Bearing Good Fruit

Our Founders

Jesus said “every good tree bears good fruit,” and “by their fruits you shall know them.” Matthew 7:15-20.  At St. Peter’s, we believe a church bears good fruit not only in its own mission, worship, and fellowship activities, but also by inspiring and supporting parishioners who go out to serve our community in their own civic and volunteer work.  In this way, a good church generates a valuable boon and dividend for the community it serves.  

At St. Peter’s we aspire to be that good church because “faith without works is dead,” (James 2:26) and our church motto emphasizes that we are “called together in Christ, transformed by God’s grace, sent out to serve.”  You will find here many of your neighbors who are leaders in a variety of civic institutions or who have devoted their careers to public service.   As the parish acknowledges its 60th anniversary, we are celebrating the example of public service set by the faithful people who founded our church in the early 1960s:  our founding generation.  Throughout the year we will feature short biographies of different church founders, emphasizing the “good fruits” they bore.

  • Elizabeth Campbell

    Margaret Elizabeth Pfohl was born December 4, 1902, in Clemmons, North Carolina. She received a Bachelor's degree in English from Salem College and a Master's degree in education from Columbia University. At the tender age of 25, she was named Dean of Moravian College for Women in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. In 1929, she became Dean of Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia. Seven years later in June 1936, she wed Edmund D. Campbell. They settled in Arlington and raised four children. Read more…

  • Edmund Campbell

    Edmund Douglas Campbell (March 12, 1899 – December 7, 1995) was a lawyer and progressive politician who opposed the Byrd Organization, particularly its declared Massive Resistance to the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Brown v. Board of Education. Edmund and his wife Elizabeth Pfohl Campbell were widely known for their efforts to improve and desegregate Arlington public schools.

    Mr. Campbell was born on March 12, 1899, in Lexington, Virginia and was admitted to Washington and Lee University when he was 15 years old. Read more…

  • Walter T. McCarthy

    Judge Walter T. McCarthy chaired the Organizing Committee and served as our first senior warden when St. Peter’s Episcopal Church was founded in 1961. He also served as senior warden in 1964-65, and remained a pillar of the congregation throughout the formative years of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

    Walter was born in 1898 and moved to Arlington at a young age. He did not finish high school, but graduated from George Washington University and then the George Washington University Law School in 1922. He was a charter member of the Arlington County Bar Association founded in 1926. Read more…

  • Beverly and Lloyd Kuhn

    Beverly and Lloyd Kuhn were part of the founding generation at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in the early 1960s. They were both native Ohioans, and met while attending University of Cincinnati Law School in the 1940s. Beverly was among the first women to attend that law school. Lloyd’s studies at UC were interrupted by World War II, where he served as a lieutenant in the 101st Airborne Division in Europe. Lloyd returned to the University of Cincinnati and graduated from law school there in 1948. Beverly and Lloyd had two sons – Stephen and Robert. Read more…