School Chaplain’s Way with Students is Everlasting



A seventh grade experience gave Wick Simmons musical validation and inspired his dream to become a professional cellist.

That's when Middle School Chaplain Patricia Roberts gave him the confidence to fully pursue music by asking him to play a Bach Minuet for chapel service. 

"If she didn't ask me, I don't know where I would be today," said Wick, a 16-year-old sophomore at Holy Innocents' Episcopal School. "It kind of helped me realize that I might actually be good at this."

Chaplain Roberts died Dec. 5 after a four-year battle of peritoneal cancer. Wick played the cello during her funeral service last Friday.

Roberts was 61 and lived in Marietta with her husband David Roberts, her daughter, Julia Roberts, and son, Oliver Roberts.

At Holy Innocents', Roberts led chapel service, counseled students and taught Bible and ethics classes. In her 11 years at the school, students had come to call her  Chaplain Patty.  Among them was Wick, who met her before he was in first grade. 

During her funeral service, he emotionally played the Prelude from Bach's Cello Suite in D Minor. To stay focused, Wick said he kept repeating to himself, "For Chaplain Patty."

"I was worried beforehand if I would be able to get through the piece, but I did, " he said.

A native of Rochester, NY, Roberts had a unique way of connecting with students.  A former stage actress, the chaplain regularly incorporated theater in her teachings. 

To show students the importance of Veteran's Day, she once held up the shell of an old-fashioned radio while an audio recording of her father recounting World War II history played in the background, said Middle School principal Theresa Jesperson.  

"She had students do skits and perform musical pieces, and tried to involve as many students as possible," Jesperson said.

When it came to her students, the chaplain's husband, David Roberts, compared her to Mary Poppins.  "You know Julie Andrews," he said.  "Patty was just like that. She had the most gorgeous voice you ever heard. She brought her love of theater and sense of showmanship to everything she did."

In her stage career, Roberts performed with Van Johnson in "Boeing Boeing" and took over for Ann Miller in the St. Louis, Mo. production of "Anything Goes" after the actress was hit by a stage boom, said David Roberts, an English announcer for TNT Latin America.

 "All of these things she was doing was preparation for [her ministry,]" said her father, Clif St. James. "She'd always been a very spiritual person. And she read voraciously."

The chaplain came from a performing family.  Her mother, Nance St. James, was also a stage actress, and both of her parents are longtime television personalities in St. Louis.  

Last spring, students raised money and planted a weeping cherry tree on the campus grounds in honor of the chaplain.

"She was the most humanly caring person you would ever meet," Wick said. "When I was down, I could go talk to her and everything would be okay.  She just has a sense of love."

The biggest life lesson instilled by the chaplain was to, "Be you," Wick said. "Don't try to please everyone. Find peace."