Life in the Baptist Temple Office

Guest Blog by Muriel Persky

Mary Lee Shelton

Mary Lee Shelton began working full time at Baptist Temple Church in 1976 as Education Secretary to D. Ray Taylor, Minister of Education. O.D. Oliver was the Pastor. Her job was to keep the records of the Sunday School and Training Union memberships, and other secretarial duties. At that time the Sunday School membership was over 500 and all the offering envelopes needed to be counted before worship time each Sunday. The numbers were posted for the Church to view.

She was accepted right away by the other office staff. Kathryn O’Diem was the office manager, Jo Lynn was bookkeeper, and Louise Dudley was the pastor’s secretary. Each lady had responsibilities and a very busy schedule. The routine included weekly, never ending deadlines: Temple Times,Southside Reporter articles, bulletins, record keeping and more. At that time records were kept manually and typewriters were used for the printed articles. Mary Lee helped keep the financial giving records for each member; each entry done manually.

The office door was always open and visitors were welcome to visit and chat. Weekdays were busy with many meetings and church members engaged in variety of tasks, including the daycare, an active WMU program, the Seniors' Ministry, and TOUCH.

In 1979, Jo Lynn retired and Louise Dudley stepped into the bookkeeper position and Mary Lee became the pastor’s secretary. When Bill Perdue replaced Oliver as pastor, she continued as secretary. Her primary job was to answer the pastor's phone and type his sermons. The sermons were dictated into a machine (Dictaphone) and transcribed. Mary Lee also created an outline of the sermon. An extra touch appreciated by Purdue. She also typed Perdue's weekly column for the Southside Reporter weekly for publication.

Mary Lee was kept busy by three Together We Build capital campaigns that requires many mail-outs, meetings, program planning, and a big kick-off at the San Antonio Convention Center Auditorium. There was much hubbub during those years of building renovations. New offices were built and records moved. Moreover, the office staff had to adapt to the emerging computer age. Still, all ran smoothly among the office staff.

One of her fondest memories were the years of working with Philip and Mary Ann Stephens. Phillip came to the church in 1981 as Minister of Music. Mary Ann, not yet part of the staff, volunteered to produce a Christmas dinner theater presentation as a fund raiser for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. A musical of Lottie Moon’s life was presented for two nights.. The WMU took over the dinner planning, menus and decor. The office staff pitched in by making the playbills, copying materials for the cast, and aiding in whatever way needed. It was a wonderful celebration and dinner theater would be repeated each year for some time with different plays presented.

In 1991, Pipe Creek Retreat Center was given to the church and Mary Lee spent much of her time promoting the center to individuals and other churches while continuing her duties as pastor’s secretary and recording financial records of the membership.

In 1995, Mark Newton became our pastor and brought a new agenda for the church which included community ministry. Two Habitat for Humanity homes were built and other programs were started.

In 2001, she retired just shy of 25 years of service. Mary Lee's first job, as a teen, was working in the BT office. She worked 4 hrs a day at .65 cents an hour until she graduated from Brackenridge High School in 1956 and went to college. She started working at Baptist Temple and ended her career at Baptist Temple.