faith! - Billy Stork

Billy Stork has crystal clear vision of what it means to live his faith as a member of St. Martin’s.

Longtime member Billy Stork may have lost his eyesight in recent years, but he continues to have a sharp vision of the parish in which he has lived for almost all of his 81 years. That vision includes vivid memories of the parish’s beginnings 75 years ago.

Billy was a boy living on Idalia Street just a few blocks away. The parish would soon be built nearby on a field of pine straw. “Clemson Avenue was merely a trail from a Forest Acres horseback riding academy,” he recalled. 

He vividly remembers an early planning session of the congregation when he accompanied his parents to the old Heath family home in Heathwood.

“I will never forget that meeting in a ballroom, and I was seated right behind a column. I could not see anything.” But what he did see was the presence of strong early church leaders. In addition to his parents, William Stork Jr. and Dorothy Hazlett Stork, Billy recalls many parish giants in attendance, both men and women, including the parish’s founding rector, the Rev. William A. Thompson.

Thompson played an especially significant role in Billy’s faith, teaching him the larger meaning of a Christian life – that everything is done through the lens of “God is love.”

He also learned that you never called Mr. Thompson anything other than Mr. Thompson, an affectionate memory many who knew the former rector still share about the formal, scholarly priest.  “Nobody called him anything else,” Billy said.

Billy became especially connected to Mr. Thompson because he was often called upon to fill in for acolytes who overslept or forgot they were on duty for a particular service.

Because Billy lived just a short walk from the church, “he’d call me and I’d go running.”

They had many chats in the vesting room, but one in particular stands out to  Billy. “I asked, ‘Mr. Thompson, did you become a preacher because of your daddy? And he said, ‘My father went to church twice: to get married and to be buried.’”

Billy never forgot that as he observed Mr. Thompson’s dedication to ensuring that young people knew there was a place for them in the church.

Billy took that knowledge seriously himself, remaining an acolyte for years and later teaching sixth-grade Sunday school and leading the youth group while he was in law school.

Billy at the Commons groundbreaking ceremony, September, 2013.

He proudly recalls overseeing the youth’s Rock Mass, a first for St. Martin’s – and maybe Columbia. He still laughs about an unplanned moment in the service. While walking to the altar for Communion, he heard the lyric "Come on baby, light my fire" in an unplanned version of The Doors' “Light my Fire.” One of the youth was strumming a guitar and singing the popular song in the choir pews that at that time were centered in front of the altar. 

It was quite a moment, but one that everyone took in stride. “It was wonderful and so much fun,” he said. “We were all kids. It was a great group.”

Other than a few years when he clerked for State Supreme Court Judge C. Bruce Littlejohn in Spartanburg and his time serving in the U.S. Army, Billy has always called St. Martin’s his spiritual home.

He has served on the vestry (twice), as parish treasurer, as an usher, greeter and chairman of the St. Martin’s Foundation as well as an earlier every-member canvass and host of a newcomer oyster roast. But the work he and wife Sara are especially proud of is the construction of the Winthrop Avenue Memorial Garden, largely funded by the couple.

The work came about in a funny and unexpected way. During an annual meeting, rector Michael Bullock announced that there would be no more burial plots added to the parish grounds. He told the parish he did not want to lead another church surrounded by cemeteries. (At the time, the Clemson Avenue side of the church offered the only area where members’ ashes could be interred, but there was talk of expanding on the Winthrop side of the sanctuary.)

Billy and Sara both knew that founding members had been promised they would always have a space for their burials, but they also knew space was filling up.  So, as Billy affectionately recalls, Sara stood up and said to Bullock, emphatically, “We cannot do this.”

Billy said her response was immediate and rooted in the commitment she believed the parish had made to its founding members.  “I’m not even sure she realized she was going to say it when she stood up,” Billy said.

Two days later, at that month’s vestry meeting, Billy learned that he and Sara had been appointed chair of the Memorial Garden Committee. He laughs at the memory and recalls

Bullock’s time at St. Martin’s affectionately. He also loves what the parish came together to build on the Winthrop side of the church.

“That side of the church was nothing but a mud hill with pine trees,” he said. Today, it stands as a beautiful garden not only where the ashes of past members are lovingly buried, but also as a quiet space for meditation, and even the occasional service.

In addition to past rectors such as Mr. Thompson and Rev. Bullock, Billy credits his mother – who came from a long line of Episcopalians – with his deep affection for the Episcopal Church and how one lives that affection in one’s everyday life.

“She lived the Gospel, believing you do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” he said of his mother. He has long appreciated her reminding him often of St. Francis’s admonition to “Preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words.”

Billy said he has found that to be an excellent description of the way St. Martin’s has stood as a place of faith in the community. During difficult times, such as the Civil Rights era, St. Martin’s members did not lean into fear or grumbling and chose instead to open the church doors and welcome all. “We say, ‘All are welcome,’ well, it has always been this way at St. Martin’s. It’s just the nature of St. Martin’s.”

Leaning back while seated at his kitchen table, Billy smiled, seeming to be taking in all the fond memories of his years with the parish, from those early gatherings in a church on a lot covered in pine straw, to the arrival of the first vibrant pieces of stained-glass in the sanctuary’s windows that tell stories of both the Old and New Testaments, to the delight of overseeing the development of the Winthrop Avenue Memorial Garden. And, of course, there are the Easter and Christmas services as well as ordinary Sunday services when he and Sara would be sent out at the end of worship to take Communion to homebound members.

Now Billy is on the receiving end of that ministry and he appreciates its significance deeply. “It’s fabulous,” he said. “I just love St. Martin’s.”