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50 Years: Lynn Chappell, SP
(Sister Inez Elizabeth)
Sister Lynn Chappell comes from a bicultural religious background with an Irish Catholic mother and her father’s Methodist Church heritage that goes back to John Wesley. A significant part of this heritage was the tradition of religious life. She had two great aunts who were deaconesses in the Methodist Church and who were nurses and later administrators in Deaconess hospitals in Montana and Eastern Washington.
 Lynn is the eldest of nine children born to Wesley Chappell and Cecilia E. Quinn. She had a happy childhood and attended Holy Family School in White Center, Wash. It was there that Lynn met the Sisters of Providence. In sixth grade she began to feel called to become a Sister of Providence. In August 1960, Lynn was a part of the last class of postulants to enter at Mount St. Vincent in West Seattle. A year later the postulants and novices moved to Providence Heights in Issaquah, Wash., where they continued their college education with young religious from other congregations.
One lovely memory Lynn has of her postulant year is of the time she was told her grandmother, Nina Chappell, had arrived unexpectedly to visit her. She and her grandmother had a wonderful visit. It was only years later that Lynn learned that her grandfather, Reverend Harry Chappell, sent his wife to Issaquah to “get Lynn out of that unholy place.” Her grandmother went back to Montana and told her husband, “Leave her alone, Harry. She’s happy and the sisters are good people.”
In 1961, Sister Lynn was accepted into the novitiate and in 1963 she pronounced her temporary vows as a Sister of Providence and was given the name Sister Inez Elizabeth.
After graduation from Seattle University in 1965, Sister Inez Elizabeth was assigned to teach fifth grade at Sacred Heart School in Tacoma, Wash., and was there for two years. In 1966, the sisters were given the option of returning to the use of their given names, so when she returned in the fall it was as Sister Lynn.
From teaching and serving seniors to administrative role
Her next mission was Holy Family School in White Center. Two of her younger sisters were students there. For Sister Lynn, the 1960s were years of questioning and recommitment. From Holy Family, it was back to Sacred Heart in Tacoma and then to St. Joseph School in Yakima, Wash., for seven wonderful years, teaching fifth through eighth grade subjects. After serving for one year, 1976-77, as chauffeur for the retired sisters living at St. Joseph Residence, Sister Lynn’s years of teaching continued at Villa Academy and then Assumption Schools in Seattle.
In 1979, Sister Lynn was invited to consider serving on the administrative team for St. Joseph Residence in Seattle. She accepted the assignment only to learn that the position was that of local coordinator/administrator. It was quite a shock, but once at SJR, she found a new call, that of serving the elderly.
After the end of her term in 1983, she began studies in long-term-care administration at Mount St. Vincent, followed by internships at Our Lady of Compassion Care Center in Alaska and The Pavilion in Burbank, Calif. Once licensed as a nursing home administrator in Washington State, Sister Lynn was appointed provincial secretary for the former Sacred Heart Province, serving from 1985 to 1992. Then it was back to Mount St. Vincent in West Seattle, where she served as part of the administrative team and then as neighborhood coordinator for two skilled care units and as sister representative.
Instrumental in the process of provincial consolidation
During the 1995 Provincial Chapter, Sister Lynn was called to serve as a provincial councilor for Sacred Heart Province’s last Leadership Team. In the fall of 1999, Sister Barbara Schamber, provincial superior-elect, and the members of the Provincial Council-elect for the new Mother Joseph Province appointed Sister Lynn to the position of provincial councilor/treasurer. The next five years were both a joy and a challenge as she worked on the consolidation of financial offices of the two former provinces into one for the new province. Her best decision was to hire Jennifer Hall as director of finance. Jennifer made the transition process go smoothly and her wisdom, dedication and professional expertise not only benefited Mother Joseph Province, but other religious congregations as well when they sought her advice and counsel.
During the sabbatical year that followed the end of her term of office in 2004, Sister Lynn began volunteering at Providence Mount St. Vincent, Seattle, as records manager. She was not free to be employed as she was still a member of the Providence Health System Board of Directors, the Providence Senior and Community Services board, and chair of three Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) housing boards. After the end of her board terms, in January 2008, she was hired by The Mount as its records manager.
From 2005 to 2010 she developed a long-term-care retention schedule, went through well over 1,000 boxes of records, and eliminated about 95 percent of them as beyond their retention period. In the fall of 2010, she began the same process for Providence Marianwood in Issaquah, Wash. Sister Lynn’s other two positions are as secretary for Sister Jacqueline Fernandes, superior at St. Joseph Residence, and as manager of Caritas Court in West Seattle.
A religious vocation is a gift of Providence and Sister Lynn is very grateful to have received this gift.
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