A tribute to Bobbie Peters
See Fr. Liggett's Messenger article
See Fr. Liggett's homily at Bobbie's Funeral, March 22, 2002
A tribute to Bobbie Peters
See Fr. Liggett's Messenger article
See Fr. Liggett's homily at Bobbie's Funeral, March 22, 2002
This year, for our parish’s St. Mary’s Day celebration, we will be thanking and honoring Bobbie Peters, who has for thirty years been the Treasurer, Bookkeeper, financial manager and general guru of St. Mary’s Church and St. Mary’s School. There will be a catered meal beginning at 6:00 PM on Sunday evening in the Parish Hall, and everyone is invited and encouraged to attend.
We have a delightful chance to say thank-you and we love you without also having to say good-bye. Bobbie is not quitting or leaving, not by any means. She has been having some health problems, and decided it was time to cut back and start training and working with some others who can share the work. Bobbie will still oversee and direct many of the Church’s financial matters while helping the School out in a number of ways. Mary Federman has started working with Bobbie, and will, over the next several months, assume more and more of her duties at the parish.
And these duties are substantial. This year the combined budgets of the school and the church are well over half a million dollars, and together they have a payroll of around forty people. Add to that all of the tax, tax-exempt, Diocesan, Federal, State, Workers’ Compensation, and other reports, a hodgepodge of special accounts, insurance to oversee, Vestry and School Board Meetings to attend, special requests to deal with, pledge records, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual and annual reports, W-2's, W-4's, 1099's and who knows what else to take care of, and you begin to get a sense of the scope of the job.
It is a job which Bobbie has been doing wonderfully—quietly, competently, with great devotion, and insight, (and with a barely symbolic stipend) since January of 1970. (For most of the 20 years before then her husband, Otto, held the position.) She is very good at it—she is always reliable, always accurate, always flexible and always considerate; she carefully respects confidences and she remembers everything.
But much more than any of that, Bobbie is a wonderful gift to our parish and to our school. She is more than intelligent, she is wise; she is more than thoughtful, she is truly compassionate. Bobbie is more than helpful, she is, for me personally, for our Vestry, and for our parish, a source of levelheaded, principled, and prudent advice and reflection. She is one of the people I always talk with when I need reflection, perspective, council or a caring heart.
Overall, Bobbie is probably the best Church Treasurer in the world, and the finest I have ever known. I know I speak for all of us when I say how deeply we appreciate her ministry to St. Mary’s—and how much we care for her.
Thank you, Bobbie, for all you have given, and God bless and keep you.
Fr. Jim
From The Messenger, August, 2001
See Fr. Liggett's homily at Bobbie's Funeral, March 22, 2002
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This page last updated on March 22, 2002
