(Part Two of my oral history with the late Rev. Dcn. Robert Carsner)
Matt: What inspired you to host an opera radio show?
Bob: I had a collection of Opera recordings for heaven sakes, and I love Opera and I had fun doing it. It gave me something else to do and I enjoyed doing it, and then I went to Eastern Oregon and then I came back, but didn't get my student teaching finished. I came back to The Dalles, and the only job I could find was up at Columbia Park as a psychiatric aide, working with the mentally retarded and I loved that.
(At this point, I went to get Bob a cup of water and asked him to keep talking)
Bob: Anyway, I've gotten out of sequence somewhere because I actually spent ten years as a psychiatric aide and then I went to summer school and then went to Portland State University and decided that I was going into speech. I didn't pursue public address because I couldn't find a job as a speech teacher. My degree is in speech pathology. The department at P.S.U was very small and I actually ended up with a 90 hour masters. They started us out on a 45 hour masters and they decided that they were going to meet ASHA standards so I ended up with a 90 hour masters in speech path.
Matt: When did you attend Portland State?
Bob: Oh, let’s see. Right now, I can’t give you the exact dates, but I was at Portland State University in the 1970's.
Matt: What inspired you to get into speech pathology?
Bob: You see, I kept getting calls from people who said they had a child who has a speech problem could you help them and of course I couldn't and we didn't have the speech pathology program so I figured that well, I'd have a job when I got home. During the two years that I was at Portland State University, the ESD was formed and Richard Lefever was the head of the department and he would not hire me at the ESD because I did not drive. So, anyway, I went back and worked at Columbia Park for a little longer and then when Columbia Park closed I became a Community Resource Aide working with the mentally retarded who were placed in the community and I was a liaison between the…well I worked under a welfare worker out of Pendleton, and she encouraged me and then all of a sudden the opportunity came that they had a little girl who needed speech help. I was there so they had me work with her because she was in the home, she was not in the school, and she was a profoundly retarded little girl.
Matt: I notice this theme in your life of coming back to Eastern Oregon.
Bob: Yes, I came back after Portland State and went back to work at Columbia Park and then when they closed, I was moved to Salem with, well my position went to Salem, and I went with it, and I worked at Fairview. Anyway, so the opportunity came to be, well, the gal who was the head of the speech department decided that she wanted, well she and her intended moved and so there were two positions open in the speech department and I got one of them and then the fellow who took charge of the program, we were hired at the same time. Right now, I don't really remember what year that was. Then, I ended up working for eighteen and a half years as a speech pathologist in the public schools and loved every minute of it.
Matt: How long were you in Salem?
Bob: I was at Fairview for about eight months. I went to Fairview knowing that I was going to be going. I had committed myself to go to Fairview, but asked for a leave of absence to go to England with my mother; we were going to take an extended vacation. I applied for a leave of absence at Fairview and they kept putting me off and putting me off until two days before I was set to leave and they called me in and said we won't give you a leave of absence, and so I was given no other opportunity but to resign. Actually, when we went to Fairview, we were not welcome because we were riffed, you see, they wanted the positions but they wanted them vacant so they could fill them with their own people. So, my experience at Fairview was not a particularly pleasant one at all. I enjoyed working with the kids but I did not like Fairview particularly and frankly the system was way too different. Of course, very shortly after that, they closed Fairview and I got my position with the public schools in The Dalles had a very successful career as a speech pathologist and enjoyed it tremendously. Then, after I retired, they actually got rid of the entire speech department. Now the speech people are hired by the school district and not by ESD. The ESD has now become an administrative body and at that time, they were providing services. They had a deaf program, a program for speech and hard of hearing and deaf. A lot of us stuck around and worked with it and enjoyed it and had very successful careers.
Stephen, my friend who was here earlier, is another one of us, but the whole speech department was all let go at approximately the same time; the reason being that they could hire two entry-level people for each of us and they could get by cheaper. Frankly, it got to the point where paper was more important than people, and frankly it wasn't as much fun. Now, you are spending more time with paper then you are with people and the paper is more important than the person. I swore that when I left, I was going to create this perfect file and have them tell me it's wonderful, and I was going to tell them there is only one small problem, the child doesn't exist and you could have gotten away with it and you can still get away with it. That's the thing that if I sound a little bitter, it’s because I am. Right now, I don't care what the job is, we are so hemmed about by the law that nobody can do anything without a credential; credentialism has gone absolutely wild.
So, I retired from speech and then I took my four years of theology out of Sewanee from their theological program; it's a four-year program that we are still participating in. That program got me interested in theology and I offered myself, well, we were doing mutual ministry and under Rusty with great guns, I identified myself as a deacon and the congregation supported me. So, I went through EFM and then Rusty ordained me on, it was the feast of St. Michael and all Angels and we just celebrated the eighth anniversary of my ordination. So that's how it all came together.
Matt: Every time you came back to The Dalles, you were attending church at St. Paul’s, is that correct?
Bob: Yes, we've always been at St. Paul's and even when I was working up on the hill, I was an active lay reader and even when I was in Portland I would come back and do my stint as a lay reader occasionally.
Matt: So, you were there when it transitioned from old to new St. Paul’s. What was that like?
Bob: Well, actually, I wasn't here when the new St. Paul's was built, I was at school. I remember when the plans were made and of course I was here for the consecration. I was either at UO or Portland State at the time. Anyway, it was designed by a gentleman who is not an Episcopalian. We remodeled the sanctuary entirely so that if you look at the original plan there were three steps up to the altar and the altar was against the back wall and then they moved the altar out to where it is now and you celebrated facing the people. We had a couple of priests who were here at interim who could not face the congregation.
Matt: That's right, I have heard that Rite 1 was a big change for many priests and lay people.
Bob: Yes, Rite 1 was a big change for a lot of people, and there were certainly a lot of the older priests who could not digest it. I remember one gentleman who came and served occasionally, he was one of the resident high churchmen, and he could not celebrate facing the people, he felt uncomfortable. Of course, the first place that we had a freestanding altar was at Cove when Bishop Barton brought, well, for all of his low church this and that, in many ways he (Bishop Barton) was a very strict in that he didn't go for a lot of the fancies, but his theology, in many ways was very high church. Of course, that's one of the things that I always told the kids when I was teaching them altar work, if you don't know why you're doing something, don't do it; you ought to know why you're doing something because otherwise it is meaningless if you don't know why you're doing it, then don't do it and keep it as simple as you possibly can. On the other hand, I've already provided them with my memorial. My memorial is going to be the Carsner Memorial Smudge Pot that I gave them. I gave them the Orthodox sensor that they have hanging in the sacristy that they haven't used.
Matt: It must have been a big change for some people to see things like the moving of the altar and the ordination of women. What was that like in your experience?
Bob: There were many people in this church that could understand the ordination of women, and frankly I was one of the people who had a hard time with that because it was a tradition. Then I had a couple, who I had met at Cove as a matter of fact, the Mogensen's, and they went to seminary in Sewanee and they became an ordained couple and I had some real interesting knock down drag out discussions with Roberta because I said that one of the hardest things I had…well finally, she pointed out that historically, well there is a wonderful book written called The Lady was a Bishop, well I don’t know if you have run into the book, but that it is absolutely fascinating because it points out that there were women bishops in the church and in fact many of the abbesses were crosier abbesses, and the crosier is the shepherd's crook. That's where I used to have great fun with Rustin because I would say, you’re not dressed for the proper service, you're not vested properly because you are not wearing Eucharistic vestments and of course, you ought to be wearing the hat occasionally. Then I remember, the one that is great fun, was I told him I remembered that somebody was carrying his crosier in recession at half mast and I said, what does that signify? I would always tell my acolytes, look if you're in front of Rusty and he’s the diocesan, you always point the crosier out toward the people, because that means he has authority over the people. If it's a visiting Bishop you position the crosier so that the crook presents him and I said, I’m not quite sure what it means when you have it at half mast, and I've caught a lot of adults with that because it's these little tiny things that are important to know. If you're going to do it, let's do it right.
Matt: So, tradition has been very important to you, I mean, even as a kid, you appreciated tradition.
Bob: Yes, tradition is very important. That's why you keep all of the high church stuff because it's old tradition and if you understand it then it informs everything that you do. If you're aware of the tradition and know why then it helps you to remember, that’s why I say, if you don't know why you're doing something then don't do it. I remember one of the priests insisted on making, during communion, he had to make thirty three cross signs of the cross because one for each year of Christ’s life. I said I've never heard a tradition before but it seemed to me like you are doing a lot of waving around without knowing why you're doing there really wasn't a lot of reason for it.
If you know why and you do it right when you’re handling things at the altar…when I was teaching the kids, I had such fun with them because I would put them in the position of the priest and I would be the acolyte and of course I would do such things, and I would say, “let me bring you the wine and then the water”. Well, I would hand them the cruet with the wine and stopper in and he'd be standing there with the cruet in one hand and the chalice and the other and all of a sudden I'd say “that's why you always take the stoppers out before you leave the credence table”, because how is he going to handle it. So, you taught by example and you have them try things. One of the other things I always taught the kids to do was after I taught them, I would turn them loose in the sacristy and say “all right I want you to address the altar” and they didn't have to because the altar hangings were there but I mean I want you to dress the chalice. I want you to know how to dress the chalice. I want you to know where things are so that if I look at you and say I want the purificator, or I want you to know where to go if you had to go in the sacristy and find it, I will know that you know where it is and what I'm asking for, so it's that sort of thing and it's all tied up with tradition and of course it’s, well, if you know the tradition, then you will remember all of this stuff.
Matt: That makes sense. How long did you do this?
Bob: Well, I spent 30 years as the master of acolytes because Rusty didn't have the time and wasn't…well he is one of the best liturgists in town, he can do liturgy beautifully, he can simplify it so that it's always proper and he had a wonderful way of communicating.
Matt: Let’s talk about the artifacts now. Tell me more about the collection and history of some of the artifacts.
Bob: Well, some of the things that I think are particularly for St. Paul's because I know St. Paul's, and I know Cove. They have probably the second or third oldest chalice in the diocese. It's a well chalice that is really odd, it's a horrible thing to have to take communion from but it's a tall, it looks almost like a flower vase and it's engraved with grapes and I think its silver plate. They don't use it, but the one thing that we use now, is that Louis had in his collection, was the private communion set that was given to Bishop Paddock when he went off to drive ambulance during the war. When I first saw it I thought it was a baptismal bowl, because it's a squat chalice and it's in, well I thought it was a baptismal bowl and a collection plate because they are fairly good-sized and they are in the diocesan office, I don't know if they have been taken up to Cove or not.
Up at St. Paul's, we have the old chalice that came from, oh let me think… the old chalice was given to us in 1875 by a Sunday school class in Maine, I can't remember what town but it was actually sent to us and it's the chalice in Patton that we have and then we have a second chalice because that chalice disappeared for a while as did one of the candlesticks and they were both found, and they needed some repair but they have been repaired. We have a little offering plate that was carved out of oak by the gentleman who built the church, the old St. Paul's church, Dr. Nevius. We have the old collection plate that belonged to that. Almost every piece of liturgical stuff is given by somebody in memory of someone and I always told the kids as much as I could about the history of who were these people and why were they memorialized. The two candlesticks were given by ladies who were well, as is true in most of the churches in Eastern Oregon, if the women hadn't raised the money the church would never have been built; and they did. Mrs. Nags is one of them who did strawberry preserve sales to raise the money and gave it to the bishop to buy the property. I always said to the kids, read the inscriptions and if you want to know who they are ask me and I will tell you because I tried to remember that it's important that they know that people, everything we have is because someone wanted to be remembered and it was important to them to have it for instance, well the gospel book that we have, was my mother's memorial and like I said I have already given my memorial and I have told John that if they decide to want to give any money to the church in memory of me, for heaven sake, I said let's use any funds that when I die are generated, use them to complete the memorial for Harriet, because I have already given the memorial; but they'll never use it. I always said they can engrave on the rim of it that was the “Carsner Memorial Smudge Pot”. Harriet was John Langfeldt’s wife. Harriet was very important to this parish, she was the “hostess with the mostest”. She was a wonderful lady and I know that John wants to…John is presenting a celebrants chair, because he also is a bit of traditionalist.
Matt: What other items in the collection stand out to you?
Bob: Well, I think that all of Louis work, one of the things I would like to see as I would like to see all of his work corrected. Most of his problems were typos, he was not the best typist and edit it a little bit. There are things I have gathered over the years, for instance, I would like to see all of the icons used somewhere. I've offered, well one of the things I told Bishop Nedi, was if any of the churches will accept an icon, I will try to find a patronal icon for any one of the churches that will accept one, they'll usually be of the of the quality of that one large one (pointing to an icon on the wall). I gave John money for an icon of St. Paul to bring back from his last trip, that he actually bought one, or he actually commissioned one to be painted by an archimandrite. Everybody else contributed to it too, so that's where we got it, but I gave him I think $500 and said, if you happen to run into an icon of St. Paul that speaks you bring it home and we’ll use it and I know that they’ve accepted the icon for the chaplain at Cove. I have some other icons. I have a Greek icon of the Trinity, so if Trinity in Bend and would accept it I would love to have them have it. I asked Nettie to announce that at convention. So, if people let me know.
Matt: It will be interesting to see what happens to the collections within the diocese. If congregations decide to donate to the main archives or maintain their own archives, I’m here to help either way.
Bob: What we really need is, and I hope that you'll get, a good microfilm machine because they've got I don't know how many people actually kept the old records I'm sure that they have, but I know that, for instance that I found in Louis office, the baptismal record of my baptism out in never-never land. It was in Cove, and I found it and I said “aha” and now I know who was there and I know that I was actually confirmed and all of this. I know that the original records because Robie, as the archdeacon, traveled throughout the diocese, and he came out to the ranch and I was actually baptized at the ranch, because they weren't sure that I was going to live that long, because I was a fragile child and I was a three month preemie. I was born in September didn't arrive until, well I was at the ranch in December and I was actually baptized at the ranch on New Year's Eve.
Matt: Part of my goal is to bring Louis’ collection together, because part of it’s in The Dalles and part of it’s in Cove. I cannot properly organize the collection until it has been aggregated.
Bob: Yeah, well there is a box of all of Louis sermons that I found and I can't read them. You know, Rusty has done a lot of great work over a period of time. He's written some beautiful sermons. When he sits down and writes a sermon, it's really beautifully done. Rusty uses a lot of sources and he also writes sermons out occasionally; I've asked him for copies of things that he's done to see what he summarizes. He really does a beautiful job and is a true artist. I used to tease him unmercifully about his sermons because he'd give us the Reader's Digest version of his sermons at 8 o'clock and mother and I always told him that we judged the quality of his sermons by how good of an argument she and I would get into, and if he generated a really good argument, he got a high mark but if the argument wasn't worthy of discussion and fighting over, we didn't give him a very high mark. We used to tease him about that and it was great fun.
Matt: That’s funny, and I’m sure he wanted to generate discourse.
Bob: Yeah. You know, each parish ought to have a go to person who knows what's in the archives, because it's amazing there’s always some work, it can be a sacristy rat even. We have certain things that are well every parish has their Eucharistic silver, they ought to know the history of that, and in every case for instance, I know that Trinity Bend, was actually sponsored Trinity Wall Street in New York at one point. There were all these connections and then also the family history because each parish has its own family history and the people who are the important lore keepers, every parish has one somewhere out in the sticks is the person who's the official “rememberer”. By the by, I have several boxes of stuff that you are going to have to go wading through, because I have saved several copies, or at least one copy of most of Louis works. There were bits and pieces of them in various places. He did a biography of Bishop Remington, I don’t think he did anything with Paddock. The book that I would like to get is the one that was written by I would like to get is Maria Minor’s book. Then, there was another book written to sound more sympathetic that I think you can dig up somewhere.
Willis has done a lot of interesting stuff. You know, his wife challenged me, I said “I want to see an organ crawl” and she said “why don't you do it” and I thought I can't possibly I don't have enough pull to do that and you know what it took? It took just going out and doing it and we got it set now. I've done four them and if there’s somebody who's going to pick it up they’re going to keep going. The community has decided to take ownership, to me that is one of the greatest things in the world, is that somebody in the community has picked up the idea and is willing to carry it on.
Matt: Well, that’s part of your legacy.
Bob: That's why I wanted to remember some of the stuff and like I said I have blathered a long time and I hope you can extract some of this stuff.
Matt: That’s okay, we just want to hear from you. Let’s end on this. What is your hope for the future of the diocese?
Bob: I want to see the diocese thrive. I've heard people say, well we just don’t have enough people, but that's not true. We have enough people. For instance, the problem with St. Paul's at the moment is that St. Paul's is an aging congregation, we don't have a lot of young people. We had actually that was…right now I'm blanking on people's names, Trace Browning had a wonderful way of getting to kids and he could, do that with music, but the problem was that his wife was ill and he was only with us for five years and then he went back; he was actually a Mormon convert to the Episcopal Church. Trace Browning was our parish priest before Janet.
Matt: What else do you wish for the future of the diocese?
Bob: My hopes for the diocese…well, that it works together. I think that we need to be more aware of each other and help each other, because we’re made up of small congregations. We’ll never be a mega church, for me that's just not us, that's not the kind of diocese we are. That was the thing that was so amazing to me was that all over the country where I've been, the churches are really fairly small, and there are some wonderful big churches as well.
When I went back to Washington D.C. Bishop and Polly hosted me. I visited a wonderful old parish, right in the middle of the city, I can’t remember the name, and it was very high church and one Sunday evening, I attended a celebration of black composers at the church, and it was a wonderful evening, but the Bishop leaned over and said you realize this is a very high church and when I come here they bring out the canopy and all this, and I said I can't believe it, but they sang the black national anthem Lift Every Voice and Sing and it was the most wonderful sound. The gentleman who was the director of music was the head of the music department at Howard and he was wonderful. I heard some voices that I was sure went on to the operatic stage because they were just amazing. It was a wonderful old parish, and I've never felt more comfortable in my life because it was a wonderful experience. Of course, I think one of the funniest things is that everybody thinks I’m such a high churchman and I want that all the time. I finally went to New York and spent three weeks house sitting in Rutherford, New Jersey. I went into Manhattan every day and I walked past this building at least eight times and it looked Gothic. I stood across the street and looked up and realized it was a church, and then I looked at the name of the church and I realized it was St. Mary the Virgin Church, which is the spikiest church in the nation. I said my God, I have always wanted to go and see what it was like, because Cardinal Spellman used to say that if you wanted to see the Tridentine Mass done properly you went to St. Mary the Virgin Church and saw it done. It was done in English, but it was done properly. I went in and I saw it I thought my God it's a wonderful show, you know that's lovely and I’d like to do that once a year just to prove that you can do it but I wouldn't want a steady diet of that anymore that I want a steady diet of anything else. The whole thing is that the new prayer book, which is not that new, gave us everything back, you know, the high church won.
All of the essentials are there so that we can put on the dog as often as we want to, but we haven't lost anything, they didn't throw out the baby with the bathwater. I think in many ways the 1928 Prayer Book gave us all of the best of the best and now we have all of this possibility and you can dress it up as much as you want to, or you can strip it down and make it as simple so that it fits the situation, you know I want the whole banquet. I remember the line from Auntie Mame that “life is a banquet and most poor bastards are starving to death” and that's true to me because if you don't have the possibilities of all of these things then you're missing something and you don't want a steady diet of sugar, but you want the variety, and you want it to be as simple as possible. I want music to be the same kind of thing, I want the black hymnal. I want Lift Every Voice and Sing to be there. I love the new hymnals, they are lovely, they left some the things out that I particularly like, but we still have the fourth communion service when I want to go be Anglican and chant. That was one of the things we learned at Cove, we were taught to do Anglican chant, using the old pointing system. There are so many people who don't know how to do it now. We had a music teacher, Burt Allen's wife, Helen, taught us to chant the service; so, actually, it was at Cove that I got to chant my first service. We used the Murbank service and we did it from beginning to end. I got to see my first service in Eucharistic vestments, the priests in Heppner was a high churchman and he came in and he had his red set on and he actually did a full-blown, full mass in Eucharistic vestments, and we talked to the kids about it, and it was fun the kids knew how do and they loved it and they got exposed, that was what you learned at Cove. You learned all these different things. Bishop Barton was one of these people who knew the early church and I remember that that was one of the things, I did my Curcio at Cove. Every time I've been to Curcio, I've had a special gift given to me that says you're at the right place at the right time and you've got a special gift given to you. I feel that I've had many of those experiences at Cove, so Cove is a very special place for me. It's a thin place. I understand that tradition, and that's why I keep telling the kids that it's a very special place to be. I want them to know why it’s special, and I want them to feel something of that.
If I could pass that along, that's what I learned and that's what I want to pass along to the kids. That's why I've spent 20 or 30 years doing it. The kids gave me the neatest gift this year, they sang, well Amy Rooper is a cousin, and she and her intendant were the people that did it. They sent me a tape of the camp that I would've attended and been part of the staff. They had them sing Green Grow the Rushes, Ho because that was a song I remember we used to march to the pool singing. I said this is a song that I learned when I was your age that I taught them, and they are now singing it again. That’s where I think I have contributed something, to keep things going. That's the whole thing is to keep the continuity going, but always keep them aiming toward the future. Like I said, if you don't know where you've been, you can’t know where you're going. If you forget the past, you’re bound to make the same mistakes over and over and over again.
Matt: Well, that’s the final word. I want to thank you Bob for sharing your time and your stories with me.
Bob: Thank you, I appreciate it.
Matt: What inspired you to host an opera radio show?
Bob: I had a collection of Opera recordings for heaven sakes, and I love Opera and I had fun doing it. It gave me something else to do and I enjoyed doing it, and then I went to Eastern Oregon and then I came back, but didn't get my student teaching finished. I came back to The Dalles, and the only job I could find was up at Columbia Park as a psychiatric aide, working with the mentally retarded and I loved that.
(At this point, I went to get Bob a cup of water and asked him to keep talking)
Bob: Anyway, I've gotten out of sequence somewhere because I actually spent ten years as a psychiatric aide and then I went to summer school and then went to Portland State University and decided that I was going into speech. I didn't pursue public address because I couldn't find a job as a speech teacher. My degree is in speech pathology. The department at P.S.U was very small and I actually ended up with a 90 hour masters. They started us out on a 45 hour masters and they decided that they were going to meet ASHA standards so I ended up with a 90 hour masters in speech path.
Matt: When did you attend Portland State?
Bob: Oh, let’s see. Right now, I can’t give you the exact dates, but I was at Portland State University in the 1970's.
Matt: What inspired you to get into speech pathology?
Bob: You see, I kept getting calls from people who said they had a child who has a speech problem could you help them and of course I couldn't and we didn't have the speech pathology program so I figured that well, I'd have a job when I got home. During the two years that I was at Portland State University, the ESD was formed and Richard Lefever was the head of the department and he would not hire me at the ESD because I did not drive. So, anyway, I went back and worked at Columbia Park for a little longer and then when Columbia Park closed I became a Community Resource Aide working with the mentally retarded who were placed in the community and I was a liaison between the…well I worked under a welfare worker out of Pendleton, and she encouraged me and then all of a sudden the opportunity came that they had a little girl who needed speech help. I was there so they had me work with her because she was in the home, she was not in the school, and she was a profoundly retarded little girl.
Matt: I notice this theme in your life of coming back to Eastern Oregon.
Bob: Yes, I came back after Portland State and went back to work at Columbia Park and then when they closed, I was moved to Salem with, well my position went to Salem, and I went with it, and I worked at Fairview. Anyway, so the opportunity came to be, well, the gal who was the head of the speech department decided that she wanted, well she and her intended moved and so there were two positions open in the speech department and I got one of them and then the fellow who took charge of the program, we were hired at the same time. Right now, I don't really remember what year that was. Then, I ended up working for eighteen and a half years as a speech pathologist in the public schools and loved every minute of it.
Matt: How long were you in Salem?
Bob: I was at Fairview for about eight months. I went to Fairview knowing that I was going to be going. I had committed myself to go to Fairview, but asked for a leave of absence to go to England with my mother; we were going to take an extended vacation. I applied for a leave of absence at Fairview and they kept putting me off and putting me off until two days before I was set to leave and they called me in and said we won't give you a leave of absence, and so I was given no other opportunity but to resign. Actually, when we went to Fairview, we were not welcome because we were riffed, you see, they wanted the positions but they wanted them vacant so they could fill them with their own people. So, my experience at Fairview was not a particularly pleasant one at all. I enjoyed working with the kids but I did not like Fairview particularly and frankly the system was way too different. Of course, very shortly after that, they closed Fairview and I got my position with the public schools in The Dalles had a very successful career as a speech pathologist and enjoyed it tremendously. Then, after I retired, they actually got rid of the entire speech department. Now the speech people are hired by the school district and not by ESD. The ESD has now become an administrative body and at that time, they were providing services. They had a deaf program, a program for speech and hard of hearing and deaf. A lot of us stuck around and worked with it and enjoyed it and had very successful careers.
Stephen, my friend who was here earlier, is another one of us, but the whole speech department was all let go at approximately the same time; the reason being that they could hire two entry-level people for each of us and they could get by cheaper. Frankly, it got to the point where paper was more important than people, and frankly it wasn't as much fun. Now, you are spending more time with paper then you are with people and the paper is more important than the person. I swore that when I left, I was going to create this perfect file and have them tell me it's wonderful, and I was going to tell them there is only one small problem, the child doesn't exist and you could have gotten away with it and you can still get away with it. That's the thing that if I sound a little bitter, it’s because I am. Right now, I don't care what the job is, we are so hemmed about by the law that nobody can do anything without a credential; credentialism has gone absolutely wild.
So, I retired from speech and then I took my four years of theology out of Sewanee from their theological program; it's a four-year program that we are still participating in. That program got me interested in theology and I offered myself, well, we were doing mutual ministry and under Rusty with great guns, I identified myself as a deacon and the congregation supported me. So, I went through EFM and then Rusty ordained me on, it was the feast of St. Michael and all Angels and we just celebrated the eighth anniversary of my ordination. So that's how it all came together.
Matt: Every time you came back to The Dalles, you were attending church at St. Paul’s, is that correct?
Bob: Yes, we've always been at St. Paul's and even when I was working up on the hill, I was an active lay reader and even when I was in Portland I would come back and do my stint as a lay reader occasionally.
Matt: So, you were there when it transitioned from old to new St. Paul’s. What was that like?
Bob: Well, actually, I wasn't here when the new St. Paul's was built, I was at school. I remember when the plans were made and of course I was here for the consecration. I was either at UO or Portland State at the time. Anyway, it was designed by a gentleman who is not an Episcopalian. We remodeled the sanctuary entirely so that if you look at the original plan there were three steps up to the altar and the altar was against the back wall and then they moved the altar out to where it is now and you celebrated facing the people. We had a couple of priests who were here at interim who could not face the congregation.
Matt: That's right, I have heard that Rite 1 was a big change for many priests and lay people.
Bob: Yes, Rite 1 was a big change for a lot of people, and there were certainly a lot of the older priests who could not digest it. I remember one gentleman who came and served occasionally, he was one of the resident high churchmen, and he could not celebrate facing the people, he felt uncomfortable. Of course, the first place that we had a freestanding altar was at Cove when Bishop Barton brought, well, for all of his low church this and that, in many ways he (Bishop Barton) was a very strict in that he didn't go for a lot of the fancies, but his theology, in many ways was very high church. Of course, that's one of the things that I always told the kids when I was teaching them altar work, if you don't know why you're doing something, don't do it; you ought to know why you're doing something because otherwise it is meaningless if you don't know why you're doing it, then don't do it and keep it as simple as you possibly can. On the other hand, I've already provided them with my memorial. My memorial is going to be the Carsner Memorial Smudge Pot that I gave them. I gave them the Orthodox sensor that they have hanging in the sacristy that they haven't used.
Matt: It must have been a big change for some people to see things like the moving of the altar and the ordination of women. What was that like in your experience?
Bob: There were many people in this church that could understand the ordination of women, and frankly I was one of the people who had a hard time with that because it was a tradition. Then I had a couple, who I had met at Cove as a matter of fact, the Mogensen's, and they went to seminary in Sewanee and they became an ordained couple and I had some real interesting knock down drag out discussions with Roberta because I said that one of the hardest things I had…well finally, she pointed out that historically, well there is a wonderful book written called The Lady was a Bishop, well I don’t know if you have run into the book, but that it is absolutely fascinating because it points out that there were women bishops in the church and in fact many of the abbesses were crosier abbesses, and the crosier is the shepherd's crook. That's where I used to have great fun with Rustin because I would say, you’re not dressed for the proper service, you're not vested properly because you are not wearing Eucharistic vestments and of course, you ought to be wearing the hat occasionally. Then I remember, the one that is great fun, was I told him I remembered that somebody was carrying his crosier in recession at half mast and I said, what does that signify? I would always tell my acolytes, look if you're in front of Rusty and he’s the diocesan, you always point the crosier out toward the people, because that means he has authority over the people. If it's a visiting Bishop you position the crosier so that the crook presents him and I said, I’m not quite sure what it means when you have it at half mast, and I've caught a lot of adults with that because it's these little tiny things that are important to know. If you're going to do it, let's do it right.
Matt: So, tradition has been very important to you, I mean, even as a kid, you appreciated tradition.
Bob: Yes, tradition is very important. That's why you keep all of the high church stuff because it's old tradition and if you understand it then it informs everything that you do. If you're aware of the tradition and know why then it helps you to remember, that’s why I say, if you don't know why you're doing something then don't do it. I remember one of the priests insisted on making, during communion, he had to make thirty three cross signs of the cross because one for each year of Christ’s life. I said I've never heard a tradition before but it seemed to me like you are doing a lot of waving around without knowing why you're doing there really wasn't a lot of reason for it.
If you know why and you do it right when you’re handling things at the altar…when I was teaching the kids, I had such fun with them because I would put them in the position of the priest and I would be the acolyte and of course I would do such things, and I would say, “let me bring you the wine and then the water”. Well, I would hand them the cruet with the wine and stopper in and he'd be standing there with the cruet in one hand and the chalice and the other and all of a sudden I'd say “that's why you always take the stoppers out before you leave the credence table”, because how is he going to handle it. So, you taught by example and you have them try things. One of the other things I always taught the kids to do was after I taught them, I would turn them loose in the sacristy and say “all right I want you to address the altar” and they didn't have to because the altar hangings were there but I mean I want you to dress the chalice. I want you to know how to dress the chalice. I want you to know where things are so that if I look at you and say I want the purificator, or I want you to know where to go if you had to go in the sacristy and find it, I will know that you know where it is and what I'm asking for, so it's that sort of thing and it's all tied up with tradition and of course it’s, well, if you know the tradition, then you will remember all of this stuff.
Matt: That makes sense. How long did you do this?
Bob: Well, I spent 30 years as the master of acolytes because Rusty didn't have the time and wasn't…well he is one of the best liturgists in town, he can do liturgy beautifully, he can simplify it so that it's always proper and he had a wonderful way of communicating.
Matt: Let’s talk about the artifacts now. Tell me more about the collection and history of some of the artifacts.
Bob: Well, some of the things that I think are particularly for St. Paul's because I know St. Paul's, and I know Cove. They have probably the second or third oldest chalice in the diocese. It's a well chalice that is really odd, it's a horrible thing to have to take communion from but it's a tall, it looks almost like a flower vase and it's engraved with grapes and I think its silver plate. They don't use it, but the one thing that we use now, is that Louis had in his collection, was the private communion set that was given to Bishop Paddock when he went off to drive ambulance during the war. When I first saw it I thought it was a baptismal bowl, because it's a squat chalice and it's in, well I thought it was a baptismal bowl and a collection plate because they are fairly good-sized and they are in the diocesan office, I don't know if they have been taken up to Cove or not.
Up at St. Paul's, we have the old chalice that came from, oh let me think… the old chalice was given to us in 1875 by a Sunday school class in Maine, I can't remember what town but it was actually sent to us and it's the chalice in Patton that we have and then we have a second chalice because that chalice disappeared for a while as did one of the candlesticks and they were both found, and they needed some repair but they have been repaired. We have a little offering plate that was carved out of oak by the gentleman who built the church, the old St. Paul's church, Dr. Nevius. We have the old collection plate that belonged to that. Almost every piece of liturgical stuff is given by somebody in memory of someone and I always told the kids as much as I could about the history of who were these people and why were they memorialized. The two candlesticks were given by ladies who were well, as is true in most of the churches in Eastern Oregon, if the women hadn't raised the money the church would never have been built; and they did. Mrs. Nags is one of them who did strawberry preserve sales to raise the money and gave it to the bishop to buy the property. I always said to the kids, read the inscriptions and if you want to know who they are ask me and I will tell you because I tried to remember that it's important that they know that people, everything we have is because someone wanted to be remembered and it was important to them to have it for instance, well the gospel book that we have, was my mother's memorial and like I said I have already given my memorial and I have told John that if they decide to want to give any money to the church in memory of me, for heaven sake, I said let's use any funds that when I die are generated, use them to complete the memorial for Harriet, because I have already given the memorial; but they'll never use it. I always said they can engrave on the rim of it that was the “Carsner Memorial Smudge Pot”. Harriet was John Langfeldt’s wife. Harriet was very important to this parish, she was the “hostess with the mostest”. She was a wonderful lady and I know that John wants to…John is presenting a celebrants chair, because he also is a bit of traditionalist.
Matt: What other items in the collection stand out to you?
Bob: Well, I think that all of Louis work, one of the things I would like to see as I would like to see all of his work corrected. Most of his problems were typos, he was not the best typist and edit it a little bit. There are things I have gathered over the years, for instance, I would like to see all of the icons used somewhere. I've offered, well one of the things I told Bishop Nedi, was if any of the churches will accept an icon, I will try to find a patronal icon for any one of the churches that will accept one, they'll usually be of the of the quality of that one large one (pointing to an icon on the wall). I gave John money for an icon of St. Paul to bring back from his last trip, that he actually bought one, or he actually commissioned one to be painted by an archimandrite. Everybody else contributed to it too, so that's where we got it, but I gave him I think $500 and said, if you happen to run into an icon of St. Paul that speaks you bring it home and we’ll use it and I know that they’ve accepted the icon for the chaplain at Cove. I have some other icons. I have a Greek icon of the Trinity, so if Trinity in Bend and would accept it I would love to have them have it. I asked Nettie to announce that at convention. So, if people let me know.
Matt: It will be interesting to see what happens to the collections within the diocese. If congregations decide to donate to the main archives or maintain their own archives, I’m here to help either way.
Bob: What we really need is, and I hope that you'll get, a good microfilm machine because they've got I don't know how many people actually kept the old records I'm sure that they have, but I know that, for instance that I found in Louis office, the baptismal record of my baptism out in never-never land. It was in Cove, and I found it and I said “aha” and now I know who was there and I know that I was actually confirmed and all of this. I know that the original records because Robie, as the archdeacon, traveled throughout the diocese, and he came out to the ranch and I was actually baptized at the ranch, because they weren't sure that I was going to live that long, because I was a fragile child and I was a three month preemie. I was born in September didn't arrive until, well I was at the ranch in December and I was actually baptized at the ranch on New Year's Eve.
Matt: Part of my goal is to bring Louis’ collection together, because part of it’s in The Dalles and part of it’s in Cove. I cannot properly organize the collection until it has been aggregated.
Bob: Yeah, well there is a box of all of Louis sermons that I found and I can't read them. You know, Rusty has done a lot of great work over a period of time. He's written some beautiful sermons. When he sits down and writes a sermon, it's really beautifully done. Rusty uses a lot of sources and he also writes sermons out occasionally; I've asked him for copies of things that he's done to see what he summarizes. He really does a beautiful job and is a true artist. I used to tease him unmercifully about his sermons because he'd give us the Reader's Digest version of his sermons at 8 o'clock and mother and I always told him that we judged the quality of his sermons by how good of an argument she and I would get into, and if he generated a really good argument, he got a high mark but if the argument wasn't worthy of discussion and fighting over, we didn't give him a very high mark. We used to tease him about that and it was great fun.
Matt: That’s funny, and I’m sure he wanted to generate discourse.
Bob: Yeah. You know, each parish ought to have a go to person who knows what's in the archives, because it's amazing there’s always some work, it can be a sacristy rat even. We have certain things that are well every parish has their Eucharistic silver, they ought to know the history of that, and in every case for instance, I know that Trinity Bend, was actually sponsored Trinity Wall Street in New York at one point. There were all these connections and then also the family history because each parish has its own family history and the people who are the important lore keepers, every parish has one somewhere out in the sticks is the person who's the official “rememberer”. By the by, I have several boxes of stuff that you are going to have to go wading through, because I have saved several copies, or at least one copy of most of Louis works. There were bits and pieces of them in various places. He did a biography of Bishop Remington, I don’t think he did anything with Paddock. The book that I would like to get is the one that was written by I would like to get is Maria Minor’s book. Then, there was another book written to sound more sympathetic that I think you can dig up somewhere.
Willis has done a lot of interesting stuff. You know, his wife challenged me, I said “I want to see an organ crawl” and she said “why don't you do it” and I thought I can't possibly I don't have enough pull to do that and you know what it took? It took just going out and doing it and we got it set now. I've done four them and if there’s somebody who's going to pick it up they’re going to keep going. The community has decided to take ownership, to me that is one of the greatest things in the world, is that somebody in the community has picked up the idea and is willing to carry it on.
Matt: Well, that’s part of your legacy.
Bob: That's why I wanted to remember some of the stuff and like I said I have blathered a long time and I hope you can extract some of this stuff.
Matt: That’s okay, we just want to hear from you. Let’s end on this. What is your hope for the future of the diocese?
Bob: I want to see the diocese thrive. I've heard people say, well we just don’t have enough people, but that's not true. We have enough people. For instance, the problem with St. Paul's at the moment is that St. Paul's is an aging congregation, we don't have a lot of young people. We had actually that was…right now I'm blanking on people's names, Trace Browning had a wonderful way of getting to kids and he could, do that with music, but the problem was that his wife was ill and he was only with us for five years and then he went back; he was actually a Mormon convert to the Episcopal Church. Trace Browning was our parish priest before Janet.
Matt: What else do you wish for the future of the diocese?
Bob: My hopes for the diocese…well, that it works together. I think that we need to be more aware of each other and help each other, because we’re made up of small congregations. We’ll never be a mega church, for me that's just not us, that's not the kind of diocese we are. That was the thing that was so amazing to me was that all over the country where I've been, the churches are really fairly small, and there are some wonderful big churches as well.
When I went back to Washington D.C. Bishop and Polly hosted me. I visited a wonderful old parish, right in the middle of the city, I can’t remember the name, and it was very high church and one Sunday evening, I attended a celebration of black composers at the church, and it was a wonderful evening, but the Bishop leaned over and said you realize this is a very high church and when I come here they bring out the canopy and all this, and I said I can't believe it, but they sang the black national anthem Lift Every Voice and Sing and it was the most wonderful sound. The gentleman who was the director of music was the head of the music department at Howard and he was wonderful. I heard some voices that I was sure went on to the operatic stage because they were just amazing. It was a wonderful old parish, and I've never felt more comfortable in my life because it was a wonderful experience. Of course, I think one of the funniest things is that everybody thinks I’m such a high churchman and I want that all the time. I finally went to New York and spent three weeks house sitting in Rutherford, New Jersey. I went into Manhattan every day and I walked past this building at least eight times and it looked Gothic. I stood across the street and looked up and realized it was a church, and then I looked at the name of the church and I realized it was St. Mary the Virgin Church, which is the spikiest church in the nation. I said my God, I have always wanted to go and see what it was like, because Cardinal Spellman used to say that if you wanted to see the Tridentine Mass done properly you went to St. Mary the Virgin Church and saw it done. It was done in English, but it was done properly. I went in and I saw it I thought my God it's a wonderful show, you know that's lovely and I’d like to do that once a year just to prove that you can do it but I wouldn't want a steady diet of that anymore that I want a steady diet of anything else. The whole thing is that the new prayer book, which is not that new, gave us everything back, you know, the high church won.
All of the essentials are there so that we can put on the dog as often as we want to, but we haven't lost anything, they didn't throw out the baby with the bathwater. I think in many ways the 1928 Prayer Book gave us all of the best of the best and now we have all of this possibility and you can dress it up as much as you want to, or you can strip it down and make it as simple so that it fits the situation, you know I want the whole banquet. I remember the line from Auntie Mame that “life is a banquet and most poor bastards are starving to death” and that's true to me because if you don't have the possibilities of all of these things then you're missing something and you don't want a steady diet of sugar, but you want the variety, and you want it to be as simple as possible. I want music to be the same kind of thing, I want the black hymnal. I want Lift Every Voice and Sing to be there. I love the new hymnals, they are lovely, they left some the things out that I particularly like, but we still have the fourth communion service when I want to go be Anglican and chant. That was one of the things we learned at Cove, we were taught to do Anglican chant, using the old pointing system. There are so many people who don't know how to do it now. We had a music teacher, Burt Allen's wife, Helen, taught us to chant the service; so, actually, it was at Cove that I got to chant my first service. We used the Murbank service and we did it from beginning to end. I got to see my first service in Eucharistic vestments, the priests in Heppner was a high churchman and he came in and he had his red set on and he actually did a full-blown, full mass in Eucharistic vestments, and we talked to the kids about it, and it was fun the kids knew how do and they loved it and they got exposed, that was what you learned at Cove. You learned all these different things. Bishop Barton was one of these people who knew the early church and I remember that that was one of the things, I did my Curcio at Cove. Every time I've been to Curcio, I've had a special gift given to me that says you're at the right place at the right time and you've got a special gift given to you. I feel that I've had many of those experiences at Cove, so Cove is a very special place for me. It's a thin place. I understand that tradition, and that's why I keep telling the kids that it's a very special place to be. I want them to know why it’s special, and I want them to feel something of that.
If I could pass that along, that's what I learned and that's what I want to pass along to the kids. That's why I've spent 20 or 30 years doing it. The kids gave me the neatest gift this year, they sang, well Amy Rooper is a cousin, and she and her intendant were the people that did it. They sent me a tape of the camp that I would've attended and been part of the staff. They had them sing Green Grow the Rushes, Ho because that was a song I remember we used to march to the pool singing. I said this is a song that I learned when I was your age that I taught them, and they are now singing it again. That’s where I think I have contributed something, to keep things going. That's the whole thing is to keep the continuity going, but always keep them aiming toward the future. Like I said, if you don't know where you've been, you can’t know where you're going. If you forget the past, you’re bound to make the same mistakes over and over and over again.
Matt: Well, that’s the final word. I want to thank you Bob for sharing your time and your stories with me.
Bob: Thank you, I appreciate it.