The Reverend Dr. Jean C. Arthur

Let us remember with thanksgiving the life and ministry of Rev. Dr. Jean Cale Arthur, 94, who died peacefully on Sunday, September 16, 2018. She was born on June 22, 1924.

Jean felt called to the ministry of the church at an early age. She wanted to provide service to her community’s needs for both physical and spiritual healing. Jean was a registered nurse and served in India as a Methodist missionary in the 1950s, taking time off only to get her master’s degree in New York City, as well as additional certifications at London University in tropical medicine, before returning to India. She was ordained a deacon in the North India Conference in 1952. While in India, she was the director of nursing at the Clara Swain Hospital in Bareilly for two years, and then became the district evangelist appointed by the Methodist Church in Bijnor and later in Moradabad.

Jean met her husband, Rev. Dr. Edwin Arthur, in India. They married in 1959 and moved back to the United States. While Jean had their two children, Edwin was a United Methodist pastor in Pennsylvania and New York, serving White Sulphur Springs and Harris UMCs in NY in 1962 and 1963. In 1964, Edwin was in a car accident that left him unable to walk.

In 1966, Jean was appointed pastor for East Branch, Fish’s Eddy and Harvard UMCs in NY. She and her family moved to Washington, DC in 1969, where she completed her doctorate at Wesley Theological Seminary. In 1971 she became a provisional member of the New York Conference and was appointed to Derby UMC in CT, where she served until 1979, becoming an elder in the NY Conference in 1973. In 1979, Jean and Edwin moved to Lake Mahopac, NY, where she served Lake Mahopac UMC and Mount Hope UMC in Mahopac Falls. After her retirement from the NY Conference in 1990, she served Holmes UMC in NY from 1992 to 1996, and then moved with her husband to North Carolina. While living in Pinehurst, NC, Jean was a volunteer chaplain at a local nursing home. Edwin passed away in 2003.

She is survived by her two children, Pamela Arthur Stuart and Dion Arthur; her two grandchildren, Benjamin and Daniel Stuart; her son-in-law, Kevin Stuart; her sister, Patricia Cale Sink; and many nieces and nephews. She is preceded in death by her husband, and her older sibling, Donald Cale, as well as her parents, Norman and Helen Cale.