Heritage Column for July 14, 2005
By Fred Anderson
Audrey Ferrell has sat at the front door of the Fredericksburg Baptist Church for 40 years. That's not exactly true. When she became church secretary on July 1, 1965, she and Pastor Howard Cates shared a small room on the fifth floor of the old educational building. There was no escape route for beleaguered secretary or pastor. With her good sense of humor, Audrey laughs that if anyone had tried to rob the office, the only way she could have gone was out the window!
There may have been some days over the course of 40 years that Audrey Ferrell would have liked to have jumped out the window, but she has remained calm in the face of a thousand tasks. “No two days are exactly alike,” observes the veteran secretary. “You never know how it's going to start out.”
She possessed a positive work ethic and developed a good work attitude. “You can't do everything in one day. You have to stop and think about what's the most important and leave something for the next day if that's possible. I have never been one to watch the clock. I would come early and did not always leave right on the dot. Somebody might call and say that there was an emergency and I would need to contact the pastor and let him know.”
For four decades and some 14,600 days (not including leap years) she has performed the many tasks of a secretary in a busy church. And yes, Sundays were included because it is her church after all and even Saturdays brought their share of expectations. Her life has been centered on her family and her church.
Mary Hickle preceded Audrey as secretary. “I would fill in for her; and when she completed her schooling and was considering a teaching position, she asked if I was willing to take the job; and I said yes. My first day at work the phone started ringing and I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into!
“Miss Hickle had been secretary for 14 years and I thought what shoes I had to fill. Someone came in one day and said, ‘You have to be yourself.' I always felt that I had a ‘calling' for this position, that it was something special.”
She had been trained in shorthand and typing and felt that the Lord had prepared her for the work. Forty years ago, the Lord said nothing about computers but she has adapted and is thankful that the mimeograph machine has vanished. She even remembers when the church did not have a copy machine and had to borrow one in another office down the street.
The pastors (and she only has had two in 40 years) and the people agree that Audrey fulfills her sense of calling within her chosen profession. On her 10th anniversary, pastor Howard Cates called her “the very hub of all church activities” and added: “She is ‘Girl Friday,' bureau of information, public relations representative, counselor and friend, confidante to staff, youth and the elderly, head of the lost and found, money counter and check writer. As church secretary, she is expected to field all questions, to be ready for any emergency and never show any sign of impatience.”
On her 20th anniversary, pastor Larry Haun observed: “We have given her the title of ‘church secretary' but she is more. Audrey is a co-minister. Audrey has been able to provide strength when weakness prevailed, courage when fear was present, kindness in the midst of bitterness, laughter in the midst of a potentially gloomy day.”
And only those who really know her can appreciate the kind of laughter she provides. One day someone brought her a branch from a dogwood tree that was just too pretty to throw on the trash heap. She didn't really know what she should do with it; but mischief crossed her mind. She propped it up in the pastor's private toilet. She thought he never would come into the office that day and discover the surprise; but the next day, the same branch was sticking up in her front yard!
Audrey Bowling Ferrell was baptized in Wilderness Run and was a member of the Wilderness Baptist Church. In 1954, two years after her marriage to James “Bill” Ferrell, the couple joined the Fredericksburg Church. Across 50 years, they saw a lot of changes in the church; and Audrey says, “I always have been able to accept change and be a part of change. I don't think its good to stay the same all your life but to accept change.”
When Bill Ferrell died a few months ago, Audrey received comfort and support from her fellow church members to whom she had given so much attention across the years. And she was right back at her desk at the front door.
Audrey Ferrell has many gifts. One is the gift of listening to people and keeping confidences. She is the first person to tell you, “Keeping things confidential is one attribute that's part of the job.”
Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies.