TANSY CHAPMAN
Episcopal Priest, Spiritual Director, Retreat Leader, Author
Tansy Chapman was born in England shortly before World War II. After receiving a BA degree in English literature at Leicester University, she continued with graduate studies at Oxford University and the London Institute of Medical Work. Her first job was as a medical social worker at the West Middlesex Hospital where she worked until, one Fall day, she felt a pull to travel to America.
In February, 1964, same year as the Beatles, she sailed on the QE1 ocean liner, arriving, seasick, on Cunard Pier in NYC, and then to Boston and a job on a rehab unit at the Mass General Hospital. A year later she was married to a surgeon-in- training, and spent two years in Texas while he served in the air force, and where their first child was born.
In the bicentennial year, 1976, Tansy, now home and happily caring for three young children, became an American citizen. That same year, she felt a strong call to seminary, and enrolled part-time at the Episcopal Divinity in Cambridge, Mass. In 1983, after further discernment, she was ordained as an Episcopal priest, a vocation that had only recently been ‘allowed’ for women. A busy, rewarding parish ministry ensued for several years, plus volunteer work with Hospice. In 1994 Tansy began full time practice as Spiritual Director and retreat leader in the Boston area and Pennsylvania. She also helped co-found the Bethany House of Prayer, a spiritual life center, on the grounds of St Anne’s Convent in Arlington, Mass.
In 2005, Tansy moved to beautiful Mendocino, California, to be close to her daughter, Jill Eldridge and family. Now a grandmother of six, Tansy has continued with part time church ministry, but also turned to another vocation: fiction writing.
In June, 2020, Wipf&Stock published Rose Gray. The story is about a young girl growing up in postwar England and how world war had affected the lives of everyone around her. Tansy, the book’s author, reflects how her own grandchildren, living in various parts of the globe, will now grow up in a post pandemic world, where everything has changed. Tansy has dedicated the novel to all six of them, “because they give me hope for the Future.”
Episcopal Priest, Spiritual Director, Retreat Leader, Author
Tansy Chapman was born in England shortly before World War II. After receiving a BA degree in English literature at Leicester University, she continued with graduate studies at Oxford University and the London Institute of Medical Work. Her first job was as a medical social worker at the West Middlesex Hospital where she worked until, one Fall day, she felt a pull to travel to America.
In February, 1964, same year as the Beatles, she sailed on the QE1 ocean liner, arriving, seasick, on Cunard Pier in NYC, and then to Boston and a job on a rehab unit at the Mass General Hospital. A year later she was married to a surgeon-in- training, and spent two years in Texas while he served in the air force, and where their first child was born.
In the bicentennial year, 1976, Tansy, now home and happily caring for three young children, became an American citizen. That same year, she felt a strong call to seminary, and enrolled part-time at the Episcopal Divinity in Cambridge, Mass. In 1983, after further discernment, she was ordained as an Episcopal priest, a vocation that had only recently been ‘allowed’ for women. A busy, rewarding parish ministry ensued for several years, plus volunteer work with Hospice. In 1994 Tansy began full time practice as Spiritual Director and retreat leader in the Boston area and Pennsylvania. She also helped co-found the Bethany House of Prayer, a spiritual life center, on the grounds of St Anne’s Convent in Arlington, Mass.
In 2005, Tansy moved to beautiful Mendocino, California, to be close to her daughter, Jill Eldridge and family. Now a grandmother of six, Tansy has continued with part time church ministry, but also turned to another vocation: fiction writing.
In June, 2020, Wipf&Stock published Rose Gray. The story is about a young girl growing up in postwar England and how world war had affected the lives of everyone around her. Tansy, the book’s author, reflects how her own grandchildren, living in various parts of the globe, will now grow up in a post pandemic world, where everything has changed. Tansy has dedicated the novel to all six of them, “because they give me hope for the Future.”
