Rev. Gene Stewart Seely
Personal
Gender: Male
Date of Birth: June 15, 1935
Date of Death: June 7, 1995
Birth Place: Winfield, KS
Death Place: Lawrence, KS
Rev. Gene Stewart Seely
REV. GENE S. SEELY TRIED TO HELP THROUGH MINISTRY
The Rev. Gene S. Seely began his Wichita ministry in 1961 as pastor of Mount Olivet United Methodist Church. By 1966, he was preaching to a broader base of Wichitans, establishing an “urban ministry” to deal specifically with the problems of the city’s needy.
The Rev. Seely, founder and former director of the United Methodist Urban Ministry of Wichita, died Wednesday at age 59. He and his wife, Arline, had lived in the Lawrence area for the past 20 years, the last six in Baldwin City.
“It was a time of great controversy, and he played a rather controversial role,” Mrs. Seely said of the couple’s Wichita days. “He was really out there on the firing line.”
David Seely remembers his father as a man who “was always searching and seeking for new ways to make a difference.
“I remember he was very busy, but we all felt it was very important, and that the right thing to do was helping other people from a religious sense and from a moral sense.
“I walked in a march with Martin Luther King, since my mom and dad did. It was just part of what we were taught.”
Seely said his father “enjoyed the challenge of doing something new, taking people in a direction they weren’t used to going even though that meant frustration and sometimes hostilities.”
Wichita attorney Jack Focht, who served on the board of directors of the United Methodist Urban Ministry when Seely headed it, said Seely was ”strong in a calm, quiet way. He was very low-key and not one to push himself at all. He would rather talk to you quietly. He would give you the ideas and let you think they were your ideas.”
Focht and Seely had attended North High School together, and they and their wives trained at the Ecumenical Institute in Chicago. “We were trying to be the church’s presence in the world,” Focht said.
That training led the Rev. Seely to try to understand what life was like for the people he was wanting to help, said the Rev. Leonard Cowan, now retired, who was the executive minister of the Wichita Council of Churches when Seely began the Urban Ministry program.
“One of the first things he did was go to Chicago and spend three days on Skid Row,” sleeping in a flop house and living on the street, Cowan said. “He wanted to see if he could get the feel of what it would be like to be one of the forgotten and down-and-out people in a city.”
Many programs the Rev. Seely started continue, Cowan said, such as Senior Services, out of which came the Meals on Wheels and Good Neighbor Nutrition programs. Other projects included setting up a community center on north Hydraulic and sending young black men out as street ministers during a time of racial unrest in the city. He helped start a used-clothing store, a center for drug users and half-way houses for youth and adults, the latter still operating.
The family moved to St. Louis in 1970 and, after three years, Seely took a sabbatical leave, then returned to work in local churches. From 1980 to 1984, he worked as a projects developer for Cross-Lines Cooperative Council of Kansas City, Kan.
The Rev. Seely retired in 1985, but still enjoyed making things such as swings from recycled materials. He also worked as an x-ray technician for a pediatric group in Lawrence, a job he had when he was in school.
A memorial service is planned for 1:30 p.m. today at First United Methodist Church in Lawrence.
Survivors includes his wife, Arline; son, David, of Wichita; daughters, Diana Seely Frederick and Doreen, both of Lawrence; brother, Dean of Hamilton, Ala.; and five grandchildren. Memorials have been established with Hospice of Douglas County and United Methodist Urban Ministry of Wichita.
Published in The Wichita Eagle, (KS) – June 10, 1995
REV. GENE STEWART SEELY
Services for the Rev. Gene Stewart Seely, 59, Baldwin, will be at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at First United Methodist Church with the Rev. Virgil Brady officiating.
Mr. Seely died Wednesday, June 7, 1995, in Lawrence.
He was born June 15, 1935, in Winfield, the son of Arthur John and Emma Stewart Seely.
He had lived in the Lawrence area for 20 years, most recently in rural Baldwin. He was a Methodist minister. He graduated from Wichita High School in 1953, received a bachelor of arts degree in 1957 from Friends University in Wichita and a master’s of divinity degree in 1961 from Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary, Evanston, Ill.
He served as pastor at Mount Olivet United Methodist Church, Wichita; Plains United Methodist Church; Perry United Methodist Church; Central United Methodist Church; Centenary United Methodist Church; and Lecompton United Methodist Church.
He had been a student pastor at West Heights Methodist Church and was founder and first director of United Methodist Urban Ministry, both in Wichita. He was executive director of the Metropolitan Young Adult Ministry in St. Louis, and was project developer for Cross-Lines Cooperative Council, Kansas City, Kan. He was a member of the First United Methodist Church and the Kansas East Conference of the United Methodist Church.
After he retired from the ministry in 1985, he pursued independent business ventures. He most recently worked as an X-ray technician for Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine P.A. in Lawrence.
He married Arline Jeannette Six on April 6, 1955, in Wichita. She survives at the home.
Other survivors include two daughters, Diana Seely Frederick and Doreen Annette Seely, both of Lawrence; a son, David Gene Seely, Wichita; a brother, Arthur Dean Seely, Hamilton, Ala.; and five grandchildren.
Friends may call from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday at Warren-McElwain Mortuary, where the family will receive friends.
The family suggests memorials to Hospice of Douglas County or the United Methodist Urban Ministry in Wichita in care of the mortuary.
Published in the Lawrence Journal-World (KS) – June 8, 1995
