The Rev. Elizabeth S. Masquelette

Elizabeth Daggett Simmons Masquelette died in Houston on Tuesday, the 20th of November, 2018. She was born on the 12th of December 1927, to David Andrew Simmons and Elizabeth Daggett Simmons in Austin, where her father was serving as first assistant attorney general of the State of Texas. Shortly thereafter, she and her parents moved to Houston, where she attended public schools. Her full page picture in the 1942 Lamar High School yearbook as the most beautiful sophomore was noticed by her future husband, who arranged to be introduced to her while she was fifteen and he was seventeen. She graduated from Lamar in 1944, and spent her freshman year at Hollins College in Roanoke, Virginia. She transferred to The University of Texas at Austin, where she was a member of Pi Beta Phi and received the degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors in 1948. As a young bride, she taught school at George Washington Junior High School across from Faith Home on South Shepherd, and late at Southland Elementary on Dixie Drive in southeast Houston.

Elizabeth was baptized by immersion at Second Baptist Church, Houston, in 1940, when it was located at Milam and McGowen. She was confirmed in the Episcopal Church shortly after her marriage in 1948. She was an active member of St. John the Divine, Houston, serving as Sunday School teacher, member of the choir and chair of the women’s guild. All four of her children were baptized at St. John the Divine, and three of them were confirmed there. Her fourth child, David, was confirmed at St. Matthew’s Bellaire, after the family transferred to that parish. While at St. Matthew’s, she was a member of the vestry and a delegate to an annual diocesan convention. In 1971, she was the first lay woman elected to the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Texas. As a lay person she conducted retreats and seminars on healing prayer, which she continued for many years after her ordination. She served on the boards of directors of the Camp Fire Girls and the YMCA, and as a Head Start Volunteer in Fifth Ward.

Elizabeth began her postgraduate work at the University of St. Thomas, Houston, and received the degree of Master of Theological Studies from St. Mary’s Seminary, Houston, in 1976. She had clinical pastoral education at St. Joseph’s Hospital , Austin, while in seminary. She was the first woman in the Episcopal Diocese of Texas to be accepted as a postulant and candidate for holy orders. She received the degree of Master of Divinity from The Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest in Austin in 1978. She was ordained deacon in 1978 and as a priest in 1979 by the Right Reverend J. Milton Richardson, Bishop of the Diocese of Texas. Her initial assignment was to Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in the Sharpstown area, where she served as assistant rector until becoming the founding Vicar of Christ the King Church, a new mission in the Alief-Mission Bend area, in 1982. While she was Dean of the West Harris Convocation, a member of the Diocesan Executive Board, the diocesan Architectural Commission and the board of directors of St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital. Beginning in 1996, she was associate rector of St. Francis in the Piney Point area of Houston, where she served until her retirement in 1999 and on a part-time basis after that.

Elizabeth was predeceased by her parents and by her sister, Andrea Simmons Dowlen. She is survived by her husband, Philip A. Masquelette, and four children, Laura E. Masquelette of Missouri City, Philip E. Masquelette and wife, Melissa, of Hope, RI, Pamela A. Masquelette of Houston and David S. Masquelette and wife, Alice, of Houston; seven grandchildren, Elizabeth Anne Stephens, Jonathan Edward Selig and wife, Emma, Christopher Robert Selig, Philip Masquelette Selig and wife, Heather, Grace Fancher Masquelette Ramsdell and husband, Keith Arthur Ramsdell, Mary Elizabeth Masquelette, and William David Masquelette; and six great-grandchildren, Edward Alexander Selig, Brooke Elizabeth Stephens, Valerie Jacqueline Selig, John Gordon Stephens, Olivia Ceil Ramsdell and Hudson Abbott Ramsdell. Other survivors are her niece, Andrea Ruthe Dowlen, and her nephews, Robert O. Dowlen, Jr., and David Simmons Dowlen.

A Requiem Eucharist will be celebrated at two o’clock in the afternoon on Saturday, the 8th of December, at St. Francis Episcopal Church, 345 Piney Point Road in Houston.

In lieu of customary remembrances, memorial contributions may be directed toward St. Francis Episcopal Church, 345 Piney Point Rd., Houston, TX 77024; or to the charity of one’s choice.