BethsaidaTeam Founder - Janet Hardy
Jan Hardy at Bethsaida Team table in Diocesan Convention in 2004.
1942-2005
Bio
Janet Rand Hardy was born May sixth of 1942 to Dorothy and Charles Cornish. She grew up with her older brother Charlie and her dog Wendy and was a lifelong resident of the Maplewood Area. Many summers were spent at Lake Hopatocong where she learned to swim and sail. Later summers also included camp life at rustic Camp Wapalannie in northern New Jersey. She was also a Girl Scout and Scout Leader, attending the big "Round Up" in Colorado in 1959.
Jan graduated from Columbia High School in 1960 and attended the University of Toledo where she met and married Stevens Tilley in 1961. She started a family within a few years, her daughter Gail and son Blair. While raising her family she worked for St. Stephen's Church in Millburn and at the Cathedral House in Newark. She was married to Robert Hardy in 1983. She later worked as an administer at Seton Hall University where she completed her bachelor degree in 1985. She later worked for the Second Reform Church in Irvington.
The greatest gifts of her talents were witnessed by the many committees she served on here at St. George's Church and with the Diocese of Newark. At St. George's Church she was a long time Sunday school teacher and also served as the Church School Superintendent. She was one of the founders and teacher of the Monday School Program that offered extended church school in the late afternoon, and concluded with a weekly potluck supper. She was an adult leader on a youth mission to Haiti in 1985. Jan was an active member of the choir and lay reader; in addition, she was also a Lay Eucharistic Minister and Vestry member.
Later in life blindness and physical disabilities took hold of her body but not her strength in her service to the church and community. In the community and diocese she was co-founder and board member of the Essex County Interfaith Hospitality Network (IHN). She served on the board of The Tree of Life Counseling and Education Service, and co-founded The Newark School of Theology and Bethsaida Team.
Jan was able to move on towards God in peace at her home surrounded by love, family, friends and faith.
Janet Rand Hardy was born May sixth of 1942 to Dorothy and Charles Cornish. She grew up with her older brother, Charlie and her dog, Wendy and was a lifelong resident of the Maplewood Area. Many summers were spent at Lake Hopatocong where she learned to swim and sail. Later summers also included camp life at rustic Camp Wapalannie in northern New Jersey. She was also a Girl Scout and Scout Leader, attending the big "Round Up" in Colorado in 1959.
Jan graduated from Columbia High School in 1960 and attended the University of Toledo where she met and married Stevens Tilley in 1961. She started a family within a few years, her daughter Gail and son Blair. While raising her family she worked for St. Stephen's Church in Millburn and at the Cathedral House in Newark. She was married to Robert Hardy in 1983. She later worked as an administer at Seton Hall University where she completed her bachelor degree in 1985. She later worked for the Second Reform Church in Irvington.
The greatest gifts of her talents were witnessed by the many committees she served on here at St. George's Church and with the Diocese of Newark. At St. George's Church she was a long time Sunday school teacher and also served as the Church School Superintendent. She was one of the founders and teacher of the Monday School Program that offered extended church school in the late afternoon, and concluded with a weekly potluck supper. She was an adult leader on a youth mission to Haiti in 1985. Jan was an active member of the choir and lay reader; in addition, she was also a Lay Eucharistic Minister and Vestry member.
Later in life blindness and physical disabilities took hold of her body but not her strength in her service to the church and community. In the community and diocese she was co-founder and board member of the Essex County Interfaith Hospitality Network (IHN). She served on the board of The Tree of Life Counseling and Education Service, and co-founded The Newark School of Theology and Bethsaida Team.
Jan was able to move on towards God in peace at her home surrounded by love, family, friends and faith.
A Tribute by
Director, Community and Congregational Supports
The Elizabeth M. Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities
UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
“Always preach, and when you must, use words.” (Francis of Assissi, quoted by Fr. Douglas Bendall at the Memorial Service for Jan Hardy, December 3, 2005, St. George’s Episcopal Church, Maplewood.)
As the communion line went forward, the preaching was inescapable. Black, white, and any number of colors inbetween. Clergy, laity, and probably some in between there as well. Walking typically, using a power chair or regular wheelchair, leaning on a cane, using a guide dog, borrowing an elbow, standing straight, bent over. Slow, fast. Well dressed, casually dressed. Young, old, and many in-between, with one baby whose cry lent a measure of poignancy to this celebration. Bearded, well shaven, and bald and/or balding. Gay and straight. Men and women. Most Episcopalians, I assumed, but at least one Baptist like me. The blind, the lame, the rich, the poor, probably several widows in the crowd.
All were welcomed. All were included. All came because their lives had been touched by this woman who, in recent years, was blind, went to dialysis three times a week, used a cane and sometimes a wheelchair, but was the Co-Chair of the Bethsaida Team on Accessibility for the Episcopal Diocese of Newark. Weak, by many of the physical standards of the world. A powerhouse, by the impact of her life. As Rev. Bernard Pope said, with a smile towards the end of the service, Jan did not make “suggestions.” Her words became actions. Her actions were Word.
And to my astonishment, the Bethsaida leadership was but one of a long list of initiatives in which she had played a creating hand. The Monday School Program, after school at the church, with a potluck supper. Co-founder of the Essex County Interfaith Hospitality Network. Co-founder of The Newark School of Theology for laity. Board member of other organizations. Sunday School teacher, congregational leader, mother, and more. There is a Jewish song built around the word “dayenu.” “It would have been enough.” It would have been enough to celebrate one of these words made real, one of those life sermons, but for Jan, there was a litany.
She will continue to speak. A memorial fund is at the church for an elevator, its need apparent by the difficulty of getting a friend and colleague from the Task Force into the Parish Hall for the reception (down the sidewalk and hill to the entrance below, and over a big step without a ramp). Others are to the Bethsaida Team and the other organizations which she helped begin or lead.
That Team had been the one that brought a resolution to the Diocese a few years ago that all congregations who were not physically accessible should remove the words “Everyone Welcome” from the signs in their front yards. It did not pass, but the discussion and the modifications began in earnest.
But on this day, in her death as in her life, everyone was welcome. All means all. Once again, Jan Hardy brought us together. “Nice of you to come,” my friend said. I realized I had to be there.
We partook of the one loaf, were all part of the one body. “Do this, in memory of me.” No telling what will be done, in remembrance of her.
BT is a member of the NJ Coalition on Inclusive Ministries, which Bill convenes and moderates.
