"The Price of Priceless": Thelma Adair Speaks at UPW's 1979 Gathering

Currently, our Records Archivist David Staniunas is working on a batch of records from Margaret Towner. Surely you recognize the name. But, if not, here's a refresh.

Margaret Ellen Towner was the first woman to be ordained a minister of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA).

Born in Missouri in March of 1925, Towner originally studied medicine, earning her BA in 1948 and spending a few years post-graduation working as a medical photographer for the Mayo Clinic. She left her position there and enrolled at Syracuse University in New York to continue her studies, this time focusing on Christian audiovisual education. As she explored the ministry, Towner was offered the Scattergood Fellowship from the First Presbyterian Church in New York to fund her enrollment at Union Theological Seminary, where she received her Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1954. Thus, Towner began her career in Christian education. In 1955, the PCUSA voted to begin ordaining women as ministers--the following year, on October 24, 1956, Margaret Towner became the first woman ordained to the ministry. The church's southern branch, the PCUS, would follow in the PCUSA's footsteps nine years later with the ordination of Rachel Henderlite. 

After her ordination, Towner returned to her position as education director of her congregation in Pennsylvania. She also served at congregations in Kalamazoo, Michigan (First Church, 1958–69); Indianapolis, Indiana (Northminster Presbyterian Church, 1970–72); and Waukesha County, Wisconsin (Kettle Moraine parish, 1973-1990). Though at first she continued to work mainly in Christian education, and served as only an assistant or associate pastor, Towner slowly became a full pastor. She spent 17 years as a co-pastor in a parish with six congregations, located in Waukesha County, Wisconsin. In 1981, Towner was elected as vice-moderator of the General Assembly. This was the same year that the PCUSA celebrated the 25th anniversary of women's ordination in the church. 

On January 20, 1978, longtime friend of PHS Ed Wicklein sat down with Margaret Ellen Towner for a brief interview on her early experiences as the first woman ordained as a minister of word and sacrament in the Presbyterian Church. The tape has since been digitized, and you can listen to the entire interview in Pearl.

Back to business: During his work, David discovered a tape of the 1979 United Presbyterian Women's gathering, with a speech by Thelma Adair on the rights of children.

1979 was proclaimed the International Year of the Child by UNESCO, the proclamation having been signed on January 1 of that year by UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim. A follow-up to the 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child, the proclamation was intended to draw attention to problems that affected children throughout the world, including malnutrition and lack of access to education. Many of these themes you will hear reflected in Thelma Adair's 8 1/2 minute-long speech, titled "The Price of Priceless."

Just three years earlier, in 1976, Thelma Cornelia Davidson Adair was elected and became the first African American woman Moderator of the General Assembly for the Presbyterian Church. As the top ambassador for the church, she traveled to 70 countries and met with local, regional and national leaders, including former President Gerald Ford in 1977.

Thelma Cornelia Davidson was born August 29, 1920, in North Carolina.

At the age of twenty, Thelma married Eugene Adair, a Presbyterian minister and Sunday school missionary. 1942 saw the couple move to New York, where they started a family and raised their three children. While there, Thelma studied at Columbia University; by 1943, Eugene would become pastor of the Mount Morris Presbyterian Church. While her husband pastored, Thelma pursued and completed her Ph.D. in education and became a professor of Education at Queens College, University of the City of New York. As a specialist in early childhood education, Dr. Adair not only organized and directed various day care centers and HeadStart programs in her community, but she also penned a number of books and essays that would become resources for educators across the country. Simultaneous to her community involvement, Dr. Adair was very active in her church community--she was a ruling elder at Mount Morris, as well as a leader in Black Presbyterians United (now the National Black Presbyterian Caucus).

In 1980, Dr. Adair was elected as the President of Church Women United, an organization similar to United Presbyterian Women, at whose national meeting Dr. Adair spoke at just a year earlier. 

Dr. Thelma Cornelia Davidson Adair, the first African American woman to be elected Moderator of the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, died Aug. 21, 2024, at the age of 103. Adair is remembered as a passionate educator, church leader and human rights advocate. 

Watch the fully digitized version of Dr. Adair's speech, "The Price of Priceless," which she gave at the 1979 annual national meeting of the United Presbyterian Women, below.  

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View digitized images pertaining to the United Presbyterian Women organization here.