The Rev. Samuel T. Clover plans to explore vocation and purpose in a sermon entitled “What are you doing Here?” when he speaks as guest preacher at Union Chapel in the Grove for Garden Club Memorial Sunday.
Everyone is invited to this outdoor service on Sunday, August 9, 10:30 AM wearing masks and employing social distancing in the leafy grove. Garden Club members who passed away since last August will be memorialized in a tradition that began in 1936.
Clover is an associate minister at The Reformed Church of Bronxville. His wife, Jen, will be the guest musician, accompanied by Union Chapel Music Director and organist Linda Betjeman.
Barbara Hayes will chair the service that honors the work of the club. Garden Club officers, family and friends of the deceased will present a rose and remembrances for Janet Gay Hawkins and Patricia Reilly. Co-president Suzanne Louer will read the Scripture and Eleanor P. Labrozzi will arrange the flowers. Labrozzi, a photographer, was “Best in Show” winner of the National Garden Club’s 2019 photo contest.
The Garden Club is a chapter of Federated Garden Clubs, a national organization the promotes interest in horticulture. Locally, the club sponsors flower shows, offers instructional workshops on flowers and gardening and beautifies the community by planting flowers around the Island.
This summer, Union Chapel returns to its roots as an open-air Methodist camp. Services moved outdoors to protect the health of worshippers. Social distancing and face coverings are required. Please bring a chair. Rain will cancel the service.
About the Rev. Samuel T. Clover
Clover has led services at Union Chapel many times. An associate minister at the Reformed Church of Bronxville, he was ordained in the Reformed Church in America in 2014 after graduating from Union Theological Seminary.
Before his call to ministry, Clover worked for more than 10 years as an arts and culture journalist at small magazines and newspapers in New York City. A graduate of Lafayette College (B.A., English and History), he also received an MFA in creative nonfiction writing from The New School, and a diploma in Spiritual Direction from San Francisco Theological Seminary, where he is studying for a doctorate in ministry.
He is a past board member of Room for All, a network of clergy, church members and congregations in the Reformed Church in America that supports LGBTQ people.
An avid singer, Clover has sung with several choirs of various genres, and currently sings bass/baritone with the New Choral Society in Scarsdale. He and Jen live in Bronxville with their three cats, Dizzy, Cookie and Smudge.
Jen Clover has been singing in church since age 3. She currently serves as the Music Department Manager at Marble Collegiate Church where she oversees administrative activities for the church’s outstanding choral groups, including The Marble Choir, Festival of Voices and The Marble Community Gospel Choir.
She was a member of The Concert Chorale and Concentus Vocum at West Virginia Wesleyan College, and graduated from Syracuse University with a performing arts degree. A lifelong writer of poetry and prose, she earned an MFA in creative writing from The New School while working at the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music. Her work has been published in Salon, The Tishman Review, The Maine Review, and elsewhere.
Join Union Chapel as it returns to its roots
Moving the service outside this summer has been very successful, thanks, in part, to the beautiful weather we’ve had so far. A Chapel trustee described the outdoor services under the trees as “healing and even more spiritual than indoors, but maybe that’s due to the pandemic and the unknown we are dealing with.”
Come join us under the trees on August 9 at 10:30 am for Garden Club Memorial Sunday. Meanitme, visit the chapel website at unionchapelinthegrove.org. You can also follow Union Chapel on Facebook and Instagram.
JoAnn Kirkland is an assistant to the trustees at Union Chapel in the Grove.
