Covenant News

Services Held for Former Covenant Minister Lester Newman

BEVERLY, MA (August 20, 2003) - Funeral services were held on July 26 for Lester Newman, a former Covenant minister who served as a professor and the first dean of the chapel at Endicott College near Boston.

The 84-year-old Newman died of pneumonia July 21 at Blueberry Hill Health Care in Beverly. He had lived in nearby Manchester for many years.

According to an obituary in the Boston Globe, Newman was the youngest of five boys and was born on September 9, 1918. While growing up in Crystal Lake, Illinois, he and his brothers helped the family during the Depression by delivering papers, his wife, Alice Viola (Granstrom) Newman told the Globe.

At Crystal Lake High School, Newman was known as ''Scrapper'' for his fierce play on the school's football team. He was also an avid golfer, and in his early 20s once played 54 holes of golf in one day with his brothers.

Newman attended Wheaton College in Illinois, then studied for the ministry at North Park Seminary. He met Alice, who would become his wife of 59 years, at a church in Evanston, Illinois, where she played piano and sang in the church choir. The two were married in August 1944, and spent the first two years of their marriage living in a small cabin in northern Wisconsin, where he worked at two churches - Community Covenant Church in Conover and Community Covenant Church in Sayner - from 1944 to 1946.

From 1946 to 1952, Newman served the Evangelical Covenant Church of Elgin, Illinois. He was ordained during the 1949 Covenant Annual Meeting at Trinity Church in Boston. In 1952, Newman became pastor of the Johnson Street Covenant Church, where he served for six years. Newman then began teaching Sociology at Endicott College, eventually becoming dean of the chapel. While at Endicott, he served as a youth program leader and pastor of the former North Saugus Community Church.

After retiring 1983, he served several interim pastorates and substitute taught at Manchester High School until he suffered a stroke in 1995.

In addition to his wife, Newman is survived by sons Steven and Thomas and daughters Susan (Wriggins) and Sally and 10 grandchildren.

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