And Now Let US Lift Up Rev. O'shea, Whose Flock Are Friends And Equals

When the Croaker comes for his inevitable visit, I guess I would like the Rev. Susan O'Shea to do that necessary business at the end.

Actually, I have a lot of choices in the soul-saving industry.

I know a fair number of Jesuit priests; I'm on friendly terms with the Rev. Dale Turner, The Times' in-house columnist and soul-saver. Believe this or not, I once got a fan letter from the Rev. Billy Graham.

Not to forget, either, my bonding with Preacher Mike, a burly ex-biker and dope addict, who puts on first-rate tent revivals.

But for me, it has to be Reverend Susan. Neither of us is in any hurry about this concluding ceremony, but O'Shea is warm, friendly, tough and available. She might even fib a little on my behalf.

The Rev. Susan O'Shea, an Episcopalian priest, presides over the Public Market Chapel, right above where DeLaurenti sells cheese and prosciutto.

She is a gorgeous person.

A mutual friend of ours calls her "Seattle's Mother Teresa." She has curly red hair, bobbed a la Amelia Earhart; she wears a clerical collar, a cross and rubber sandals.

She wears sandals even in the presence of her bishop. If she bothered to explain why, she probably would say, "What was good enough for Jesus is good enough for O'Shea."

She will sit up all hours talking. She rolls her own cigarettes and as another friend said of her, "She lives like an angel and talks like a jailbird."

As a child she was a runaway, living in the alleys of Chinatown and Skid Road, and by age 11 she became a ward of the court. She had committed no crime, except the crime of being homeless.

She spent the next six years in the Maple Lane School for Girls.

As one reflects, she was probably a child prodigy. She has lived enough lives for 10 people and one cat. In her time she has worked as a union carpenter, a private detective, a reserve soldier, a prison chaplain; she writes poetry and essays that are published.

After Maple Lane School she fled to India, where she married an Indian and had a daughter. Both were blown up during the Indo-Pakistan war.

She was tall and beautiful then; and when her village needed some $2,000 to buy a bullock, a couple of the locals decided to sell her into white slavery.

She spoke Hindi and knew everything they were saying. When three of the morons went into a restaurant, she snatched their car and drove to the police station. All of them made the Punjab slammer.

Back here, Seattle's Mother Teresa earned three degrees. She speaks five Asian languages and fluent Spanish.

Nobody in this city knows more about the homeless than Reverend Susan. One floor up from DeLaurenti's sausage counter, she works with the disabled, street people, office workers, shopkeepers, old people. Her quarters are part chapel, part counseling center; she is a consultant to about 100 secular and church organizations.

She suffers from a disease called myasthenia gravis, which affects the muscles. She doesn't always need a wheelchair, but sometimes, standing up, she will collapse on the floor; as her husband Jerry describes it, "like a fallen souffle."

That is why some of us are trying to raise money to buy her a van with an automatic lift on it to raise her up. She commutes around town in her wheelchair.

Of her flock, heavily Hispanic and homeless, she says working with them is simple.

"You treat them as spiritual beings and as your equal. You are shocked when they misbehave. All they need to do is learn how to live."

Emmett Watson's column appears Tuesday in the Local News section of The Times.