Rena Graves, longtime Episcopal deacon, hospice chaplain, and seniors advocate, has died at 102

Rena Graves, 102, of Philadelphia, longtime Episcopal deacon, hospice chaplain, seniors advocate, lifelong learner, and mentor, died Sunday, May 21, at her home in Germantown. She had been living recently with congestive heart failure.

Born Sept. 29, 1920, in Philadelphia, Deacon Graves was honored by friends on her 100th birthday in 2020. They decorated her front porch with balloons and flowers, gave her presents, sang songs, and made emotional speeches in her honor.

Everyone at the party, except Deacon Graves, said they were impressed by her longevity as well as her long list of achievements. “Age was not important to me,” she told The Inquirer on that rainy day. “I never thought about it. I just live my life, and I live every day. I think you live a better life that way.”

Indeed, for more than 80 years, Deacon Graves improved her life by helping those around her improve theirs. She served as a deacon in the Episcopal church for nearly 40 years and was a chaplain at Wissahickon Hospice and Abington Memorial Hospital, counselor at senior centers, and volunteer for food pantries, get-out-the-vote drives, homebound visitation programs, and countless other community outreach efforts.

She was honored on June 9 with a prayer in thanksgiving for her ministry by fellow members at Chestnut Hill’s Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and City Councilmember Cindy Bass recognized Deacon Graves with a citation for civic activism in 2018.

“She was all about helping people, and she did it in concrete ways,” said the Rev. James H. Littrell, interim rector at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. “She was a role model for a whole generation of people.”

A member of the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields for more than a decade, Deacon Graves was confirmed into the Episcopal Church in 1944. She was ordained as a deacon in 1985 and active at churches in West Philadelphia and Germantown before St. Martin-in-the-Fields. “Everything was about God for her,” said her niece Vanessa Jones.

She attended many church conferences and seminars on leadership and outreach over the years, and offered guidance to seniors and their families at the Southwest Community Enrichment Center in West Philadelphia, Kearsley Rehabilitation and Nursing Center near Fairmount Park, and other organizations. “She was able to help seniors see themselves in a brighter light,” her family said in a tribute.

She was especially interested in promoting racial harmony. “I say to myself, ‘God has me here for a reason,’” she told The Inquirer. “I think He wants me to get Black and white people to sit down together and talk.”

Born Rena Ruffin, she was raised mainly by her mother and grandmother. She attended church with her family every Sunday and graduated from William Penn High School for Girls in 1940.

A high school counselor told her she was best suited to become a domestic worker. But Deacon Graves applied for job training from the National Youth Administration in the 1940s and worked for the U.S Marine Corps and the Frankford Arsenal in Northeast Philadelphia during World War II.

After the war, she landed a job working on electronics at International Resistive Co. and then worked for 25 years at Honeywell International Inc., rising to circuit board line supervisor. She met Preston Graves at a picnic, and they married in 1977. He died in 1981.

Called Auntie by her many nieces, nephews, grandnieces, grandnephews, great-grandnieces, great-grandnephews, and one great-great-grandniece, Deacon Graves was a sharp dresser and wrote poetry. She sang in church choirs and was a block captain in Germantown for decades.

She visited museums and went with friends to shows in New York and Washington. She was remarkable for “her wisdom and her generosity of spirit,” her family said in a tribute.

» READ MORE: Deacon Graves shares her secrets to living to 100

She wrote a memoir called Rena Remembers and had plans to complete a second book, Gathering, about aging. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Western Pennsylvania’s Geneva College and a master’s degree in theological studies from the Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, now Palmer Theological Seminary, when she was in her 80s.

Recently she had been working to improve her computer skills. She had already mastered the art of gratitude.

“Life is always different,” she told The Inquirer in 2020. “You need to be able to accept and endure, accept how life changes and endure the changes. And thank God for all of it.”

In addition to her niece, Deacon Graves is survived by many relatives. A brother and sister died earlier.

Celebrations of her life were held June 9 and 10.