It’s been 36 years since Queen Elizabeth II attended a worship service at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Versailles, Kentucky, but her visit retains an important spot in the history of the church.
The queen was staying at Lane’s End Farm in 1986 during her second visit to the Bluegrass state. She stayed with the family of William Farish, who later served as an ambassador to the United Kingdom, and she attended a service with the Farishes, representatives for the church said. A brass plaque marks the pew where she sat.
Nancy Dawson, who sang in the choir, was facing the monarch as she sat near the front of the congregation that Sunday morning.
“She was delightful with everything she did,” Dawson said. “She was so full of grace.”
Dawson remembered the queen’s visit to her congregation as “a glorious day.”
“She sang every hymn,” Betty Rehm recalled. “She just looked lovely and happy and very sweet.”
Last Sunday, a wreath of white roses sat beneath the photo of the queen that hangs outside the chapel at St. John’s. Dawson said the framed photograph was a gift sent by the queen after her visit.
“Our parish family joins Anglicans around the world in offering prayers for the departed queen, the Royal Family, and the people of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth realms,” the church said in a Facebook post Sept. 8. “A high point of our 175 years of ministry was her visit to our parish in 1986.
“As we opened our doors for her then, so we open our doors today and on Sunday for those who wish to remember her and her example of faithful leadership.”
Rehm, who served on the vestry at the time of the queen’s visit, said invitations to the worship service had to be sent to church members and dignitaries, and on the day of the queen’s visit, everyone had to show up an hour early with invitations in hand to be checked in by security.
“I never saw as much equipment in my life,” she said. “The Baptist church next door had to have the bomb dogs walk through.”
Rehm remembers people lined up on the street outside the church to get a glimpse of the queen, and inside, she said, “It was full. Every seat was taken.”
Dawson said the building’s capacity is about 225 people.
“We had people popping out (of) the woodwork we hadn’t seen in a long time,” she said.
Rehm said months of preparation and many meetings went into ensuring everything went off smoothly, and they tried to think of everything.
“For a while, we had a direct line to the British Embassy,” she said.
During one meeting, Rehm said, “All of a sudden, I said, ‘Do you pass the plate to the queen?’”
She said phone calls ensued, and “they told us the queen never carries money, but her lady-in-waiting will have something to put in the plate.”
Dawson remembers seeing the queen take something out of her purse and put it in the plate when the offering was collected. She said she always wondered whether it was dollars or pounds.
Overall, the women said, there were no big hiccups, though Dawson said there was one small hitch that might not have been noticed by anyone but the choir members.
She said the choir had been practicing “a difficult piece of music” with three verses for Trinity Sunday, which fell on the day of the queen’s attendance at the church.
The first verse went fine, she said, but when it came time for the second, “We all, every single one of us, missed the entrance on the second stanza.”
She said the organist played on as the choir silently waited, “petrified.”
When it came time for the third stanza, Dawson said, “we hit it.”
Rehm said no youngsters were in attendance at the service, but a choir made up of older children did sing.
“I looked over, and I saw her smiling,” Rehm said.
Dawson and Rehm don’t remember much about the sermon that Sunday. It might have been a little hard to concentrate.
“We kind of had to remember that we were there to worship the Lord, and she was too,” Dawson said. “She was there to worship. That’s the main thing I remember and want to remember.”
____
