Capers Huffman Limehouse

The Rev. Capers Huffman Limehouse, poet and chaplain, died at home May 22, 2015 in Charleston, SC. She was 65. A Service of Thanksgiving and Celebration for the Life of The Reverend Annelle Capers Huffman Limehouse will be held at Grace Church, 98 Wentworth Street, on Tuesday, May 26, 2015, at 3:00 p.m. A Vigil of Remembrance Service will be held on Monday, May 25, 2015, in St. Stephens Episcopal Church, 67 Anson Street, beginning at 8:00 p.m. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Roper St. Francis Foundation, 125 Doughty Street, Suite 790, Charleston, SC 29403 for the Ryan White Program. Arrangements by J. Henry Stuhr, Inc., Downtown Chapel.

Capers retired in December as a staff chaplain at Roper St. Francis, where she ministered for nine years after being ordained a deacon in the Episcopal Church. She served as deacon assistant at St Marks, Charleston; as deacon & poet-in-residence, she often preached at St. Stephens, Charleston, but viewed her chaplaincy as her vocation. Until she retired, she frequently marched with the palliative care team through the halls of Roper Hospital in her black clericals and stiff white collar, stopping to sit with patients or offer a hug to one of the nurses in her staff support group. She was particularly loved by Roper's HIV/AIDS treatment community for the peer support group and World AIDS Day events she initiated, said Aaron O'Brien, a Roper's Ryan White Community Center program analyst. To honor her years of service and ministry to the Roper St. Francis community, the Ryan White Wellness Center has established the "Capers H. Limehouse Humanitarian Award" and the pastoral care team is reframing the annual ethics conference to become the "Limehouse Bioethics and Humanities Lecture," recognizing the work and interest that both Capers and her husband have done in illuminating the ways in which medicine, ethics, spirituality and the arts intersect.

Capers graduated from Agnes Scott College, in Atlanta, GA, in 1971 with a BA in English. Shortly thereafter, she moved to Charleston and married Walter Limehouse, Jr. While he completed medical school, she taught English at Bishop England High School, served as librarian for Bell Tillman Elementary, then studied art education at Furman University, Greenville SC. During his postgraduate training, they moved to New Haven CT, where daughter, Alice, was born and then to Wilkesboro, NC where their first son, John Nathan, was born. Subsequently, in Providence RI, Capers studied psychology at University of Rhode Island and coordinated an in-patient day program using art at Rhode Island Hospital. In 1981, the family moved to Atlanta, GA, where the couple had their second son, Adam.

Capers co-founded & directed with Daniel Veach, the community arts organization Poetry Atlanta and became founding literary editor of Atlanta Review. Deeply involved in theater and the arts, she received a Georgia Council of the Arts grant to compile a collection of her poetry, Cave Diving. Capers completed a Masters of Fine Arts in 1993 at Georgia State University, where she taught English. After moving back to Charleston in 1995, she also taught at both the College of Charleston & Trident Community College. Capers' poetry has been published in such venues as Christian Century, American Journal of Hospice & Palliative Care Medicine, The Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling, The Journal of Poetry Therapy, The Chattahoochee Review, Greensboro Review, Poem, and Georgia State Review. Atlanta Review will honor her poetry in an upcoming special edition.

Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley CA awarded Capers a Certificate of Anglican Studies on May 22, 2015.

Rev. Limehouse is survived by her beloved husband, Walter, her three children, Alice Limehouse and her husband, Andrew Larrier, John Nathan Limehouse and his wife, Caroline, and Adam Briskin-Limehouse and his wife, Laura, and two grandchildren, Phoebe Ann and Kaleb Mason, and her two step-grandchildren, Marcus and Larry Mason II. She is also survived by her brother, John Huffman.