These excerpts by the Rev. Kathleen Lyons, give a unique insight into the life, faith and times of a remarkable woman.
I was born in London in 1906. In 1907 my father came with his family to a teaching position at the Seddon Memorial Technical College… my dear mother gave me a strong faith in a living Christ who would always be with me to care in all circumstances …
In the later years at Grammar, I became interested in Church … On Sunday evenings we visited as many of the churches in Auckland within walking distance of our home in Epsom … including St Mark’s Remuera where the Vicar, the Rev. Cruickshank was a fine preacher with a definite practical message for Christian living … I still needed one unit to complete my BSc when I married Rodney Lyons … we had ten incredibly happy years together and then at 39 he died suddenly of meningitis leaving me with four children and a fifth one to come . .. I remembered the Vicar of St Mark’s telling us years before that the New Testament was written in Greek which was worth learning … here was the answer to the long lonely evenings.
I discovered a correspondence course from Sydney – fifteen subjects to complete a Licentiate of theology. In the later years I was beginning to feel the call to ordination but women could not be ordained in NZ so I threw myself into Parish Assistant work for which I received travelling expenses only …three years later it was passed by General Synod that the Church would make deaconesses … it was a wonderful experience (1964). I continued to work in the Parish of St Andrews “72 – ’76 then St John’s Royal Oak as well as St Luke’s Mt Albert. I was priested there in 1978 and continued at St Luke’s working fulltime as assistant priest till I retired to Selwyn village in 1987.
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