Village credits Carpenter with making collections more accessible to researchers
Sister June Carpenter, one of the last members of the Shaker religious movement’s only remaining community, died Tuesday, according to The Associated Press. The Associated Press reported that she was in her late 80s. The Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in New Gloucester, Maine, said she had been struggling with health problems and limited mobility. The village announcement said Carpenter was born in 1938 but did not give an exact date.
Carpenter was one of two longtime members of the Sabbathday community, along with Brother Arnold Hadd. A third member joined the community last year. Sabbathday is the last active community in what was once a constellation of Shaker sites founded by the celibate religious movement in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village credited Carpenter, a trained librarian, with organizing and cataloging the village’s extensive collections of history, writings and other records, making them more accessible to researchers. The announcement said this ensured “that the Shakers’ remarkable legacy could be studied and understood for generations to come.”
Born in Boston, Carpenter received a master’s in library sciences from Simmons College and worked as a librarian. She visited Sabbathday in 1988 for the dedication of its library and volunteered to help organize its catalog.
She immediately made an impression. Sabbathday’s announcement quoted its curator, David Richards, as saying: “If the meek are to inherit the earth then she will get the whole thing.”
She joined Sabbathday as a member in 1989.
The Shakers are a celibate Christian movement and an offshoot of the Quakers. Their official name is the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing. The Associated Press described Mother Ann Lee as a visionary immigrant from England who founded the movement in the late 1700s.
By the early 1800s, thousands of adherents lived in Shaker communities across multiple states. As with many early American utopian communities, their ranks diminished after the Civil War, but a small band of Shakers has persisted at Sabbathday to this day.
The Shakers’ influence in the wider culture persists in the legacy of their artfully simple furniture and architecture and in their music, especially the popular melody “Simple Gifts.”
Over the years, Carpenter also enjoyed working in Sabbathday’s gardens, visiting fellow Shakers in nursing homes and taking care of birds and cats in the village. The announcement said: “Sister June will be remembered for her steadfast faith, her kindness toward all living things, and her dedication to the Shaker way of life.”