Lynn Annen - I was born and grew up in San Francisco, where I spent my young days wandering around the city with my friends by bus, streetcar, and on foot. Almost every Saturday we headed out for Chinatown, the beach, Golden Gate Park, the Japanese Tea Garden, the San Francisco Zoo or one of the museums. Although I have lived in the Northeast for many years now, I still have the flavor of the city (San Francisco) in my soul.
Zipping right by years of random living in California, my husband, Kurt, and I arrived in Massachusetts in the fall of 1981. He had obtained a job as senior engineer at Aerodyne Research Co. in Billerica, where he finds “elegant” solutions for engineering problems and I was starting divinity school at Andover Newton. I graduated in 1984 and was hired as a Pastoral Associate at St. Mary’s Church in Rowley. I spent the next thirteen years enjoying my work at St. Mary’s but feeling very dissatisfied with the culture of the Roman Catholic Church, particularly in the North East.
Since I am a devoted Anglophile, I have always been attracted to the Episcopal Church because of it’s British Anglican roots. At Andover Newton I attended the weekly Episcopal service (and the sherry party after the service.) One Sunday I attended a service at Ascension Memorial Church in Ipswich, and I was hooked! I was received into the Episcopal Church on May 19, 1996, thanks be to God. .
After that, I quit my job at St. Mary’s and for some reason decided that it would be fun to sell houses for a living. I obtained a real estate license and was on the very edge of accepting a job at one of the local real estate agencies when God intervened by means of a newspaper add for a parish secretary at (gasp!) an Episcopal Church!
Although I had almost no secretarial experience (make that none), I decided to apply for the job. I sometimes typed and ran off the bulletin at St. Mary’s when the real secretary was on vacation, and even though half of the bulletin was frequently upside down, I felt I could learn the job quickly. As it turned out, I had to learn the job very quickly, as I was hired three weeks before Easter! But I was thrilled! Imagine me, a very enthusiastic brand new Episcopalian getting an actual job at an actual Episcopal Church! Sometimes I still can’t believe my luck!
My job at Trinity has expanded somewhat since I arrived almost 10 years ago. I prepare the weekly bulletins and edit the monthly newsletters and send out a weekly email update to the parish community. I also work with the treasurers on the Quicken data base and maintain and update a parish data base. (If your address, phone number, or email address has changed recently, please let me know). I try to make sure the church calendar is up to date and I also help people who want to reserve the hall or other rooms for special events.
I live in the small town of Rowley with my husband, Kurt and my mother, Marie. We live by a brook so our yard is filled with birds of all kinds. We have gold finches, nuthatches, Baltimore orioles, cardinals, grosbeaks, titmice, chickadees, robins, and a whole flock of wild turkeys. During the summer we have mosquitoes, which abound in the town of Rowley, but we also have lovely mosquito-eating swallows. Sometimes on a summer evening the swallows and their friends the dragon flies pursue the mosquitoes together in the air. It looks exactly like a dance.
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