Remembering Mrs. Rogers

 

   Come, Lord Jesus, be thou our guest,
     Our morning joy, our evening rest.
     And with thy daily bread impart,
     Thy love and peace to every heart.

A couple of films about Fred Rogers of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood fame and his messages about love, inclusion, and kindness as a sort of naloxone for a  vicious US president meant that he was revered more than a decade after his death than he might have been in life. There is no doubt that he touched millions of lives and that his Christian faith was at the core of his being. Fred studied music at university but he was also an ordained minister of the Presbyterian church. 

Today we might give some thought to Joanne Rogers, Fred's wife of 51 years. Joanne died a few days ago at the age of 92 and she deserves to be remembered as an accomplished musician with a lengthy career, a loving partner to a busy man, and a person of faith. Joanne claimed that Fred was a person of deeper faith than she was, yet she was the one who befriended "Officer Clemons" in a church choir and eventually introduced Francois (his first name) to Fred. Their friendship with Francois was like family , and while the couple came to realize that Francois was gay, they continued to love and support him despite the societal prejudices of a different time

In an interview a couple of years ago Joanne noted that the prayer above was the one they said before every evening before dinner. There is a dinner scene in the biopic A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood where Fred is sharing a meal with a cynical reporter in a Chinese restaurant. In the midst of the lunchtime chatter Tom Hanks as Rogers asks his companion to take a minute of silence to consider the people who’ve loved him into being. It's powerful because we never experience that length of silence in a film. For the next 60 seconds, they reflect quietly while the camera pans around the restaurant, which gradually becomes silent. Joanne is in that scene, a gentle recognition of her role in Fred's life.

Perhaps we could take a few moments in silence to express our gratitude for Joanne Rogers.