By Ken O'Toole

Headlight-Herald Staff

BAY CITY — As Tillamook County Sheriff's Office chaplains, the husband and wife team of John and Carol Elms of Bay City are, emotionally and spiritually, first responders to the first responders.

They listened as deputies and staff at the Sheriff's Office dealt with the shock of Lt. John Schneidecker's death in a motorcycle accident last July. They comforted a chilled and trembling 13-year-old boy whose father's body had not been recovered following the New Year's Eve capsizing of their boat at the mouth of Tillamook Bay. They knew from experience the revulsion deputies must have experienced in investigating a recent brutal murder and arson in Oceanside.

While Clatsop County-based law enforcement chaplain Jerry Gaidos had been responding to calls in Tillamook County, he mentioned last year to Tillamook County Sheriff Todd Anderson that he knew a couple who might be interested in moving over to the coast to serve as resident chaplains for the Sheriff's Office.

"Their first call-out came when John Schneidecker was killed," Anderson said. "Jerry and John and Carol were here within two hours. They consoled the deputies, troopers and officers who knew John."

When Anderson extended the invitation, the couple recognized it as their calling. They didn't hesitate. Within 18 hours of their decision to take the chaplaincy, they sold their home in Hillsboro. By September, they had settled into Bay City and were on call for their volunteer duties with the Sheriff's Office.

Their new home overlooks Tillamook Bay, but there isn't much time to sit out on the deck savoring the view. There may not be as much time as they'd like to spend with their two grown children and two grandchildren in Portland.

In addition to their Sheriff's Office duties, they are involved with the Oregon Chapter of Concerns of Police Survivors — COPS, for short. She's the vice president. He's the chaplain.

Then there are the three-and-a-half hours every other week they commit to working with children at the Dougy Center in Portland, a center serving the needs of grieving children and families.

As the North Coast Chaplaincy, they are a subsidiary of the Portland area Metro Police Chaplaincy, their fund-raiser organization. They receive duty-related expense compensation from the Sheriff's Office.

"They're kind of a responder and a resource in traumatic times," said Anderson of the couple. He pointed out that police officers see so much of the dark side of life, such as car crashes, suicides, drowning — death in so many forms. While police are charged with keeping order and controlling such situations, it can wear them down.

"The police academy doesn't talk about emotional survival," Anderson said, noting his profession's high rate of suicide, alcoholism and broken marriages.

That's where the chaplain program comes in.

"I was looking for a program that would support law enforcement," Anderson said. "The need has always been there."

Providential timing

The arrival of the Elmses couldn't have been more timely, according to Anderson. The couple began serving before they were officially on board as Sheriff's Office chaplains, he said, "when we had deputies dealing with John's (Schneidecker) death."

The Elmses were there to assure them that the extreme emotions they were experiencing were, in fact, normal, and all right to feel.

The couple has also been useful in providing access to referral services, such as marriage counseling. In addition, Anderson said, "They represent the Sheriff's Office and talk to community groups about what we do."

John Elms, a former police officer himself, knows firsthand the emotional turmoil that accompanies a career in law enforcement. So does Carol, his wife of 36 years.

Portland Police Bureau Det. Scott Chamberlain can attest to that. He met John in 1993, when John was a chaplain with the force.

"Cops can be very cynical," Chamberlain said. "They see a lot of ugliness. John has seen all this — he knows ugliness."

It apparently doesn't faze him.

Chamberlain recalled a time when John was accompanying him on patrol and they encountered an obviously drug-addicted prostitute. "She asked John to pray for her. And he did — right there in the parking lot. He actually initiated the conversation."

Chamberlain knows it can't be easy being a law enforcement chaplain.

"Officers can be very complex," he said, "especially when you're dealing with trauma all the time."

An example came to mind of "a dead body who's a kid. You've got to roll over this kid's body … it can be wrenching."

Yet, he said, "he (John) understands all that. John and Carol have instant credibility."

They know what he means by that.

"Police officers have different needs," Carol said. "They see the worst things — things other people don't see."

"People in the same business know the stresses," John said.

But they make it clear they are not counselors. Carol's higher educational background is in childhood education, for example. But both have been trained in what amounts to peer support.

Carol explained, "If it's bigger than talking through," then they know it's time to refer people to further counseling. They know who to call. "If they're in need, we refer them to a professional counselor."

"It's kind of like triage (sorting out and prioritizing needs)," John went on. "We respond and provide both emotional and spiritual support. We have a list of counselors."

"If a family needs spiritual care, we can refer them to Tillamook County Ministerial Alliance," said Carol. "We find that in tragedies, people go back to reconnect with the church of their youth."

In their work with law enforcement people and their families and victims of tragedies, they also provide trauma information, assuring them that they are actually reacting normally in an abnormal situation. As John expressed it, "They are normal, even though they don't feel normal."

The assurance may be something as simple as making sure traumatized individuals don't drive in that condition, encouraging the troubled to be patient with one another, or just "providing information for them so they can cope," said Carol.

Providing assurance

Their approach works.

Ask Therea Heyn of Salem. She lost her twin sister, Oregon State Trooper Maria Mignano, Sept. 2, 2001. Mignano was one of three officers struck alongside Interstate 5 near Portland, while assisting a family with a disabled van. Another assisting officer, Jason Hoerauf of the Albany Police Department, was also killed. The errant driver, with a suspended license, plea bargained a criminal negligent homicide conviction into two days in jail and three years of probation.

The Elmses were there for Heyn.

"Their understanding and sincerity created a safe emotional environment for me when I was caught up in the shock of traumatic bereavement," Heyn said. "They helped me carry the burdens, and still do. I know, even after four years, that I can call either John or Carol at any time of the day or night, and they will be available for me. Their care and assistance remains a fact of my life, as much as the tragedy that brought us together."

What especially impressed Heyn was their probing, nonjudgmental questioning. They would ask her how she was doing, and she'd reply, "fine." They wouldn't accept that. "Fine" is not a good answer," they would tell her.

"They want to know the truth," Heyn said. "They don't want you to hide behind conventions. They want you to know they really care, and they help you get to the other side."

At the time, Heyn worried that she "wasn't responding emotionally the way I was supposed to. He (John) recognized what I was going through, that I wasn't prepared for the shock or how long it lasts."

Confidentiality, too, is part of the package.

"Our job is to support the (law enforcement) families and protect them," Carol said, adding that in their conversations at these times, "what is shared there, stays there."

Yes, she agreed, smiling, "like in Las Vegas," referring to the city's famous slogan, "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."

Always available

The Elmses favor a low-key approach.

Leslie Hillman of Portland, whose brother, Deputy Marshal Pete Hillman, was killed in the line of duty June 8, 2000, appreciated that.

"They brought me a rose the first time I saw them," she said. "They let me talk and cry and didn't try to ‘fix' anything. They asked if I would like them to accompany me when there was a special service in Portland, and they arranged for Bibles for each of my family members.

It went beyond that.

"They were in Washington, D.C., for Police Week when I went back, and they made themselves available to my sister and me. In years since, they have always offered to take a note to the Memorial Wall for me, and have brought back a photo of the wall with Pete's name and a rose by it. They have also faithfully remembered anniversary dates with a card or call."

Aftermath of tragedy

Much of the Elmses' work has been with disaster child care, whether in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center tragedy, a California earthquake, or following the suicide of a police officer. Children grieve in different ways and, as Carol pointed out, "families don't always have time to deal with this."

Adults build up "protective walls" in dealing with grief, John explained. But with children, "the honesty of grief is very direct."

Referring to one case involving a police officer's suicide, John said, "The mom wanted to protect the child from the fact that dad committed suicide. It took a long process to get this mom to realize she had to tell the child some rudiments of what happened."

Their role as chaplains, John said, is "to help them walk through it."

That was their mission, as well, in working with law enforcement personnel in New York City following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. They talked with some, prayed with others. Their memories of an encounter with one dispatcher is especially vivid.

Even a year after the event, the dispatcher was still traumatized. At one point, a jet flew over the park where they were walking. She instinctively dove under the bench, John said.

"She took one of the last calls from the towers," Carol said.

John added that this woman and other dispatchers "heard the officers' last calls for help, and calls from citizens before they jumped out of the buildings."

When it came time for the Elmses to return home, "they wouldn't let us leave," John recounted of the first responders they had befriended. "They followed us out to the car for Bibles."

Today one of the couple's prized possessions is a copy of a specially illustrated edition Bible called "God's Word for Peace Officers." Its preface pages are jammed with scrawled and carefully scripted autographs of police officers, firefighters, EMTs and dispatchers they'd come to know.

While emotionally gratifying, their kind of ministry can also be draining at times, the Elmses conceded. But they have ways of dealing with that.

"We take classes on how to take care of ourselves," John said.

"We have some great police chaplains we can call on anytime," Carol said.

And there is the recently acquired hot tub, whose roiling, healing massage calms their troubled waters, and restores their perspective.

Part of that perspective, John said, is that "hopefully, we can bring some support to Tillamook County."

On a personal level, Carol said, "You have to have some value in your life — a reason to get up in the morning."

What they have, John said, is a kind of "do no harm ministry of presence — just being there is comforting to people."

Not just for the bad times, but the good times, too — for example, John's officiating at Det. Chamberlain's wedding back in 1999. He and his wife remain in close contact with the Elmses.

"It's just being a part of their lives," Carol said of their law enforcement contacts. She knows all the problems aren't going to be solved, "but hopefully we can help them move on."

John pointed out, "Our mission is not evangelical. It's to provide the cup of cold water," referring to the biblical injunction relating to acts of kindness, however slight.

It's just about "letting people talk and ask questions," Carol said. "It's being available to help them."

The way they see it, she said, "People want to know someone cares. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."

North Coast Chaplaincy may be contacted at P.O. Box 3564, Bay City, OR 97107.