte Vista Grove -- and his wife, Lee, an art historian, set the tone for a contemporary adaptation of Twain’s commentary on the first man and woman. She read the creation story from Genesis 1. And he did a “musical overture” by whistling such Broadway hits as “Some Enchanted Evening” and “Wouldn’t It Be Lovely.”

Then the Rev. Jack Lorimer, who served 40 years as a missionary in Egypt, and Nancy Macky, a retired English professor from Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pa., stepped on stage to read from Twain’s diaries -- with gestures and all. They’re no amateurs; both taught drama at college.

Nurse-practitioner Florence Galloway, 85, spent 38 years in Africa, teaching family planning and maternal child health and establishing family clinics. Sometimes a clinic was just a kitchen table in a pastor’s home, she said. Prayer was central in every encounter.

“It was a wonderful life,” Galloway said, showing a visitor a bookmark made of photos of her late husband, the Rev. Ray Galloway. “I would do it all over again,” said Galloway, who began her long service by going to Paris in 1952 to learn French before heading for then-French Cameroon.

The Rev. Franklin Woo moved to the Pasadena community with his wife, Jean, a social worker, after retiring as director of the China program of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America, in New York. Maintaining relations with churches in China remains an important part of his life.

Woo now is preparing to play host for a June 5 Los Angeles visit by a delegation from the Amity Foundation in Nanjing, a nongovernmental group providing social services, relief work, education and medical projects. It was founded by Christians in China in 1985.

At Monte Vista, Woo is the resident carpenter, specializing in putting up shelves.

If Woo is the carpenter, the Rev. Bill Hansen, who served 40 years as pastor of the Church of the Valley, Presbyterian in Apple Valley, is head mail runner.

Every morning, Hansen and a team of volunteers drive to the local post office to pick up mail and deliver it to the residents. Hansen also volunteers as a pastor of a Sunday school Bible class at the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood.

He and his wife, Mary Ellen, moved to Monte Vista nearly three years ago, and can’t say enough good things about the place.

“The unique thing is the quality of life and the relationship between the people and the diversity we have,” he said.

For some, however, adjusting to life in America has been a challenge.

Egypt-born Lorimer, 81, and his wife, Mary Lou, 82, co-editors of Monte Vista’s monthly, The Tidings, say they miss Egypt, but they wanted to be closer to their daughter, who lives in Sacramento.

Turnbull and the Potters, who all speak Thai, maintain their connections with the local Thai community. They attend First Thai Presbyterian Church in Covina, where Sunday worship is conducted in Thai.

Turnbull said she enjoyed fellowship over lunch after the service. “They serve great Thai food,” she said.