Swanson, Katrina Martha, 1935-2005.

Katrina Martha van Alstyne Swanson was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 1, 1935, the eldest child of the Rt. Rev. Edward R. and Catharine Bedlow Fish (van Alstyne) Welles. Swanson graduated from Radcliffe College in 1956. In 1958, she married George Swanson, an Episcopal priest. The Swansons moved to Coalinga, California, to George's first parish where they had two sons, Olof and William. The family spent a year in Botswana, Africa, in 1966, where Katrina came to accept and champion the ordination of women as deacons, priests, and bishops. On July 29, 1974, Katrina became one of the first eleven women priests in the Episcopal Church in a controversial and irregular ordination in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. From that moment on, these women were known as the "Philadelphia 11." In 1978, Katrina became rector of St. John's Episcopal Church in Union City, New Jersey, while her husband was rector of a nearby church in Jersey City, New Jersey. She was the first woman Episcopal rector in the tri-state New York metropolitan area. Katrina and George retired in 1996 to Manset, Maine.