In praise of the pastor’s wife

Do you remember the proverbial “pastor’s wife”? My mother and grandmother, like countless women through the years, studied alongside their husbands at seminary. Although only the men received the degree and took the ordination, their wives toiled faithfully with them. Hosting teas and women’s study groups, organizing Vacation Bible School, leading the choir, visiting the sick and housebound with casseroles and cheer, women were (until recently) relegated to the unpaid and unsung role of indispensable volunteer.

As late as the mid-1960s, the UPCUSA’s Pastor Information Form assumed applicants for positions were male. Following a question about marital status, the form asked, if married, “Would your wife be available to help at the church?” Congregations and denominations simply assumed minister’s wives came with the deal: a two-for-one package.

For this reason, I cheer when reading about Yoshiko Kawamorita. Incarcerated along with the 110,000 American citizens and immigrants of Japanese descent into ten “Relocation Camps” by the federal government in the first year of the United States’ involvement in World War II, she joined her pastor husband and others organizing places of worship.

After much arm-twisting, the represented Protestant denominations agreed to provide a monthly stipend for the incarcerated pastors serving so critically in the camps. At the insistence of wives like Kawamorita, some took an unprecedented step by providing a monthly allowance to the ministers’ wives.

The recipient of eight years of high school and seminary education at the Presbyterian Miyagi College before moving to the United States, Kawamorita ministered in northern California for 25 years beside her Presbyterian pastor husband, Eiji Kawamorita. A missionary worker, pastor’s wife and mother of six, her duties did not ease within the confines of the Topaz Camp. Unlike some Issei (first-generation Japanese-Americans) who saw their first “vacation” in decades turn into an extended retirement in the incarceration camps, Yoshiko remained busy visiting the “sick or lonesome,” helping the poorest of the poor and caring for four children who still lived at home.

In a letter to the Presbyterian Home Missions office, Kawamorita wrote that her husband used most of his salary for his work, leaving her with little to provide food for her children between the communal mealtimes or to clothe them. Without a stipend of her own, she must forgo her service to the church and seek paying work in the camp. Kawamorita claimed the worth of her work and that of other minister’s wives. They were as much servants “of Christ and for people” as their ordained husbands and sons.

Kawamorita’s and other women’s insistence on their value led the Presbyterian Church to support women’s work in the camps and this recognition made a difference. Tokujiro Horikoshi, pastor of Heart Mountain Camp, wrote to the Presbyterian Mission Board thanking them for recognizing his wife’s status as a “regular religious worker.” He mentioned the growing popularity of her work among the Issei women and that her speaking calendar was full for the coming month.

Let us remember our mothers, grandmothers and all of the women (and men) who have shared without monetary profit their gifts and their talents.