Retired Priest Rescued, Raises Grandsons
Episcopal News Service. March 21, 2002 [2002-071]
David Howell, Frequent contributor to Diocesan Life, the newspaper of the Diocese of Bethlehem.
(ENS) The Rev. Henry Pease, a retired Episcopal priest of the Diocese of Bethlehem in charge of a small parish near Wilkes-Barre and a part-time economics teacher at King's College, is raising three young grandsons at his Saddle Lake home near Tunkhannock in northeastern Pennsylvania.
Though he considers raising grandchildren to be an ordinary lifestyle today, how he rescued the children from South America is anything but ordinary. It involves a murder and a kidnapping that would not be out of place in a Hollywood thriller.
The former rector of St. Paul's Church in Montrose (1972-98), now serving St. George's Church, Nanticoke, a parish of some 25 to 30 Sunday worshipers, prefers to focus on the happy ending of the story and how Francisco, 10, Dominic, 5, and Simon, 4, have changed his life.
"In some ways it [raising his second set of children] is a lot easier," he said. "I know a lot more than I did 40 years ago and I'm not involved in day-to-day work, so I have more time. I plan my days on the basis of the kids' needs."
Pease is one of many householders raising grandchildren. He said two other families on his short street do so. According to census figures, 2.35 million grandparents in the United States are raising at least one grandchild.
He noted that grandparents are healthier and stronger today, though he admits to being tired by the close of an average day. Because families have become less stable, grandparents have to step in more often.
The volatility of society is one of the biggest changes for Pease in his second round of parenting. "In the sixties life was simpler. There was an atmosphere of greater safety. You can't just put kids on the bus anymore and have them go somewhere on their own."
Children in danger
Francisco, Dominic and Simon are sons of Pease's son, John, a pediatric nurse who dreamed of starting a fish hatchery in Ecuador. His Ecuadorian wife, Loli, whom John had met while he worked with the Peace Corps, traveled from North Carolina to Ecuador with the two youngest boys in 1998.
Pease offered to take Francisco then because they all thought the oldest child would be better off with him and going to school in Pennsylvania. The boy lived with Pease until February 2000 when he went with his father to join the rest of the family in Ecuador.
John spent almost a year trying to track down his household goods, a small truck, a power shovel and shrimp hatchery-related items he had shipped to Ecuador that somehow wound up in Colombia.
While in Colombia, John received news that Loli had been killed.
Back in the U.S., in October 2000, Pease received email from Quito, Ecuador, saying he should come to get his grandchildren. He also received a phone call telling him the children had witnessed their mother's murder. They, too, were in danger.
'Man of gold'
Pease went first to Quito, then to the island of Muisne where the boys had been. There he discovered that relatives of the children's mother wanted money for their safe return. One of the children later told him that the family's name for Pease translated into English as "man of gold."
John and Pease then went to Esmeraldas, a rough Ecuadorian coastal city with a history of hundreds of years of smuggling. Those who held the boys would not release them. The Peases were harassed for hours by an angry mob that did not like Americans. They left without being harmed, even though the police refused to disperse the mob.
Lawyers representing the Peases and the dead mother's relatives negotiated for days, "primarily about money in exchange for the children," according to Pease. After the Peases' attorney threatened to bring charges of kidnapping, arrangements were made to have the children put on a bus at 2 a.m., to be met by the Peases at a shopping center in Quito.
Having met the children in Quito, the Peases still feared they might be followed. Their cab driver took them to the Embassy Hotel on the opposite side of town rather than to the American Embassy.
They reached the American Embassy an hour later than expected. Though more than a hundred people were waiting in line there, the American Marines saw the three small boys and let all of them in right away.
The next day they left the country, still receiving demands for money and still worried about their safety.
The children explained to Pease as best as they could what had happened to them. Though they are now fluent, the younger two could not speak English at that time. Pease learned the broad lines of their story over time. He continues to this day to learn new details.
Confidence in God
Pease has chosen not to pursue further investigations in Ecuador. The most important reality to him today is that the children are safe.
Francisco is receiving counseling. All three seem to be recovering from their experience.
Their father, John, may have been the most deeply affected. He is leaving the care of the children to his father while attempting to build a new life for himself in Spain. Pease is making arrangements to adopt the children.
Pease was confident that God was with him in Ecuador, that things would work out. "I knew I would be able to take care of them."
"I am in better health now than when I first started to take care of the boys. God has been working through me so that I can do what I have to do. That has been a source of great joy."
Francisco is in fourth grade. Dominic is in kindergarten. Simon moves between a child care center and Head Start.
A full retirement
Ordained a priest in 1966, Pease served as an assistant at St. Stephen's Church, Wilkes-Barre, for six year before being called to be rector in Montrose in 1972. Prior to seminary and ordination, he worked at Dun and Bradstreet (Richmond District) and as a Bank Examiner for the Federal Reserve in Philadelphia.
Today he serves the Diocese of Bethlehem as president of the Standing Committee and as chair of the Personnel Committee. For the past 17 years he has served as an Education for Ministry mentor in Montrose and Scranton. He has been chair of the diocesan Program and Budget Committee, the Grant-in-Aid Committee (now Congregational Development), and the United Budget Task Force, and vice-chair of Diocesan Council. In the community he serves as board chair of the Tre-Hab Center Community Action Agency, the Susquehanna/Wyoming Unit of the American Cancer Society, and the Susquehanna County Chapter of the American Red Cross.