The Rev. Janet Kelly Brown, Vermont’s first woman to be ordained an Episcopal priest and a clinical psychologist in private practice in Milton and Burlington for 29 years, died on April 5, 2025, after a brief illness. She was 82. A service in celebration of her life will be on May 10, 2025, 11 a.m., at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Burlington, with the Right Rev. Tom Ely presiding. A reception will follow at St. James Episcopal Church in Essex Junction.
Janet was extraordinarily kind and an attentive listener. She found great joy in her love of God and brought an assurance of God’s love to her preaching and her life. “St. Patrick’s Breastplate,” sung at her ordination ceremony, was her favorite hymn, rooted in her deep fondness for her Irish heritage.
She was born in Queens, N.Y., on August 1, 1942, and moved with her parents to Barre at the age of 11 and subsequently to East Calais. A 1960 graduate of Spaulding High School, she received a degree in British literature from Swarthmore College in 1964. In 1965 she received a master of arts degree in teaching from Wesleyan College. That September, she married John R. B. Brown.
John and Janet settled in Montpelier and subsequently bought a house in Woodbury. She taught English at Spaulding High School, where her younger brother, Brian T. Kelly, was a student. John and Janet’s first child, Michael David, was born in December 1969. They moved to Williston in 1970 and had a daughter, Deborah Jean, in September 1971. Janet began graduate-level studies in the 1980s and subsequently received a master of arts in counseling psychology from Antioch University New England in Keene, N.H.
Janet trained for the priesthood by reading for orders. Three priests supported her studies and discernment process: the Rev. George Anderson (St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church, Hardwick), the Rev. David Brown (Christ Episcopal Church, Montpelier) and the Rev. Alexander J. Smith (St. James, Essex Junction). Father Smith was Rector at St. James, from which she was ordained.
Janet made Vermont history on January 6, 1977, when she became the second woman nationwide to be “regularly ordained” under the national Episcopal Church’s ordination canons, which were amended late in 1976 to apply equally to men and women.
During her career, Janet served Vermont parishes in many different capacities for nearly 50 years — in Richford, Milton and Enosburg Falls; and at Grace Episcopal Church in Sheldon, where she served as a priest for more than 20 years. She also was an interim priest for several churches in Vermont and a longtime supply priest. After her retirement in 2023, she returned to St. James as a parishioner.
Janet was integral to several Christian education programs, including Cursillo and the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont’s Rock Point Summer Conferences in Burlington.
Janet is survived by her partner of 37 years, Jean Townsend; her son, Michael Brown, of Jericho; and her daughter, Deborah Brown, and a grandchild, Ell Stryker, of Portland, Ore. She was predeceased by John Brown and her brother, Brian.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to local food banks and food shelves.
This article appears in Apr 9-15, 2025.