Father Dwight Woodbury Edwards

1930 - 2016

Father Dwight Woodbury Edwards
June 11, 1930 ~ November 24, 2016
Pacific Grove, CA
Father Dwight Woodbury Edwards, born June 11, 1930 in Oakland, California, and died at home in Pacific Grove, November 24, 2016. Survived by his cherished wife, Rosi Jansson Edwards, and her sons David Snider (spouse Denise Snider and their four children, Christopher, Erik Michael, Andrew, and Regina) and Douglas Snider and his son Johan Mattias and the hundreds of caring individuals who were his joy and his inspiration.
Music and service played key roles in Dwight's life. His name now adorns the parish halls of the two churches where he served as rector: St. Timothy's in Mountain View and at St. Mary's by the Sea in Pacific Grove.  Dwight started piano lessons when he was seven and sang in junior and senior school choirs.  In college he added Byzantine history to his musical studies at the University of California in Berkeley, and then entered the seminary at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific. (CDSP) Thirty eight years later, in October of 1993, the School honored Dwight by conferring an honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity for his "distinguished service to God and the Church." The newspaper announcement at the time described Dwight as "a foot soldier of the Lord."
While still in seminary, Dwight was asked to provide Summer Vacation Bible School and Sunday services to St. Luke's mission in Jolon and St. Matthew's in San Ardo. Dwight enjoyed a supportive relationship with both throughout his career.
After Dwight's ordination in 1955, Bishop Karl Morgan Bloch of the Diocese of California assigned him to St. Timothy's in Mountain View.  Dwight arrived in Mountain View driving his sister's Buick with a small trailer filled with one hundred books and little else. For the first four years there he lived in the upper story of an old farmhouse with the church located downstairs.  The small congregation steadily grew, eventually purchasing land for a new church, a parish hall and a preschool.  The congregation took on housing issues, set up an office for Indonesian and Cuban refugees and provided space for Alcoholics Anonymous and other community groups. The congregation at St. Timothy's nourished Dwight through eighteen years of ministry as their rector.
It was during this period in the sixties that Dwight joined thousands of Americans who marched with Martin Luther King to Selma to support the voting rights of African Americans. At the time, Dwight reflected that he could never preach from the pulpit again if he did not truly support the rights of all people. 
In 1973, Dwight became the rector of St. Mary's by the Sea in Pacific Grove. By the time Dwight retired in 1998, the congregation had grown considerably and dedicated itself to outreach within the community, feeding and clothing the homeless, providing a suicide prevention space as well as space for other community groups to meet.. Following his retirement, the Vestry of St. Mary's by the Sea honored him with the designation Rector Emeritus.
In December of 2015 the Diocese formally celebrated Dwight's sixty years of ministry with a service and a reception.
In January of 2016, as part of the Hartnell Community Chorus (led by Robin McKee Williams), Dwight traveled to New York to perform at Carnegie Hall in the famous Stern Auditorium. Asked in amazement, "You're going to New York in January?," Dwight responded: "I told him that I was an eighty five year old tenor who likely wouldn't be asked again and of course we're going to New York!"
Those who love Father Dwight Woodbury Edwards, father in spirit, imaginative loving husband, beloved of so many, and giver of blessings at the limitless table of the Lord could think of no better way to end here than with his own words:
"Life swallows up death and its despair.
"There is no one of us who has not known the miracle of light and warmth that has come in a thousand different ways into the suffering, the deaths and the ordinariness of our lives. It is our resurrection now… it is our Lord who lives… and we with Him… in all things and for all eternity, a time of celebration, a time of sounds and smells, a time of remembrance and dreams.
"I am comforted by all the good hands and good heads and good hearts who are offering their talent to the work of Christ…. part of the glorious fulfilling and creating which we know as the love of God.
"My years of ministry are based on the knowledge that we are all the beloved of God.
"I have seen and experienced God's love made flesh by all of you... I love you and I thank you."
Memorial gifts may be designated to Christian Social Concern at St. Mary's by the Sea Church.
Memorial Services will be held at St. Mary's by the Sea Church on Sunday, December 11 at 2:30pm.


View the online memorial for Father Dwight Woodbury Edwards