(with updates at bottom)
Verna Dozier, author, teacher and theologian, died Friday afternoon at the age of 88.
Dozier, a parishioner at St. Mark’s Church on Capitol Hill, taught in the District of Columbia’s public schools for 34 years before retiring in 1975 to devote herself exclusively to a ministry of writing and religious education. A popular lecturer and workshop presenter, her most influential book was The Dream of God: A Call to Return (1991.) Earlier this year, Seabury Press published Confronted by God: The Essential Verna Dozier, a collection of her writings.
Dozier lived at Collington Episcopal Life Care Community in Mitchellville, Md. for 14 years. In 1992, she preached at the consecration of the Rt. Rev. Jane Holmes Dixon as bishop suffragan of the Diocese of Washington. In 1999, St. Mark’s installed a stained glass window in honor of Dozier and her sister Lois, who had died a year earlier. The window features the prophet Amos, Dozier’s favorite, and figures of the two Dozier sisters. In 2003, Dozier won the first Bishop’s Award from the Diocese of Washington.
Funeral arrangements are not yet complete. The Washington Post is preparing an obituary which may be published on Sunday, September 3.
A full biography by Fredrica Haris Thompsett is available here.
Updates: The Episcopal News Service has filed an obituary, a bibliography and some quotes from her writing.