The Greatest Gift

Beth Pendleton Clark '35, an interim minister for the United Church of Christ, has always given of herself. So she was entirely in character last February 22 when she donated a kidney to her daughter, Barbara Daggett, who suffers cystic kidney disease, the same hereditary disease that took Clark's husband 40 years ago.
"I'm so grateful. I couldn't help him, but I could help her," Clark said of the operation at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "This was destiny. I just had to do this."
The daughter and wife of Baptist ministers, Clark followed her bent toward church and social work as a sociology major at Colby. Three years later she received a bachelor of divinity degree from Andover Newton Theological School. She was ordained into the Christian ministry in 1967, received a master's of divinity in 1968 from Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary and completed her doctorate at Lancaster Theological Seminary in 1981.
In 1975 Clark served on the original committee that organized the Interim Ministry Network. As an interim minister for the United Church of Christ she took on full duties in 21 church assignments averaging nine months each. Five churches called her back for a second ministry and one for a third. For many of those churches, she was the first woman pastor. "I've broken down some barriers," said Clark, who is listed in Who's Who in Religion. It's not that she's not been happy pitching in, but now, she said, "I'm 82, and I think it's time to enjoy life."
All she has done is attend a recent conference in Toronto on stewardship and giving, then return home to Selinsgrove, Pa., to her duties as chair of the nominating committee of her church. Her intensive study of grief for her Ph.D. dissertation at Lancaster not only helped with her interim ministries, she says, it also led to her current work in a local hospice program that serves several counties. Last fall she was the speaker at the program's memorial service. She also does book reviews for the magazine of the Alban Institute, where she trained years ago.
Although a national organization helps find donors for the 600,000 people in this country who have polycystic kidney disease, all of Clark's stress, heart and blood tests showed that she was in excellent health and the best donor for her daughter. "I've been tested for AIDS so many times," she joshed with her doctor, "I don't know whether to be insulted or complimented on being still sexually active." When the transplant surgery also involved removing a rib from her upper abdomen, Clark told the surgeons, "If they're going to make a man out of that rib, I want to do the specifications."
Today Barbara Daggett, a Maine state legislator who missed only three sessions of the legislature, has been appointed chair of a committee to reshape the government and is gearing up for a run for the state senate. She's back playing tennis, too.
The transplant operation, Clark said, has given her "a completely new perspective about giving. It makes you think about what giving means. Giving is basic to your life."