Mary Goshert Ekenstam
The Rev. Canon Mary Linda Foster Goshert Ekenstam, former rector of St. Ambrose’s Church, Claremont, and St. Peter’s Church, Santa Maria, died June 11 from ovarian cancer. She was 81 and had been living in Benicia in the Diocese of Northern California, where she was canonically resident in recent years.
Survivors include her husband of 14 years, Gene Ekenstam, along with two sons, John (Cindy) and Michael (Danielle) from her first marriage to the late John Goshert. Other survivors are her grandchildren Ruby Goshert and Vaughn Goshert; sister Jackie Ricks and brother Richard Foster (Sandy); five nieces and nephews; and her husband Gene’s three children and four grandchildren.
A service will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 21 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Benicia, under the direction of Passalacqua Funeral Chapel. Goshert will be interred in St. Paul’s columbarium.
Goshert served as rector at St. Ambrose’s Church, Claremont, from 2006 until her retirement in 2011, when she and her second husband, Gene Ekenstam, moved to Northern California, where she served frequently as a supply or interim priest at various congregations. Previously she was rector of St. Peter’s Church, Santa Maria (2001 – 2006), and interim priest at St. Luke’s, Long Beach ((1988 – 2001). During her ministry in the Diocese of Los Angeles she served on Diocesan Council (2004 – 2012), the Stewardship and Development Commission (2004 – 2012) and the disciplinary board. She also was an active member of the Madres and Padres clergy group. In 2010, Bishop J. Jon Bruno named her an honorary canon of the diocese.
Gene Ekenstam, a retired advancement executive for Scripps College, and Goshert met when she was rector of nearby St. Ambrose’s. They were married June 18, 2011. The couple retired and moved to Benicia in Northern California and joined St. Paul’s Church, where Mary had served as rector from 1982 to 1989.
Prior to serving at St. Paul’s, Goshert was rector of St. John the Divine Parish in Morgan Hill, California for eight years, during which she also was on the Diocese of El Camino Real’s Standing Committee.
Previously she was curate at St. Martin’s Church, Davis, concurrently serving as chaplain at the University of California at Davis (1979 – 1982).
Mary Linda Foster was born January 4, 1944 in Orange, California to Richard and Velma Foster. She lived with the family in Midway City, California until her graduation with a bachelor’s degree from California State University-Long Beach. She earned a master of arts degree in library science from California State University-Fullerton and worked in the public libraries in Pomona and Gilroy, California.
She and John Goshert were married in 1965. He died of ALS in November 1982, leaving Mary with their two young sons (then ages 11 and 9).
Discerning a call or ordained ministry, Mary Goshert earned a master of divinity degree at Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley. Bishop Robert C. Rusack ordained her to the diaconate in June 1979. She served as an assistant at St. Martin’s Church in Davis, and was ordained to the priesthood there on Feb. 2, 1980 by Bishop Rusack in cooperation with then-Bishop John Thompson of the Diocese of Northern California.
In a biographical sketch, Goshert wrote, “Bishop Thompson’s action gave him the opportunity to ordain a woman to the priesthood without having to have the consent of the diocesan Standing Committee or the recommendation of the Commission on Ministry, because I was not canonically resident in Northern California. So I was the first woman to be ordained in Northern California.”
Goshert wrote, “I was the fourth woman to be candidate for Holy Orders in the Diocese of Los Angeles – and the first who wasn’t the daughter of a bishop, spouse of a male priest, nun in a convent – but a suburban wife and mother and library administrator.”
When she was called to be rector of St. Paul’s, Benicia, she wrote, she was “the greenest, newest rector possible,” but she soon proved herself a capable and energetic leader, helping the parish recover from a difficult past, restore its physical plant, repair its finances, and grow four-fold. She was the first ordained woman in the church’s Province VIII to have charge of a congregation. During her tenure at St. Paul’s she also served as deployment officer for the Diocese of Northern California, was elected twice as a General Convention deputy, served on the Commission on Ministry, and was a trustee and alumni association vice-president for CDSP.
As her family wrote, “Her work as a priest was marked by empathetic leadership, deep scholarship, and compassion for all people.”