July 5 Today in OPC History

Dorothy Partington Anderson Barker retired on this date in 1987 after working 33 years writing and editing Sunday school and vacation Bible school materials for the Committee on Christian Education and Great Commission Publications. Her materials, including the original two-volume book, Bible Doctrine: A Workbook on the Westminster Shorter Catechism, are among the most widely read Sunday school materials in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Dorothy’s last names help to tell her story. Born on April 27, 1927, Dorothy is the daughter of Hillis M. Partington, a charter elder of Grace OPC in Westfield, New Jersey, which was founded in 1936. When Dr. Gresham Machen preached at the church when she was 11, she laments becoming bored and falling asleep. At 15 she attended Wheaton College for a year, then withdrew and later graduated as an English major from Barnard College. She taught in several schools over the years. When Edmund Clowney became pastor at Westfield in 1950, he enlisted Dorothy to help him write Sunday school curriculum for the CCE. The theological understanding she learned while growing up in the OPC helped Dorothy to write Bible Doctrine, the Old Testament Survey book, and many of the early Senior High and Junior High materials. She retired as curriculum project editor with GCP.

On October 1, 1955, she married Robert W. Anderson, a Westminster Theological Seminary graduate. He served as pastor in New Haven, Connecticut, but after years of struggling with sermons, he demitted the ministry in 1968. He later had fruitful service as an elder at Trinity OPC in Hatboro, Pennsylvania. They had two sons, Jonathan and Peter. He died suddenly on April 4, 1977 at age 49, while Dorothy worked for GCP.

On August 4, 1984, Dorothy married widower Richard A. Barker, the clerk of session at the Westfield church and stated clerk of the OPC’s General Assembly. As students, they had known each other from chess club at Westfield High School. Dorothy survived Richard, who entered glory on March 1, 2012, at the age of 86.

Picture: Dorothy Anderson surrounded by the GCP staff—including Robert Nicholas, Robley Johnston on far right.