After 19 years as minister of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Statesboro, the Rev. Dr. Jane Page retired from the UUFS pulpit with a potluck picnic attended by members and friends Sunday, May 25, and after giving one more annual “Ask Mama Jane” question-box sermon on Mother’s Day.

Page had also helped “the Statesboro U.U.,” or UUFS, her hometown church, celebrate its 40th anniversary in April. Being a Unitarian Universalist minister has been a second career for Page, a Statesboro native who retired the first time, as a professor and department head in Georgia Southern University’s College of Education, back in 2005. She isn’t fully retired as a minister now, but plans to serve two more years as pastor to the Unitarian Universalists of Coastal Georgia in Brunswick. Since 2014 she has divided her time between the Statesboro and Brunswick congregations, serving half-time at each.

Last Sunday’s potluck was held at the Statesboro home of Page and her spouse, Dr. Greg Brock. They and the Statesboro U.U. Fellowship have made a tradition of Memorial Day weekend picnics there, with a pond in front and a walkable labyrinth in a wooded area out back. But 2025’s gathering also served as a retirement party for both, since with the end of the semester Brock also retired as a professor of economics in the Parker College of Business at Georgia Southern.

But the Mother’s Day service on May 11 became a prelude, when questions that members and friends wrote on slips of paper focused mostly on Page’s life and that of the fellowship and topics of retirement and maturity.

One of the first out of the box asked her to talk about some times at UUFS that she will not forget.

Page first recalled her ordination and installation service, which was very well attended and held at the church’s former location on East Grady Street in 2006. At the same time her father, J.G. Altman, was across the street in the care of Ogeechee Area Hospice, and died that September.

“So it was a highly emotional time for me, with all that going on, but some of my minister friends were here to help and show support,” she recalled.

Page, who already held a doctorate in education, had started her seminary training with Meadville Lombard Theological School in 2001 while still teaching at Georgia Southern and completed it in 2006, helping the fellowship “grow its own” minister.

Unrehearsed pageants

Some of her favorite memories are from things that the congregation has done repeatedly, such as the annual Christmas pageant, she said. The pageant is based on the biblical story of Jesus’ birth, and the musical interludes often include traditional carols or hymns sung by the congregation. But always children, and sometimes adults, are recruited at the last minute for the roles from Mary and Joseph to the angels and shepherds.

“I have loved our Christmas pageants, which are unrehearsed, and every year something happens that you just cannot forget,” Page said. “Some years it’s all kids; a lot of times in more recent years many adults participate as well. Those are a couple of things. But all of it’s been treasures, sweet, sweet treasures, as you are.”

The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Statesboro’s current home is at 6762 Cypress Lake Road, beside the bypass. After growing in the purpose-built structure on Grady Street from 1999, the church received a gift of property that included the large metal building on Cypress Lake Road and, after extensive renovations, moved into it in June 2015. Page’s 2025 Mother’s Day talk was given in the sanctuary; the Mind-Body Center, used for yoga and meditation classes and as a social hall, was added at the other end of the building in 2017.

‘Life after 50’

To be clear, Rev. Jane, or just Jane, is only called “Mama Jane” by congregants in reference to the Mother’s Day talks. But someone really got into the mood, asking, “Please Mama Jane, share some wisdom for life after 50.”

“Fifty was so long ago. I’m 74. …,” she began. “Life is so much better, so much better, after 50. One thing, you start accepting a lot of stuff that you can’t control. Instead of trying to fix everything, you say, OK, that’s that. … You have more aches and pains as you get older, but you begin to be able to live more deliberately … and you begin to appreciate it more. It just gets better.”

More than one question concerned her plans for retirement. Page, who doesn’t have the greenest of thumbs, “Y’all know I let plants die,” she said, but who often receives them as gifts, mostly entrusts them to her son John. But she is “listening, watching, and intends to learn about gardening,” she said. Page and Brock also intend to do more traveling. She intends to write more, “maybe not sermons, but … more other things that maybe I didn’t try before.” She has two grandsons and two great-grandchildren and mentioned that the great-grands are moving back to Statesboro.

Voice won’t retire

Under the Unitarian Universalist Association’s guidelines, Page has agreed to stay away from the Statesboro church’s regular services for a year to allow time for new minister to be settled.

“I won’t be your minister, I’m going to back off from that, but I’m not going to go stick my head in a closet and stay there while I’m in Statesboro. …,” she said. “Someone said we’re going to miss your voice in the community when things come up, and I said, ‘My voice is not retiring.’ … I will also continue to be even more involved in social justice and lifting my voice up when I see a reason.”

Some of the causes in which she uses that voice are represented by the Black Lives Matter and rainbow Pride flags seen at the church. With her other congregation, in Brunswick, Page and Brock took a direct role in the hometown protests for justice for the late Ahmaud Arbery, and in showing support for his family.

When Page was asked when she first felt called to be a minister, she spoke of her childhood in a local Baptist church.

“I felt like a minister, I felt like I wanted to be a minister, from the time I was about 12 years old,” she said, “because we had Youth Day, Youth Night or whatever, and we’d take over, and I always ended up being the piano player or the organ player, but I’d never get to be the minister. …  It had to be a guy.”

But that led her first to a career in teaching, and also to look past obstacles such as some churches’ prohibitions on women serving as ministers or deacons, she said.

“It made me look beyond that and think in a wider, bigger way,” she said. “I think that’s what happens sometimes, to some folks who are constrained. Those folks seem sometimes to make more progress in terms of their philosophy of life, in how they treat others.”

During the May 25 potluck, the congregation presented Page and Brock a metal bench with “WELCOME” writ large in the scrollwork. An identical bench was also placed outside the church in their honor.  Longtime member Shari Barr, a friend of Page for 30 years and a pastoral care associate to the church for 12, led in the gift selection.

“Jane models welcoming people, to every circle where she collaborates. …,” Barr said. “I appreciate that both she and Greg invest in our community and promote justice and compassion far beyond our church walls.”