April 29, 2011
Reflection on the passing of Marcia Lee King and her ‘family’
Marcia Lee King appears thoughtful in this file photograph provided by Bill Jackson. Click for a larger version.
By BILL JACKSON (Special to the Message)
The passing of Marcia Lee King on Palm Sunday was little noted. Barely two dozen attended her funeral. But it marked the final chapter of a remarkable story of Christian service shared by an army of volunteers and a priest who became Marcia Lee’s family.
Marcia Lee contracted polio within a couple of years after her birth in 1941. Complications eventually condemned her to regular use of an iron lung for more than three decades and a ventilator for 23 more years. Because of the ventilator, she was unable to talk. She communicated by writing and drawing on a pad.
Her father died when she was just past 30, and her mother died in 1991 when Marcia Lee was about to turn 50. By that time Marcia Lee was bedridden and reliant on the ventilator to keep her alive. No one was left to care for her.
No one, that is, except Father Theodore G. (Ted) Tempel.
Father Ted first met Marcia Lee around 1977 when he was called to give her Communion during one of her many hospitalizations. He visited her from time to time after that and helped her through her mother’s battle with cancer.
After her mother’s death, Marcia Lee did not want to live in a nursing home and objected to becoming a welfare recipient. Father Ted organized a team of volunteers, mostly from St. Theresa Church where he was serving and later at Good Shepherd, to care for her in her family home. Father Ted and his friend Robert Thompson undertook lead roles, staying with her for hours each day. A nurse also regularly visited her.
Father Ted’s commitment was an exceptional act in itself but extraordinary considering the fact that he was simultaneously providing 24-hour care for an elderly widow with assistance from another set of volunteers, while maintaining his pastoral duties and assisting others in need. The widow’s care lasted for years until she died in 1994 at age 103.
Marcia Lee was able to live in her home for several years until she nearly died after a ventilator failure in 1999. When she left the hospital, living alone was no longer possible.
But she would not be alone. Father Ted and Robert had become her family, and they were not about to give up. Father Ted moved her to the rectory at Good Shepherd, where he was now pastor. Robert would care for her during the day and Father Ted at night, both augmented by volunteers.
Marcia Lee said later the next few years with her “adopted” family were a happy time that she considered a preview of what heaven would be like. Using a portable ventilator and a special van, Father Ted was able to take her occasionally to places like Ellis Park and the local casino for entertainment. She said Father Ted “gave her wings.”
When he retired as a pastor and living at Good Shepherd was no longer feasible for her, Marcia Lee spent a year in a women’s shelter. After the shelter decided she could not continue to live there, Father Ted faced another crisis in his unswerving commitment.
He answered that crisis by moving her back to her family home, organizing more volunteers and arranging for a person to live with her. She spent her final years there before her death a few months short of 70 years.
Raised an Episcopalian, Marcia Lee was excited to join the Catholic Church in 2004 during a Mass at the Little Sisters of the Poor home. The celebrant, of course, was Father Ted, who is chaplain there. Her funeral was held at St. Benedict Cathedral. Father Ted was celebrant there too. He wept as he sent her home to God.
Father Ted and the volunteers — too numerous to mention here — gave Marcia Lee a life that would have been otherwise impossible. She enjoyed living and did not dwell on her limitations.
She had written a message for a church publication in 1978 that included this statement: “I sometimes feel as a candle whose light is about to be snuffed out, just hoping that someone, especially someone I feel close to, will notice and reach out to me and say something like, ‘Marcia, don’t give in to the feelings you’re having right now, and accept God’s love through me.’ Then through that caring I find new strength to hold on to my light and have the hope that it will burn brightly again.”
She found the someone she wished for. Father Ted and his volunteers gave her the strength and love she was seeking. It’s safe to say they have no doubt her light is burning brightly again in her new eternal home.