While she was growing up in Mississippi as an only child in a United Methodist home, Swenson felt a "sense of call to preach." She would line up her dolls, grab her father's Bible and a TV tray and then preach to the toys.
In the 1960s, a summer job as a youth director for the United Methodist Church took her to Tacoma, Wash. There, she met Jeff Swenson, a dairy farmer who had been drafted to serve in Vietnam and had returned home.
After a "whirlwind summer romance," she went back to Millsaps College in Jackson, Miss. He followed to court her. They married, then it was back to Tacoma, where she worked as youth director for a United Methodist church while he returned to school, earning a fine arts degree at the University of Puget Sound.
He put her through the seminary by working as a maintenance man and buildings superintendent on the campus.
Since then, Jeff Swenson has always been at her side in a supportive role, the bishop said.
When people ask him, "What do you do?" he answers: "I take care of the bishop."
He is in charge of the Swenson household, including entertaining their many guests. They have no children.
Though they ride bikes and use public transportation to be good stewards of the environment and to be in touch with people, riding has yielded other benefits.
"It's the only time in our lives when we are not interrupted with a lot of demands and requests on us," the bishop said. "It's a very special time -- one of the wonderful things about riding."
