Joanne Leatch (Biography) is our new minister of pastoral care. She is a long-time, well-known, and beloved leader in many areas of our church. This is a chance to get to know her, her work, and her family a little better.
Tell me about the transition from being a longtime section leader in our choir to being our pastoral care lead.
I’m really thrilled at this transition. Having been a lead vocalist for many years, if I were just stopping that for no reason I’d be devastated. But I’m transitioning now because I need to be down in the congregation on Sundays. And yet I still get to sing with the choir from time to time.
It’s amazing that God can give us new adventures at any stage of our lives. When many of my peers are long since retired, I’m not. Others are not too: a lawyer I know is retiring to go to trade school. She’s not sure whether she wants to be a welder or an electrician yet.
Some might think it’s surprising to move from law to pastoral care.
It’s consistent with the kind of law I’ve always done. I had a traditional articling post on Bay Street and decided I didn’t want to do that. My first job was in a legal aid clinic. From there I worked on policy for the government in children’s law and social assistance. What I’ve done has always been in tandem with life in the church and doing volunteer work.
What first brought you to TEMC?
I first came as a soloist. I had been a soloist at another church and had won a major scholarship at the Royal Conservatory. I got a call from Dr. Ouchterlony’s secretary saying I’d won it, but he’d never heard me sing, so I was to come to Eaton Memorial at this date and time. I walked in and had never seen something this big in my life. I sang for him, and he said, “I would like to offer you the position of soloist.” I said, “But I already have a solo job.” And he looked at me and said “you could resign and come here.” So I went home and phoned my music teacher, who said “my dear, resign immediately and go to Eaton Memorial.” I felt at home from week one.
What made you feel so at home here?
It was the people. They were so welcoming, it felt like home.
TEMC has always felt to me like a bunch of different little congregations. People are interested in different projects. I started in music but then got drawn into other areas, the Christmas pageant, Spirit Express and then the Honduras project, El Hogar.
You have been deeply involved in leadership and fundraising for El Hogar’s work in Honduras—why has it been so important to you?
I was a single mother, and when my twins were 15 years old, we were invited to come on a work trip to Honduras. I asked the boys, “Do you want to go? We don’t ever have to go back if we don’t like it.” My kids have gone 12 times, I’ve gone 17 times. A chunk of my heart now lives in Central America. We’ve always taken multi-generational teams, from teenagers to 70 year-olds. One older friend from church here, half an hour after the plane touches down, she’s reading books to kids on the playground in Spanish. These trips are church-building. It’s like a secret, but not-really-secret club: anybody can join. I thanked one helper when he turned up to our fundraiser with his panini maker. He said “We would never not come—we’re always here for for Honduras.”
Why pastoral care in particular for your new leadership role here?
I’ve always envied ministers in that they can go in and immediately start talking to people about things that’s deep and not just shallow. In fact, you’re expected to. I like people a lot. And easily get a rapport with them. I’ve always wanted to do this kind of ministry.
And you’re also studying theology at Emmanuel College.
I enjoy the diversity there. I like my Muslim and Buddhist colleagues a lot. I like the bible courses, and the broader ones like indigenous worldviews, which is an important thing for us to study in Canada. The people are really interesting. Lots of us are older, and we often ask, “Who would think at this stage of life we could make new friends?” Even the dreaded group work is ok.
How did you come to faith in the first place?
This all comes from my mother. She sang the hymn to me every night, “This is my father’s world.” We went to an Anglican church, but I became a Christian at my church’s bible camp when I was six years old. I’m comfortable with a lot of varieties of worship: from Anglican formal to evangelical praise songs and extemporaneous prayer off the cuff. I was aware of God in my life from my conversion as a kid, but I also kept converting secretly again, as if to be sure, ‘did I really do it right?’
Our church school was in the afternoon on Sundays rather than in the mornings, so we went back to church at 3 pm after being in church all morning. I joined choir when I was six. Then we all came back at night for the evening service too. My brothers and I would be terrified by the movies about leprosy. We feared we’d get it. There’d be this dramatic music, and a closeup: ‘could this spot be the beginning of leprosy?’ Of course it was, and in the next scene the character would have no nose.
The church was St. Peter’s at Sherbourne and Carleton. We had a deaconess and a couple of social workers. These women were so impressive, I was blown away by them but disheartened, even as a young girl, that they were always secondary and never got to be in charge. More than once I was told, “that’s just the way it is.” I knew it wasn’t fair and hoped it could change.
I went to law school because I like reading. I was young, more girls were being admitted into professional faculties and I decided wasn’t going to do what girls did, so I wouldn’t become a teacher or nurse or social worker. I thought that, as a lawyer, I might have more influence over some of our social problems. I never regretted studying law, and I still find it interesting. I spent the afternoon today training new members for Tribunals Ontario on disability law.
Tell us more about your family.
My maternal grandfather’s family was French Huguenot. They escaped France to Haiti, then eventually settling in Jamaica, where my grandfather was born. He came to Canada after serving in World War I. Thus we still have many Jamaican relatives. They come here more frequently than we visit down there but Facebook has meant that we communicate much more frequently.
My maternal grandmother was sent to Canada with her sister from England when they were eight and 10-years old and couldn’t be looked after by their family. They were placed on farms as servants until they turned 21. My grandmother was with a good family. They sent her to school and gave her piano lessons and she became a church organist. Her sister was treated badly and beaten, so my grandmother’s family took her in too. My dad only went to church on Good Friday. That was his rule: you can’t have any of that other stuff, just the suffering.
My kids are the best thing that ever happened to me. They say that grandchildren are better. They’re not but only because as a mom, what I liked best was that child care really was the 24/7. Generally you don’t get that amount of caregiving with grandchildren. But I do treasure every moment with them. We Zoom every week and during Covid, I started reading many series of books to them. So much fun! My twins are great. There were periods when they weren’t close, of course, but they are now, even though they live far from one another (one in Dartmouth NS, the other here in Toronto). Both are lawyers. They’re kind and devoted to Honduras. The best trip was the year they brought their girlfriends, who are now their wife and partner, and know how important it is also.
Any last word for us?
I don’t want to sound like a baseball player, but I just want to help, to be part of what’s going on here. If I hadn’t gotten this job, I’d have been applying for hospital chaplaincies. I was with both my parents at their last breath. That’s pretty profound. Ministers get to do that all the time. Each death is different, and shows us something about God and the world.