She was the congregation’s first organist, sang in the choir, taught Bible classes and Sunday School, and was a member of the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League (also known as Ladies’ Aid) and the Altar Guild. Green loved her church and her Lord and served both in myriad ways. The LCMS has a large parochial school network, and started mission work among African Americans in Little Rock in 1877, eventually opening both a Lutheran church and school. They built their first Holy Cross chapel and parsonage in Houston from discarded lumber on a plot of land they purchased in 1940, and established a Lutheran day school from 1945 to 1956. Her deep Lutheran roots were reflected in her passion for opening a door to the first Lutheran Church for African Americans in Texas in 1939. Some folks stumble over all those biblical names and places.

Green attended Bible class every week and whenever she read the scripture, it was perfect. “She was the best Bible reader we had,” said her Holy Cross Pastor Rev. Paul Lutheran Church and School, and finished her college education at Alabama Lutheran Academy in Selma, Ala, then a high school and two-year college. Green was born in Mansura, Louisiana on March 1, 1913, the oldest of seven children. secretary of state noted, as he kept in touch with her through the years. She was a positive influence in the children’s lives, the U.S. Green worked for the Bakers for 40 years, leaving for only two years when her husband was stationed with the U.S. James Baker, Jr., who needed a secretary and nanny. She was hoping to find a factory job when she met Mrs. Green arrived in Houston during the Depression, looking for work. Green meeting President Obama with Shirley Jackson Lee. Admitting they were from “entirely different worlds,” he said, “She treated me and my sister Bonner like we were her very own.” Mrs.

“And now my friends, how sweet it is that her funeral is being held in the very church that back then would not let her through the front door,” he said, to vigorous applause.īaker noted Green’s work during the civil rights movement when she “confronted many other closed doors” that she helped open during that “back-of-the-bus era.” In his warm memories of her, he recalled a kind, loving woman with a strong faith in God and a quiet and noble resolve. “Each time a door was closed to her, Bea opened a new one that all of us could enter,” he said, noting the first closed door she encountered in Houston. In his special tribute during the service, Baker praised Green for opening doors all her life. Willie Lucas of Holy Cross Lutheran Church, and Reverend Michael Newman. Back row from left: Mayor Sylvester Turner of Houston, Rev. Newman, president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) Texas District, called her “a shining light for Jesus Christ in the world.” The 80th anniversary of Holy Cross Lutheran Church, 2019: Mrs. Sheila Jackson Lee, who said Green’s life exemplified the words of Matthew 35:23: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” Rev. Other special guests were City Councilwoman Carolyn Shabaz, representing Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, and U.S. secretary of state and White House chief of staff under President George H. Secretary of State Baker, who recalled walking to the grocery with Green as a child, served as White House chief of staff and secretary of the Treasury under President Ronald Reagan, and as U.S. James was six years old when she began working for his mother. Trinity’s congregation was deeply humbled to open its doors to celebrate their sister in Christ who now wears the crown of eternal life, said Senior Pastor Michael Dorn.Īmong those in attendance was the 61st secretary of state, James A.

9 at the age of 108, was celebrated and commemorated in a funeral service at Trinity Lutheran Church in downtown Houston. On Friday, Beatrice Lehman Green’s earthly life, which ended Nov. Green at Holy Cross, and they served together for 60 years until his death in 2001. Holy Cross Lutheran Church, founded in 1940 and still active today, became the first African-American Lutheran Church in the state of Texas. So, following in the faithful footsteps of their forbears, Lehman and her aunt started one. He gave them communion and suggested they worship elsewhere.īut there were no Lutheran churches for African Americans in Houston-or anywhere in Texas. The ushers directed the two women to the back door, and the pastor invited them to sit in the sacristy, a room off the sanctuary, to listen to the sermon.

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