Parishioner Profiles By Nancy Marlowe
Sally Hearn is an official greeter at All Souls. She is a smiling, welcoming total extrovert who says hello and goodbye to new faces attending the 9 and 11:15 a.m. services.
“I greet them coming and going,” she said. “I work with newcomers and help integrate them into the church and (when appropriate) being Episcopalian. I give them a packet of information about the church and try to help them feel a part of the community.” She also coordinates the Foyers get-acquainted dinner groups.
Sally said in talking with newcomers, “I try to make some connection that has nothing to do with church.” She is well-grounded to do this, having lived many places and always worked with “people who need people.”
She was born in Columbus, Ohio, and named Sally Jane Hearn. “I always wanted a southern middle name,” she said, “like my niece who is Sarah Pennington Hearn and like a daughter to me.”
Sally’s father was an ear, nose and throat physician and her mother a nurse anesthetist. The family lived in San Francisco for the first six years of her childhood. Influenced in part by the high cost of living in downtown San Francisco, the family moved to Greenville, S.C. “I had a typical growing up,” Sally said. “I had a stay-at-home mom, took ballet and horseback-riding lessons.”
While attending Stephens College in Columbia, Mo., she met and married Bill Farmer, who was an engineering student. She finished her degree in elementary education at the University of South Carolina.
The couple practiced their professions in Atlanta for four years. A job opportunity for Bill led to a move to Cashiers, a mountain resort town. “There was only one school there and it had no job openings for teachers,” Sally said.
The young couple worked with others to make the Episcopal church there into a year-around parish. Sunday services were at 3 p.m., after a priest finished his duties at another church.
The couple lived in Cashiers 10 years and their son, Kirby, was born there. They moved to Hendersonville so that Kirby could attend Asheville Country Day School and later The Asheville School. “We drove like crazy in those years,” Sally said, recalling one Saturday when the prep school had classes, a football game and a dance, entailing four round trips between Hendersonville to Asheville.
The couple’s marriage ended and Sally went to work in non-profit agencies, initially The Healing Place, a rape crisis center where she developed the volunteer program and the educational program to take into the public schools. She became known in the region for her ability to create programs addressing the needs of children and families and take these into the community
She now works for Family Preservation Services, a national agency that deals with mental health issues of children and families.
Her son graduated from Mercer College in Macon, Ga., and The Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, N.Y. He is a personal chef, working in New York City.
Sally was active in St. James Episcopal church in Hendersonville. When she moved to Asheville, she began attending All Souls. This was a stressful time in her life when she was recovering from breast cancer.
“I felt very welcome at All Souls. Augusta Rowe, a priest at the cathedral, was helpful to me at this time. After church one difficult Sunday, Brian Cole put his arm around my shoulders and asked, ‘Are you all right?’” Warmth and welcome were extended by many others as well.
At All Souls, Sally heads the greeters and Foyers group efforts and serves on the stewardship committee. She hopes to do more, perhaps becoming a lay Eucharistic minister as well as working with Loving Food Resources, a food pantry founded by All Souls.
She is an avid reader who uses an electronic reader, a gift from her son. Two “lazy” cats complete her household.