JOCELYN MARIE PALMER CONNORS

b. February 13, 1941

by Eugenie (Genie) Waddell Carr, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Winston-Salem, NC, 2016

Jocelyn Marie Palmer Connors

According to Jocelyn Connors, “Being an Episcopalian has offered me a vision of the Gospel and a vocation that rewards and sustains me… I try to follow the teachings of Jesus as well as I can, and I am grateful for the wonderful circle of friends, mentors, counselors and pastors that I have known over the years.”

Jocelyn grew up in Charlotte and was confirmed at Christ Church, where she and her husband, Tom Connors, also were married. She is a graduate of Sweet Briar College. Jocelyn and Tom are the parents of three grown children and grandparents of seven.

Jocelyn and Tom are members of St. Paul’s, Winston-Salem – again. They resided in Winston-Salem and were members of St. Paul’s from 1964 to 1975, then spent 35 years in Virginia before returning to St. Paul’s in 2010. Jocelyn reports that “in the past, I taught Sunday School and volunteered with the bazaars. In the last seven years, I have been a member of a Small Group, served on the Christian Formation Committee and chaired the Faith & Justice Committee.” In the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia, she was a vestry member, served on the Commission on Ministry, was a Lay Eucharistic Visitor, and participated in other activities.

Her involvement in parishes in North Carolina, and in Virginia, has provided sustenance for her life, and a way of giving thanks for that nourishment. “It has sustained me through times of joy and sorrow and given me strength and wisdom as I have journeyed through life. I love the liturgy, the community, the compassion, and the friendships that are all a part of the church life.”

SUSAN MOFFAT-THOMAS

b. August 19, 1941

by Charles K. (Ken) McCotter, Jr., Christ Episcopal Church, New Bern, NC, 2016

Susan Moffat-Thomas

Susan Moffat-Thomas moved to New Bern in 1981, beginning a career of service and leadership. For 30 years, before retiring in December 2014, Susan was the Executive Director of Swiss Bear Downtown Development Corporation, a nonprofit organization established in 1979 to spearhead and coordinate the revitalization of New Bern’s downtown and redevelopment of its waterfront in partnership with the local government.

Susan’s downtown initiatives included facilitating and packaging economic development projects, strategic planning for future initiatives and comprehensive planning for the viability of downtown and waterfront areas and the organization of special events such as Mumfest. During her tenure, downtown’s public and private investment totaled $230 million with several hundred new business openings, major corridor and streetscape improvements, replacement of the Cunningham Bridge and a new Neuse River Bridge. Downtown is now a vibrant city center and a major tourist attraction.

Susan provided leadership for numerous projects and fundraising campaigns including Union Point Park, Council Bluff Green, James Reed Lane, restoration of the historic F-11 jet, Ship Hauling Machine, Baxter Street Clock and for three downtown master plans. At the request of United States District Judge Louise Flanagan, Susan organized meetings with community leaders, and government officials to express the importance of restoring the Federal Court Building which led to Congressional appropriations for the restoration of this historic building.

Christ Church rector, Ed Sharp, supported Susan in her efforts with Swiss Bear and provided input on many projects. When the old pool hall building across Pollock Street from the Church was demolished to develop an inner-block alleyway, Sharp and Moffat-Thomas were successful in getting the new alleyway named after the Rev. James Reed, first rector of Christ Church, in recognition of this 18th century pioneer in public education who helped establish North Carolina’s first incorporated school in New Bern in 1764. They also succeeded in getting the newly restored two-block waterfront park on the Neuse River to be officially named Council Bluff Green, honoring the historic site where the King of the Tuscororas met with the founder of New Bern and transferred to him land from the Chatawka village for the settlement of Swiss and German colonists in 1710.

Originally from Michigan, Susan received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA. She has four children, nine grandchildren, is married to John Clement Thomas and became a member of Christ Church soon after marrying John in May of 1997. She is active member in the community, serving on numerous local and state organizations, including the North Carolina Museum of History Associates, NC Aquarium Society, Carolina East Foundation, Craven Literacy Council and the New Bern Historical Society. She has received numerous honors and awards including the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the most prestigious award presented by the Governor of North Carolina to individuals with a proven record of extraordinary service to the State.

SUZANNE BALDWIN BORUM BAKER

b. 1942

by Eugenie (Genie) Waddell Carr, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Winston-Salem, NC, 2016

Suzanne Baldwin Borum Baker

Suzanne Baldwin Borum “Zanne” Baker was born into a family of Episcopalians. Like her mother, she was active in the Episcopal Church in tiny West Point, Va., (“small as your thumb”), including singing in the choir. That tradition of service has continued.

Graduating in 1964 from Westhampton College, the women’s college of the University of Richmond, that same year Zanne married Leslie “Bud” Baker, who became a Marine, then a banker. The Bakers’ move to Winston-Salem in 1969 was “a little daunting,” she says. “I had been an Episcopalian, and I wanted to remain one.” Bud was a Lutheran, so the liturgy wasn’t a huge change for him. They joined St. Paul’s, where the Rev. E. Dudley Colhoun “got me into my role of wanting to do something for the church.” He asked her to join “that committee that gives money to people” (Outreach Funding Committee). “It helped you realize that church is more than going to church on Sunday.”

Zanne quickly realized something else: “Nobody said ‘no’ to Dudley,” she said with a smile. “He asked me to be on the flower committee. I didn’t know a thing about arranging flowers, but (the committee members) did a lot of training for people like me.”

The Bakers have three grown children: Rod, Ben, and Leslie. Ben has a son, Henry, 4. As the children came along Zanne continued her church activities. One Sunday she read that there was going to be a bazaar, “and there was going to be a nursery! I went to the crafts workshops and made so many friends. The bazaar is such a great community. You find community within community.”

“Drafted” onto the Ecclesiastical Arts Committee, Zanne helped plan for the Chapel and other spaces in the early 2000s. She and Bud became friends with Ren Brown, head of St. John’s Museum (now Cameron Art Museum) in Wilmington, NC. “I saw a beautiful stained-glass window there. I had never cared about stained glass in my life, but I just fell in love with it.” This new passion led to her being asked to chair a committee to get stained-glass windows for the Chapel. She got to know Rowan LeCompte, a well-known stained-glass artist in Wilmington whose work includes a number of windows in the National Cathedral in Washington, DC.

Beyond her church work, Zanne taught math and science in elementary school. She helped adults who were dyslexic, earned a master’s degree at Salem College, and taught reading in middle school. All this introduced her to a Smart Start school in Winston-Salem, where she remains passionate about starting children’s education “at zero” and improving the education and skills of those who teach young children.

Zanne has long served on the advisory board of the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Salvation Army. “It works,” she says. “They don’t do drugs. They don’t get pregnant. And there’s a huge music program, in conjunction with the Winston-Salem Symphony. It’s known that working with music improves children’s academic abilities.”

MARY BAYARD MORGAN WOOTTEN

December 17, 1876 – April 6, 1959

by David Curtis Skaggs, Christ Episcopal Church, New Bern, NC, 2016

Mary Bayard Morgan Wootten

Few Christ Church women have been more of a rebel against the norms of their day than a New Bern girl named Mary Bayard Morgan. She was one of the town’s first nationally known female entrepreneurs and feminists. She spent a year and a half at the North Carolina State Normal and Industrial School in Greensboro (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro). While teaching deaf children in Georgia, she married a lawyer named Charles Wootten. The marriage lasted four years and in 1901 she returned to New Bern with one son and another on the way.

Long known for her artistic talents, she tried to make her way as a local painter of designs for invitations, score cards, parasols, fans and dresses. She designed the first trademark for Brad’s Drink, later known as Pepsi-Cola. She gradually began work as a professional photographer and when the North Carolina National Guard established Camp Glenn at Morehead City in 1906 she opened a “photo hut” at the encampment where her work was favorably received by the guardsmen. Named the Guard’s chief of publicity, she became its first female member complete with uniform.

She stopped using her first name of “Mary” and instead combined her middle name of “Bayard” (pronounced BY-ard) with the married name of Wootten. She adopted a masculine dress style and had her hair cut short and combed it straight back. She regularly smoked cigarettes and relaxed with a couple of drinks in the evening. In 1914 she became the first female American aerial photographer while on a flight over New Bern in an open-air Wright Brothers bi-winged aircraft. Another time she photographed a waterfall while hanging from a rope.

In 1918 she began a long photographic career associated with the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill. This success contributed to her decision to open a second studio in Chapel Hill with her half-brother George Moulton. She resided in Chapel Hill from 1928 until 1954.

She envisioned her profession as an art form and began touring southeastern United States and setting up local studios to take personal pictures while stopping along the way to capture interesting individuals and scenery. Many of her efforts became book illustrations. She was best known for her insightful shots from young black children at play, to men playing checkers on the porch of a country store, to Appalachian grandmothers wrinkled by poverty, age and chores. Mrs. Wootten’s greatest contribution to her profession rests on her documentation of the usually ignored lives of the lower classes of society. Her photographic collection of approximately 90,000 items is housed at the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill.

Gradually deafness and blindness ended her career and she retired to New Bern where she died in 1959. Undoubtedly the example of Bayard Wootten provided women with an inspiration of what independence, courage, and an expansive outlook can accomplish.

EUGENIE WADDELL CARR

b. December 16, 1946

by the Archives Committee, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Winston-Salem, 2016

Eugenie Waddell Carr

Born in Wilmington, North Carolina, Eugenie “Genie” Waddell Carr was baptized and confirmed at St. James Episcopal Church in Wilmington. In her own words, “I’ve loved church since I was little. I still can feel the press of Bishop Thomas Wright’s hands on my head as he confirmed me. I felt as if I was walking on air as I returned to our pew. (In the church’s early days, in the 19th century, it WAS ‘our’ pew – the last time I checked, my mother’s family name was still affixed to the end of it. My father’s family were Presbyterians.)”

Like many young adults, Genie didn’t attend church during college or for several years after. Following graduation from Sweet Briar, she worked in Boston for four years. Those times were when the “new Prayer Book” was being developed, and she’s glad she missed the furor. However, when she returned to church in 1974 – two years after returning to North Carolina for a newspaper job in Winston-Salem – she was delighted with the new version. “St. Anne’s Episcopal Church, which I attended for nearly 15 years, was then using the ‘green book.’ For the first time in my life, I understood what some parts of the liturgy meant. And could pronounce some of the words – no more ‘inestimable.’”

At. St. Anne’s, Genie found friends and had leadership experiences – particularly Vestry and Senior Warden – and was a first-time chalice bearer. “The first day I attended St. Anne’s, I saw that the chalice bearer was a woman, and I burst into tears. At that point, women still couldn’t be ordained in the Episcopal Church, so a woman in a vestment that wasn’t a choir vestment was new and wonderful.”

During the 1980s Genie was very involved with Cursillo in the diocese, serving on teams for retreat weekends. She made life-long friends during that time. Scheduled to be the Rector (lay leader) of Cursillo #47 in 1988, she was in a bad car accident the weekend before, and spent that Cursillo weekend in the hospital.

Recovery from the head injury sustained in that accident took several months. Wanting to do “something worthwhile” in gratitude for being alive, Genie took the suggestion of the Rev. Dr. Fred Horton and volunteered at Hospice. Still working, she took a long hiatus from this Hospice work before returning in 2005.

Following the accident, not feeling up to all the work in a small church, Genie transferred to St. Paul’s in 1989. She became involved in a variety of activities, including Education for Ministry, first with longtime Christian Education Director, Wilma Smiley; then for 20 years as EFM co-mentor with Marjorie Northrup for four groups (four years for each group), and with Chip Morgan for one group. She wrote a monthly newsletter reporting on renovation projects, served on the Vestry, on a Rector search committee, as a layreader, chalice bearer, Lay Eucharistic Visitor, and committee member: Communications, Ecclesiastical Arts, Community Gatherings, Senior Adults, Faith & Justice, and Red Cross Blood drives.