Bring, O Past, Your Honor
Unitarian Universalism
and the area that is now
Prairie Star District
a project by
Prairie Star District Unitarian Universalists
Professional Leaders Retreat
April 1986
Ronald Knapp, Editor
Reprinted by
Prairie Star District Heritage and Archives Committee, December 2004
A note on this edition
The Ministers Association of the Prairie Star District of the Unitarian Universalist
Association published Bring O Past Your Honor in 1986. In 2003, members of the UU
Prairie Heritage Task Force electronically scanned the text of a copy of the original version,
made corrections to restore fidelity to the original, and entered text data into an MS Word
file. The intention of the Task Force was to make this work more widely available. Neither
the Heritage Force nor the original authors have updated or otherwise altered content of
the original text.
The pages in the original document were numbered in two sections, I and II. In this
reformatted edition, the pages are all numbered consecutively.
This edition has been formatted further, applying the same typeface and size to each
section, creating a standard page layout, and minimally editing for punctuation, spelling,
and capitalization.
The Prairie Star District Heritage and Archives Committee appreciates the contributions of
Victor Urbanowicz, Carol Jackson, Betty Gorshe, Ann Morton Cunningham, Lowell
Hanson, Gil Hanson, Carolyn Witthuhn, and Dick Shelton.
Rev. Karen Gustafson, chair of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, Prairie
Star District Chapter, authorized this reprint project.
PSD Heritage and Archives Committee
122 W. Franklin Ave., Suite 303
Minneapolis, MN 55404
December 2004
1
BRING, O PAST, YOUR HONOR
Bring, O Past, your honor: bring, O Time, your harvest,
Golden sheaves of hallowed lives and minds by Truth made free;
Come, you faithful spirits, builders of this temple:
“To Holiness, to Love, and Liberty.”
Ring, in glad thanksgiving, bell of grief and gladness,
Forth to town and prairie let our festal greeting go,
Voices long departed in your tones re-echo:
“Praise to the Highest, Peace to all below.”
Church of pure reformers, pioneers undaunted,
Bivouac of comrades sworn to keep our spirits free;
Long o’er life’s swift river, preach the eternal gospel:
Faith, hope, and love for all humanity.
– Charles H. Lyttle
PREFACE
Every April, during the week following Easter, the professional leaders of the Prairie Star
District—Ministers and Directors of Religious Education—get together for purposes of fellowship
and continuing education. In April 1986, Melissa Helgesen, DRE at First Unitarian Church in
Omaha, and I were in charge of the program, and we decided to focus the group’s attention on the
history of liberal religion in the area now the Prairie Star District.
This little book is an outgrowth of that meeting. Since there is little material on the history of our
district available in most church libraries, the professional leaders decided that the essays
presented at the meeting, along with brief histories of churches and fellowships in the district, would
be published and sent to every society in the District. The five essayists each submitted
“photo-ready” copies for the project. Every church and fellowship in the district was also asked to
submit a one-page, photo-ready history of their society. The final product, resulting from a wide
variety of typefaces and the necessity of reducing a number of submissions, lacks uniformity, but it
is the best we could come up with, given our limited resources. Although there is no attempt to be
comprehensive, it is hoped that churches and fellowships will find this little book helpful in
understanding and appreciating both the history of liberal religion in our area and our contributions
to the larger Unitarian Universalist movement.
I would personally like to thank all of those who contributed to this project: the essayists, the artists
from the Omaha church, and the people from churches and fellowships who wrote and submitted
brief histories. I would particularly like to express appreciation to Alan Egly, who assisted in the
drawn out task of securing histories from almost all of the churches and fellowships; to Camie, the
district office secretary, who retyped a number of the manuscripts; and to Maurice Jay, office
secretary at First Unitarian Church of Omaha, who did a lot of work in getting this material ready for
publication.
Ronald Knapp
Omaha, Nebraska, April 1987
2
PART 1: A Collection of Essays .................................................................... 1
Universalists on the Prairie .......................................................................................................................................... 1
Theme ...................................................................................................................................................................... 1
Background .............................................................................................................................................................. 1
Prairie States (1830–1860)....................................................................................................................................... 2
Universalism From 1865–1900................................................................................................................................ 2
Prairie States (1865–1900)....................................................................................................................................... 3
Turn of the Century.................................................................................................................................................. 4
Early Twentieth Century on the Plains .................................................................................................................... 4
The Withering—Why?............................................................................................................................................. 4
Resources ................................................................................................................................................................. 6
Women Ministers in the Prairie Star District ............................................................................................................... 7
Humanism on the Plains ............................................................................................................................................ 13
Ever Onward and Upward: A History of Religious Education in the Prairie Star District ....................................... 17
Religious Education and the Prairie Star District Organization............................................................................. 25
Bibliography .......................................................................................................................................................... 26
Devotional Literature from Plain and Prairie............................................................................................................. 27
I. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................ 27
II. Hymns for the Celebration of Life .................................................................................................................... 29
III. The Blue Hymnal and the Red Hymnal: A Contrast........................................................................................ 31
IV. Responsive Readings and Great Companions ................................................................................................. 31
V. The Western Conference and “Things Commonly Believed Among Us” ........................................................ 32
VI. Unity Hymns and Chorals................................................................................................................................ 34
VII. Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................... 36
VIII. Resources ...................................................................................................................................................... 36
PART 2: Congregation Histories................................................................. 37
IOWA ........................................................................................................................................................................ 37
Ames ...................................................................................................................................................................... 37
Burlington .............................................................................................................................................................. 38
Cedar Falls ............................................................................................................................................................. 39
Cedar Rapids.......................................................................................................................................................... 40
Clinton ................................................................................................................................................................... 41
Davenport............................................................................................................................................................... 43
Des Moines ............................................................................................................................................................ 44
Dubuque................................................................................................................................................................. 45
Iowa City................................................................................................................................................................ 46
Mason City............................................................................................................................................................. 47
Sioux City .............................................................................................................................................................. 48
KANSAS ................................................................................................................................................................... 49
Lawrence................................................................................................................................................................ 49
Overland Park ........................................................................................................................................................ 50
Shawnee Mission ................................................................................................................................................... 51
Topeka ................................................................................................................................................................... 52
Wichita................................................................................................................................................................... 53
MINNESOTA............................................................................................................................................................ 54
Angora ................................................................................................................................................................... 54
Bloomington .......................................................................................................................................................... 55
Brainerd ................................................................................................................................................................. 56
Duluth .................................................................................................................................................................... 57
Excelsior ................................................................................................................................................................ 58
Hanska ................................................................................................................................................................... 58
3
Mankato ................................................................................................................................................................. 59
Minneapolis (FUS)................................................................................................................................................. 60
Minneapolis (First Universalist) ............................................................................................................................ 61
Minnetonka (Wayzata)........................................................................................................................................... 62
Rochester ............................................................................................................................................................... 63
St. Cloud ................................................................................................................................................................ 64
St. Paul ................................................................................................................................................................... 65
Underwood............................................................................................................................................................. 66
Virginia .................................................................................................................................................................. 67
White Bear (Mahtomedi) ....................................................................................................................................... 68
Willmar .................................................................................................................................................................. 69
MISSOURI ................................................................................................................................................................ 70
Kansas City ............................................................................................................................................................ 70
NEBRASKA.............................................................................................................................................................. 71
Lincoln ................................................................................................................................................................... 71
Omaha (1) .............................................................................................................................................................. 72
Omaha (2) .............................................................................................................................................................. 74
NORTH DAKOTA.................................................................................................................................................... 75
Bismarck ................................................................................................................................................................ 75
Fargo ...................................................................................................................................................................... 76
SOUTH DAKOTA .................................................................................................................................................... 77
Brookings............................................................................................................................................................... 77
Sioux Falls ............................................................................................................................................................. 78
Rapid City .............................................................................................................................................................. 79
WISCONSIN ............................................................................................................................................................. 80
Eau-Claire .............................................................................................................................................................. 80
Menomonie ............................................................................................................................................................ 81
Rice Lake ............................................................................................................................................................... 82
4
PART 1: A Collection of Essays
Universalists on the Prairie
By Jeremy J. Brigham, Cedar Rapids, Iowa for presentation at the Prairie Star District Professional Leaders Meeting,
April, 1986
Theme
The theme of this paper is the planting, flowering, and withering of Universalism as a denomination in the
Prairie States—Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota. To
understand the growth of Universalism at all, we need to understand the appeal of the Prairie States to New
Englanders in the period after 1830. It was a prime agricultural area, in the northern part of the country, which
would be sympathetic to the style of personal integrity of these people—anti-slavery, temperance, woman’s
rights, positive outlook on the human career. The debates that characterized New England and upstate New
York would be shifted west of the Mississippi. My thesis is that Universalism grew in the early stages
(1830–1860) in reaction to theological damnation, which was perceived as morally repugnant. It flowered in
the period from the Civil War to the beginning of the 20th century. This had to do with the conjunction of its
positive view of the human career and the encouragement to women to enter its ministry. It withered in the
period from 1900 to 1930 and beyond because of growing urbanization, the rise of a male-dominated work
force and ministry, and the great dashing of hopes for humanity caused by the event of World War I. The
growing strength of Unitarianism was also a factor in the downfall of Universalism.
Background
What needs to be said about Universalism? I will assume some common understandings of the role of George
de Benneville in the Philadelphia area, of John Murray in New England, of Elhanon Winchester up and down
1
the East Coast, all in the 18th century. I will assume an understanding of the rural character of Universalists,
and an awareness of the major conflict about Universalists at the beginning of the 19th century, between the
Restorationists and the Death and Glory Universalists. Will the soul pay for the sins of the body?
I will assume an awareness of the method of extension practiced by the Universalists—circuit-riding on the
frontier. I am assuming more, also, in order to get on to the story of Universalism on the Prairie, our chief topic
of interest today.
Prairie States (1830–1860)
Two events of significance to Universalism occurred in the Prairie States in 1838—both of them in Iowa. One
was the arrival of Abner Kneeland in southeastern Iowa, where he established his utopian commune,
“Salubria.” The other was the gathering of Universalists in the then-state capital, Iowa City. Three years later a
pair of events in the same places is of further significance. In 1841 Salubria folded and the Universalists in
Iowa City organized.
This is important because Kneelandism became the point of attack for the Methodist revivalist, Peter
Cartwright. Kneelandism was the godless atheism Cartwright came to cleanse Iowa of. The Universalism in
Iowa City became the center point for its further growth in Iowa.
To understand the place of Universalism, we need to understand that Methodism and Congregationalism were
the dominant pioneering denominations to enter the area: Methodists through camp meetings and itinerant
ministers; Congregationalists by establishing an “academy” in Denmark in southeastern Iowa; and through the
“Iowa Band,” graduates of Yale who came to Iowa and settled over churches, serving often 30–40 years. These
two denominations characterize the dilemma Presbyterians, who cooperated with the Congregationalists in
those years, often face—that between “order” and “ardor.”
Universalists, on the other hand, adopted the method of the Methodists in using circuit riders, but instead of
rousing camp meetings, they would hold public debates seeking to demonstrate a superior understanding of the
Bible over against whatever opponents would accept the challenge of the debate. The Universalists also
depended on publishing books and pamphlets as a way of carrying their word to the larger public.
Two of the early circuit-riding public debaters were T. H. Eaton and Erasmus Manford. Manford in 1873
published 25 Years in the West, in which he describes this method and its effect. He had traveled from Ohio to
Kansas, from Minnesota to Missouri, braving the elements and the arguments.
Based on information in Dorothy Grant’s 1964 study, Universalism in Iowa, 1830–1963, 19 societies were
organized in Iowa by 1865. There were doubtless other groups, perhaps without buildings, which organized
during that period. In other states the only Universalist church I know established during this time was the First
Universalist Church in Minneapolis, established in 1859.
Universalism From 1865–1900
Hosea Ballou had died in 1852. His son Hosea Ballou II carried on the family leadership in Universalism, and
became its first historian. Adin Ballou, a cousin, founded Hopedale, and promoted non-violent resistance,
contributing to its use and promotion by Tolstoy, Gandhi, and M. L. King, Jr., and current leaders in the
Philippines and South Africa. Horace Greeley founded the New York Tribune in 1841 and promoted all forms
of social reform leading up to his presidential race against U.S. Grant in 1872. Losing the election, he also lost
2
his mind and died shortly thereafter. Still, prior to 1872, he was a leading figure on the Universalist scene,
helping them shift from a primarily theological stance increasingly toward a universal brotherhood, social
reform stance.
A major characteristic of Universalism in this period was its receptivity toward women as ministers. Lombard
College in Galesburg, Illinois, became the first college to accept women as students when it opened in 1851.
Other Universalist colleges were among the leaders in accepting women as students, and Universalist
conventions were the first to ordain women into the ministry. Olympia Brown, Antoinette Blackwell, and
Augusta Jane Chapin are among the best known figures in this movement.
Less well known is the involvement of Julia Ward Howe. We remember her primarily as the author of the
poem “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” However, she was a major figure in the organization of woman’s
clubs during the period after the Civil War. She also provided leadership for the establishment of the Woman’s
Ministerial Conference in 1874, working together with Olympia Brown and others. This nationally known
figure provided tremendous support and encouragement to women who sought a more prominent role in public
life.
The role of Unitarian/Quaker Susan B. Anthony, Universalist Clara Barton’s work, and Unitarian Dorothea
Dix in leading the fight for woman’s suffrage and social reforms is intricately connected to the rise of
Universalism in the Prairie States. Further, we should not overlook the prominence of Mary Livermore, who
was tremendously encouraging to the aspirations of women in the Universalist ministry. When we look at the
interconnections between these people, the dynamism of their lives and the times is palpable.
The role of women contributed considerably to the rise of Universalism in the Prairie States in the latter third of
the 19th century.
Prairie States (1865–1900)
After the Civil War the nation began to move into a new phase of life. The Prairie States were directly in the
path of some of the greatest growth at this period of our history. The population of Iowa, for instance, grew
from about half a million in 1865, to one and a half million in 1875, and over two million by 1900. The other
states grew at a similar rate.
The Universalists grew also during this period, sprouting all over the prairie. Often the churches were small,
serving only a handful of families. They were under attack by other denominations and, drawing from their
tradition of public debate, attacked in return. Fiercely independent, it was difficult to form state conventions
with any clout, let alone national organizations. It was hard to raise money to pay the ministers, or to support
the theological schools. The 1870s were a time of financial crisis, with many banks closing in panic,
compounding the problem.
One of the strengths during this time (primarily 1865–1915) was the role of women in the denomination. In the
1975 study of the Universalist Historical Society, 24 women are listed who at one time or another served
churches or were ordained in the Prairie States, most of them in Iowa, but some in Minnesota, Missouri,
Nebraska, and Kansas. Women ministers were also involved in attempts to establish churches in Sioux Falls,
South Dakota and Fargo, North Dakota.
Many of these women shared a position with their husbands, and some continued on after their husbands died
or if single continued in lay positions after marriage.
3
Among these churches are Mitchellville, Boone, Mt. Pleasant, Manchester, Osage, and Waterloo in Iowa; in
Minnesota were Albert Lea, Olmsted, Rochester, Anoka, and Owatonna; in Kansas, Concordia, Delphos, and
Seneca; there was one woman each in Nebraska and Kansas who carried on circuit-riding efforts for several
years. Women were instrumental in establishing a Universalist church in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1870, but
financial problems overwhelmed it in the 1890s. Unitarians took over the property when they organized in
1898.
Some of the women served several churches and helped to build a sense of community and continuity in the
region. Among them were Augusta Jane Chapin, who served Mt. Pleasant in 1868–69, Iowa City in 1870–74,
and Omaha in 1894–96; Mary Garard Andrews, in Mitchellville and Boone, Iowa in the 1880s; Sophonia L.
Burch Watson Cram, in Boone and Manchester in the 1890s; Jennie Lyon Bartholomew Hitchcock, Laddonia,
Missouri, and Boone, Mitchellville, and Osage, Iowa, in the early 1900s; Effie McCollum Jones, Waterloo in
the 1890s with her husband, then as a widow from 1904–1916, and later in Webster City from 1922 to her
death in 1952; and Laura Bowman Galer in Mitchellville in the ’10s and in Mt. Pleasant from 1922–49. Many
of the women served Iowa churches early in their careers and then went West and East to larger communities or
went into other educational or publishing careers.
Unfortunately, the story of the male ministers of the same time is not nearly so well told, or I have not found the
resources for it. Here lies a project for the future!
Turn of the Century
Nationally, there were some shifts in ground among the Unitarians and Universalists that affected the growth
and direction of each of them.
The World Parliament of Religions was held in Chicago in 1893. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Executive Secretary of
the Western Conference of Unitarians, was a leading figure there. Augusta Jane Chapin was also one of the
directors and organizers. After this, Unitarians moved more in the direction of seeking a common basis for
religion across the world. Universalists, however, began to move back in the direction of a Christian-centered
religious expression.
Early Twentieth Century on the Plains
In Iowa the Unitarians and Universalists began to have triennial joint state conventions, often in Boone. At this
point the number of Unitarian and Universalist churches was about the same—eight each.
Records of the conventions of 1911 and 1914, found at the State Historical Society, are instructive. Topics
considered were social settlements, missionary movements, the Bible and Jesus in the life of today, and a
consideration of “What is the Matter with the Church?” Participants in 1911 included Joseph Fort Newton of
Cedar Rapids and Johnson Brigham of Des Moines, the state librarian and a cousin of Brigham Young. In
1914, churches represented among the trustees were Webster City, Boone, Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Mt.
Pleasant, Osage, and Mitchellville. The major address was given by Jenkin Lloyd Jones, “The Gates to the
Future Stand Wide Open.”
The Withering—Why?
What brought about the withering of the Universalist churches?
4
One factor that may relate to the decline of Universalism is the growth of the lodges—Freemasons, Odd
Fellows, and others. Henry Lafayette Gillespie wrote a pamphlet in 1910 comparing the relative size of
Universalists and Freemasons, finding them parallel up to 1850, but with the Masons greatly superior by 1900.
Their philosophy paralleled the Universalists in some regards, but Gillespie found them narrow. Their appeal
was to men, their charity was limited to their members, their meetings were closed and secret. Gillespie pointed
out how it was the lodge men who made the decision to close down some of the struggling churches in small
communities—Strawberry Point, Manchester, and Greeley, Iowa, for example.
Universalism came to the Prairie States as the frontier opened up. It debated other religions, but never
successfully established the organization necessary to sustain itself and continue to grow. Following the Civil
War, it often preached a social reform message and was strengthened by being the only denomination women
could preach in until the Unitarians began to accept women. At the time of the Unitarian Iowa Sisterhood, the
women Universalists were also strong in the area. But with the demoralization of First World War,
urbanization, and the westward movement drawing youth away from the Prairie States, and possibly the
growth of the lodges drawing on Universalist theology but narrowing it, Universalism entered into distinct
decline.
Probably the greatest problem it had was its own lack of clear and coherent response to the times as they
changed. Some Universalists aimed for universal brotherhood, others sought to spread Universalism as a
Christian denomination worldwide, and still others sought to spread the social gospel.
After 1900, there were no more new Universalist churches in the Prairie States and a rapid dying off of many.
The Cedar Rapids church, begun as Universalists, went through a liberal Christian phase under Joseph Fort
Newton from 1908–17, and became Unitarian in 1928. The Waterloo church merged in 1962 with the Cedar
Falls Unitarian fellowship. Universalist churches in smaller communities found other routes. The church in Mt.
Pleasant merged with the Congregationalists. The church in Mitchellville sold its property to the state of Iowa
to use for weddings, funerals, and other appropriate functions. The church in Webster City continued longest,
finally becoming inactive about 1980. Thus the era of Universalism in Iowa drew to a close, leaving behind a
legacy of much excitement, challenge, and in the first half of the twentieth century, a warm family feeling. It is
an important part of our heritage, from which we can gain strength.
5
Resources
Background material
•
American Universalism, by George Huntston Williams, 1971.
•
American Universalism, by Elmo Arnold Robinson, 1970. Exposition Press, New York, 1970.
•
Unitarianism and Universalism, by Henry Cheetham, Beacon Press, Boston, 1961.
Historical documents
•
25 Years in the West (1847–1872), by Erasmus Manford. 1873.
•
The Universalist Church and Freemasonry, by Henry Lafayette Gillespie, 1910.
•
“The Roll o’ Honor,” A. C. Edmunds, 1969.
•
“He Was a Starter But Got No Further” by George C. Belknap in the Oregon Historical Society
Journal, Summer, 1983.
•
“Unitarian and Universalist Women Ministers,” in The Journal of the Universalist Historical Society,
1975.
•
Julia Ward Howe, 1819–1910, by Laura E. Richards and Maud Howe Elliott, 1925, Houghton Mifflin,
New York.
•
Universalism and Its Interpretation of Christianity, by Frank W. Miller.
•
The New Social Consciousness Being Brought Out by the War, by Frank W. Miller.
•
Census Statistics, 1926.
Contemporary studies of Universalist history
•
Universalism in Iowa, 18301963 by Dorothy Grant, 1964.
•
The Peoples Church, Cedar Rapids, Iowa (1975), course paper by Pamela J. Edwards, Mt. Mercy
College, 1975.
•
Elva Tucker’s U of Iowa Thesis on Universalism in Iowa, 1843–1943, (referred to by Dorothy Grant
and Pamela Edwards).
Interviews
•
Interviews with Bob Miller (son of Frank Miller), March 1986.
6
Women Ministers in the Prairie Star District
Essay by Carol Hepokoski
The Universalists and the Unitarians were among the first denominations to begin recognizing women as
ministers. In 1863, Olympia Brown was ordained by the Universalists. Eight years later, Celia Burleigh was
ordained by the Unitarians. From that time until the 1920s, there was an increase in Unitarian and Universalist
women ministers. Many of them served smaller churches in the outlaying areas as missionary ministers. This
essay will focus on two examples of this missionary minister phenomenon in the Prairie Star District. First, an
overview will be given of the Iowa Sisterhood, a group of women ministers who organized churches in Iowa
and throughout the District in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Then, we will turn our attention
to the life story and ministry of one particular woman missionary minister from northern Minnesota—the
Reverend Milma Lappala—who worked with Finnish American immigrants. Finally, there will be a few
concluding remarks about the contemporary position of women ministers in our District.
Catherine Hitchings in Universalist and Unitarian Women Ministers writing about Helen Grace Putnam:1
Learning North Dakota was in need of missionary workers, she went to Jamestown where her
first sermon was given in a hall over a saloon. Living in a hotel in Jamestown until it burned, and
afterwards in Fargo, she traveled as much as possible giving lectures and services wherever she
could find the space. …Travel conditions were poor and uncomfortable, waits in railroad stations
long and roads muddy or dusty depending on the weather. … She would often give services
several days in a row before moving on to another community. … Preaching, handing out
religious literature, caring and cooking for the sick if needed, she was deeply appreciated. …
7
One of the most highly acclaimed missionary efforts in our Unitarian Universalist heritage is that of the Iowa
Sisterhood. This group of women, through the leadership of the Reverends Mary Safford, Eleanor Gordon, and
Eliza Wilkes are credited with organizing eighteen societies throughout the Midwest. Their formation was
influenced by the Women’s Ministerial Conference, organized by Julia Ward Howe and others in 1875, and
their missionary efforts were encouraged by the Western Women’s Unitarian Conference and the leadership of
the Iowa Unitarian Association. The results of their efforts strengthened the Iowa Unitarian Association until,
according to church historian Charles H. Lyttle, it attained a degree of spiritual integration and financial
independence that was unequaled throughout the denomination.2 It should be noted, too, that every Unitarian
parish in Iowa, except Davenport, has been served by a woman minister.3
The leading force within the Iowa Sisterhood was Mary Augusta Safford. She organized seven societies
throughout her ministry, and she encouraged other women into the missionary ministry. She began her
organizing with a Unitarian church in Hamilton, Ill. in 1878. She moved on to Humboldt, Iowa, in 1880. From
1885 to 1899, she was based in Sioux City, where, assisted by her friend the Reverend Eleanor Gordon, she
helped form an active and vigorous congregation. Safford moved next to Des Moines, where she served from
1899 to 1910, revitalizing the church building and congregation. In addition to her parish work, she held
leadership positions in regional and national Unitarian associations. She served as chaplain in the Iowa state
legislature. She also was president of the Iowa Suffrage Association and lectured widely on women’s rights,
philosophy, and poetry. She understood her role as missionary minister, strengthening struggling societies and
creating new ones.4
Eleanor Gordon followed her life-long friend Mary Safford into the Unitarian ministry. After assisting Safford
in Sioux City from 1889–1896, she moved on to serve parishes in Iowa City (1896–90), Burlington (1900–02),
Fargo, N. D. (1902–04), and Des Moines (1904–06). Safford and Gordon published the missionary magazine
Old and New for many years through the Iowa Unitarian Association. They retired together to Orlando,
Florida, where they (as a matter of course) organized a Unitarian society in 1912.
Another very active member of the Iowa Sisterhood was Eliza Tupper Wilkes. She founded eight societies,
primarily in South Dakota and Minnesota, served as director of the Iowa Unitarian Conference, and secretary
of the Post Office Missions of St. Paul, Minnesota. Like her other “Iowa Sisters,” she recommended and
trained women to the missionary ministry.
Other women ministers who are considered to be part of the Iowa Sisterhood are: Martha Chapman Aitken,
Mary Leggett Cooke, Caroline Bartlett Crane, Mary Graves, Marie Jenney Howe, Ida Hultin, Marion
Murdoch, Anna Jane Norris, and Helen Grace Putnam.5 They organized and served parishes in Nebraska,
Kansas, Colorado, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Ohio in addition to Iowa. (See notes at the
end of this essay for a listing of dates and places served.) Some of these women served in co-ministries with
husbands or female friends. Many were active in the women’s suffrage movement. Several were involved in
leadership positions within regional denominational associations. Many endured great hardships and low
salaries as missionary ministers on the Western frontier. Collectively, they helped extended liberal religion
into the Prairie states.
Milma Lappala, from a sermon preached December 29, 1940:
Be still, and hear the voice calling from the depths of your own heart-—arise and be a co-worker
with the ever-creative spirit and powers that are molding the human life and building the
kingdom of Heaven upon the earth.6
8
Milma Lappala is a name that is known and loved by many Finnish Americans with roots in northern
Minnesota’s Iron Range. She was a liberal religious minister who, along with her husband Risto, served the
Unitarian congregations of Virginia and Alango during the first half of the twentieth century. Milma Lappala
was known for her eloquent speaking and her warm community-building personality. She was a “free thinker,”
dedicated to liberal Christian theology, to social justice for women and workers, and to the preservation of the
Finnish heritage in America. In the midst of her active ministry she also raised a family of four children.
Milma Tikkanen Lappala was born in 1879 in Kuopio, a central Finnish town with an unusually rich cultural
and intellectual life. In her young adulthood, she immigrated to America, working as a domestic worker for
several years on the East Coast. One of her childhood goals was to become a missionary to China, and it was
with this in mind that she entered seminary, graduating in 1906 from Lay College for the Ministry in Revere,
Massachusetts. It was there that she met and later married Risto Lappala, a congregational minister.
The early years of their marriage were marked by continued missionary work and a movement toward a more
liberal theology. Eventually, and amidst much controversy, they both left the Finnish Congregational church,
with Risto joining the Unitarian ministry. On one of their westward trips, they were invited to speak on liberal
religion in the Finnish Temperance Hall in Virginia, Minnesota, some sixty miles north of Duluth. They were
well received and in the fall of 1911, they were asked to return to Virginia to help establish a liberal church
there. A year later, the new church building was completed and the church named “Vapaa Kristillinen
Kirkko”—the Liberal Christian Church. Risto’s salary was paid in part by the Department of New Immigrants
of the American Unitarian Association.
The Finnish Unitarians described themselves as a “free thinking” people. The Bible and Christian traditions
formed the basis of their theology, but they were left free to define their own religious understandings, not
bound by theological dogma. This was a radical idea to the Finnish American religious community at the time
and a very much-welcomed idea to some. It freed them to integrate religion with contemporary philosophy and
socialist thinking and provided a spiritual community as well.
During the early years of the Virginia Church, Milma—in addition to raising a family of four
children—became involved in a variety of parish and community activities. Milma served the church by
helping to organize the Sunday school and the Ladies Alliance, and by serving on the church board of directors.
She also organized the first “mission” of the church: The Alango Unitarian Church, founded in 1916, some
twenty miles to the north. It was at this time that Milma was ordained. Risto also was involved in missionary
work, making periodic trips to Finnish communities in Montana and Utah.
Risto died at the age of forty in 1923. Milma spoke at her husband’s funeral and soon was called upon to serve
as minister for the Virginia church. By all accounts she was a popular and personable pastor. She was often
called upon to do funerals of the “unchurched.” Her reputation is that of an eloquent and dramatic preacher:
“She could get the devil to join the church if she tried hard enough.”7 Most of her sermons were in Finnish,
with occasional English sermons, especially for the young people. Her sermons bear witness to her ability to
create images, which carried her liberal Christian and humanistic message. Many times the source of that
imagery was the natural world.8
During Milma’s tenure as pastor, the church was alive with activities of the church school, the Ladies Alliance,
the men’s organization, and other social events. Members of the church still talk about the fun they used to
have in the days Milma was around: the potluck suppers, Halloween parties, winter sliding, costume parties,
9
summer picnics, and midsummer activities. They remember, too, the fundraising with pannukakku (oven
pancake) suppers, doughnut sales, seasonal teas, and bake sales.
Throughout her ministry, Milma faced financial hardship. Her salary from the two small churches was
supplemented somewhat by the American Unitarian Association. She retired from full-time service to the
Virginia church in the early 1940s, when a young English-speaking minister was hired. In 1945, she married
her long time friend, Matti Erkkila. She continued to preach at the Alango Church until her death in 1950.
Several other, more personal notes must be added to this brief retelling of Milma Lappala’s life. She was a
woman who almost always had a knitting project with her: the story is told of how at committee and board
meetings she would be knitting, sometimes a suit for herself, sometimes an article of clothing for her children.
She was a weaver too—making the curtains for her home and fabric for her clothes. She had a reputation as an
artist for the pictures she painted. The pioneer hardships of her life impress our late twentieth century ears:
stories are told of how she rode by train and sleigh in below zero weather to speak to a group of rural farmers,
and of how she performed funeral services at the graveside when it was fifty below zero. She was, of course,
one of the pioneers in her choice as a woman to enter the ministry. One of my favorite images is that of her
nursing her baby during breaks in the confirmation class she was teaching one summer.
These two examples—the Iowa Sisterhood and Milma Lappala—illustrate the kind of ministry that early
Unitarian and Universalist women ministers often were engaged in. Typically they worked in rugged
conditions for low pay: it seems they were willing to take positions for missionary service where married
clergymen found the stipends too meager.9
From the 1920s through the 1960s, there were fewer Unitarian and Universalist women ministers, the decline
following the American pattern for women in most professions. With the rise of the contemporary women’s
movement, women in numbers greater than ever before are entering the parish ministry. Of the five-hundred
parish ministers affiliated with the UUA today, about one-hundred are women. In the Prairie Star District, there
are nine women among the 23 parish ministers—most of these women serve on a part-time basis in the smaller
churches of our District. Undoubtedly the causes of this phenomenon are complex and an analysis of the
situation of contemporary UU women ministers is beyond the scope of this essay. Hopefully we are in a
transitional period, moving toward a time when we realize a more equitable position of women in our ministry.
Notes
1. Catherine F. Hitchings, “Universalist and Unitarian Women Ministers,” The Journal of the Universalist
Historical Society, v.x, 1975, p.124. Much of the information about the Iowa Sisterhood in this essay is drawn
from Hitchings’ volume.
2. Charles H. Lyttle, Freedom Moves West: A History of the Western Unitarian Conference 1852–1952,
Beacon Press, Boston, p.149.
3. Hitchings, p.5.
4. Hitchings, p.129.
5. Hitchings, p.129.
6. Milma Lappala, “Religion As Experience,” sermon preached at First Unitarian Church, Virginia, MN, Dec.
29, 1940. From a collection of unpublished manuscripts donated by Paul Lappala, currently in the author’s
possession, to be placed in a public archival facility. The Lappala segment of this essay is excerpted from the
10
article by the author, “On the Life of Milma Lappala,” to be published in 1986 in an anthology of Finnish
American women writers. The author wishes to acknowledge an unpublished manuscript by Clara Stocker,
entitled “Biography of a Free Spirit,” written in the 1950s. Additional oral history research was conducted by
the author with a grant from the U.U. Women’s History Reclamation Project.
7. First Unitarian Church, Virginia, MN, “History of the Virginia Unitarian Church,” Sunday morning
program, 1978(?). (Tape recorded.)
8. The collection of unpublished sermons, in English and Finnish, is scheduled to be placed at the Iron Range
Research Center, Chisholm, MN.
9. Lyttle, p.149.
THE IOWA SISTERHOOD
Martha Chapman Aitken
Cedar Falls Unitarian Church
Missionary work, Ill., Wis.
1889–90
Mary Leggett Cooke
Beatrice, Neb.
Ord, Neb.
1887–90
1907–08
Caroline Bartlett Crane
Sioux Falls, S.D.
Kalamazoo, Mich.*
Grand Rapids, Mich.
1886–89
1889–99
1901–02
Eleanor E. Gordon
Sioux City, ass’t.
Iowa City
Burlington
Fargo, N.D.
Des Moines
Orlando Fla.*
1889–96
1896–1900
1900–02
1902–04
1904–06
1912–18
Mary Graves
Services in Peoria, Earlville, Ill.
Baraboo, Wis.
Sec’ty, Western Unitarian Conf.
early 1870s
1881–84
Ida Hultin
Algona
Des Moines
Moline, Ill.
1884–86
1886–91
1891-98
Marion Murdock
Humboldt
Kalamazoo, Mich.
Cleveland, Ohio
1885–90
1890–91(?)
1893–99
Anna Jane Norris
North Platte, Neb.
Fort Collins, Colo.*
1882–84
1883–87
Helen Grace Putnam
Preached in Huron, S.D.
Missionary in S.D.
1889
11
THE IOWA SISTERHOOD
Mary Augusta Safford
Hamilton, Ill.*
Humboldt* & Algona*
Sioux City*
Des Moines
Cherokee* & Washta*
Ida Grove & Odebolt, & Winside, Neb.*
1878
1880
1885–99
1899–1910
1894
1895
Eliza Tupper Wilkes
Neenah & Manasha, Wis.
Rochester, Minn.
Sioux Falls, S.D.*
Luverne, Minn.*
Huron, S.D.*
Madison, S.D.*
Miner, S.D. *
Rock Rapids*
Adrian, Minn.*
Palo Alto, Cal.
1867–69
1870–73
1877–85
1886–92
1888–90
1888–92
1887–88(?)
late 1880s
early 1890s
1895
*Organized or founded.
The communities listed are in Iowa, unless otherwise noted.
Compiled by Carol Hepokoski, based on Catherine F. Hitchings, “Universalist and Unitarian Women
Ministers,” The Journal of the Universalist History Society, 1975.
12
Humanism on the Plains
April 1, 1986
A paper by Alan L. Egly shared at the Prairie Star District (UUA) Professional Religious Leaders Conference
Humanism was the basic thrust of Unitarian and Universalist congregations of the Plains long before the term
was placed in opposition to theism in a controversy. Koren Arisian writes, “Humanist grounding was implicit
in Unitarianism from its earliest beginnings, but had not been under-scored in a world given to theological
interpretations of the meaning of life.”1 That understanding is basic to my presentation today.
A narrower concept of humanism would date the practice and spread of religious humanism to the time of the
ministries of Curtis W. Reese and John H. Dietrich. Mason Olds points to that in his book Religious Humanism
in America.2 I quote:
The theocratic view of the world order is autocratic. The humanistic view is democratic. In the
theocratic order God is the autocrat; and under him are various minor autocrats, called divinities,
angels, spirits, fairies, demons and the like. In the democratic order the people are the rulers of
their own affairs, and above them are no autocrats, supreme or minor, whose favor they must
carry.
Next, Reese maintained that theocratic religion looks to God for aid in solving problems,
whereas democratic religion says that man must solve his own problems. In other words “the
method of conveyance in democratic religion is human effort, not divine intervention.” Also,
Reese continued, theocratic religion seeks the kingdom of God beyond history, but democratic
religion seeks the ”democracy of humanity” in history, that is, the end sought by democratic
13
religion is human welfare, whereas, according to the Westminster divines, “the chief end of man
is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”
Finally, Reese said that autocratic religion is primarily concerned with “other-worldliness,” whereas
democratic religion is mainly concerned with “this worldliness.” Democratic religion advocates: “seize the
‘eternal-now,’ live in the ‘eternal-now,’ for the ‘eternal-tomorrow’ never is. The chief end of man . . . is to
promote human welfare here and now.”
It seems to me that the long quote from Mason Olds provides basis for my conclusion that humanism was being
emphasized on the Plains prior to the time that the self-conscious movement was given name by Reese and
Dietrich. The sermon describing the autocratic god and the related religious concepts was certainly not the
religion preached and practiced in the churches of the Western Unitarian Conference in the late 1800s, nor was
it the religion of the Universalist congregations.
At the outset it may be wise to establish some definitions and for me to reveal my bias. I agree with Paul
Beattie3 in his thesis that there are millions of people endorsing humanistic values participating in widely
varying religious traditions and rituals. Beattie shares a listing of thirteen humanist values and principles and
suggests that those values are cherished by many. Listen to his listing:
Not only has (Paul) Kurtz failed to show that the religious tradition is incompatible with
humanism, but he has also failed to recognize that there are millions of people who are both
actively engaged in their religious traditions and furthering and endorsing humanistic values. In
other words, the values humanists cherish and most espouse are supported by millions who do
not call themselves humanists and who, in fact, are members of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.
Of course, there are many exponents of these religions who are narrow-minded, but millions of
believers are not. In his book Kurtz presents a list of thirteen humanist values and principles, and
every one is supported by millions of people who do not call themselves humanists.
These humanist values and principles are:
1. A commitment to free inquiry and the open mind;
2. A belief in the courage to live without fear or trembling;
3. A confidence in the power of human creativeness, inventiveness, achievement;
4. (A commitment to make) constant efforts to improve the human condition, mitigate
suffering, and eliminate disease, conflict, war and cruelty,
5. Respect for the rights of others,
6. A dedication to the preciousness and dignity of the individual, his or her creativity and
growth;
7. Cultivation of happiness and the full life;
8. An emphasis on love, shared experience, human joy.
9. Tolerance of other points of view and styles of life;
10. A commitment to social justice and humanitarian help;
11. A universal focus transcending national, ethnic, sexual, and racial barriers—the ideal of a
world community;
12. An emphasis on compromise and negotiation of differences;
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13. Belief in a free, open, pluralistic, and democratic society.
As I read accounts of emphasis in Unitarian and Universalist congregations, I note that those principles have
been central. Jesus the great teacher is the hero, and the supernatural is neither taught nor attacked. The attacks
come in the 20th century.
With the widespread attention given to Theodore Parker’s sermon, “The Transient and the Permanent in
Christianity,” the movement toward a humanistically oriented ministry grew in intensity. The Parkerites, as
those who accepted Parker’s concept were called, ministered in the Western Unitarian Conference. The
majority of the Western churches tended to be liberal Christian institutions that might refer to Christian
character but would not include the name of Jesus or Christ in statements of purpose. A sample statement that
seems to be quite humanistic to me is that from St. Paul’s Unity Church. This is the Covenant of 1879, adopted
when William Channing Gannett was minister.
As those who believe in religion,
As those who believe in Freedom, Fellowship, and Character in Religion,
As those who believe that the religious life means the thankful, trustful, loyal and helpful life,
And as those who believe that a church is a brotherhood of helpers wherein it is made easier to
lead such a life,
We join ourselves together, name, hand and heart, as members of Unity Church.
Jenkin Lloyd Jones was the indomitable force behind the growth and strength of the Western Conference. He is
credited with influencing the development of many of our congregations through his publishing work and his
field travel. A sermon on the “Ideal Church” provides an insight into the thought of this dynamic leader. Jones’
ideal church would be
… a free congress of independent souls. It is to lead in the campaign for more truth rather than to
indolently stand guard over some petty fragment of acquired truth … will be the thinker’s home.
The student of science will handle no discoveries that it will not prize and indulge in no guesses
that it will not respect. Oldest India and newest America will hold no gem of thought that will not
be welcomed into its sacred Scriptures. The skeptics will be the cowards who dare not exercise
the reason God has given them. Over its portals no dogmatic test is to be written to ward off an
honest thinker or an earnest seeker.
This church must emphasize the Universals Brotherhood; it will stand upon a grand emphasis of
the great word of the century, Unity. It will seek to welcome low and high, poor and rich,
unbeliever and believer. One who enters its doors flaunting the latest achievements of
dressmaker or milliner in such a way as to widen the chasm between her and the family of the
honest and earnest poor is guilty of impiety for she flaunts the sanctity of this church.
This church will be founded on Reverence. One of its cornerstones will be the besetting presence
of that Infinite Sanctity that it cannot escape. Given the freest thought, the widest outlook and the
most wholesome desire to help one’s kind but wanting that sensitiveness to things divine, the
soul is still deficient in character ... The time is coming when the church will have but one
15
message to promulgate, namely, “Go, love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy
strength and with all thy mind and thy neighbor as thyself.” These Ethical Verities are as eternal
as Deity.4
The humanist principles set forth by Paul Kurtz are given expression in many ways in the bonds of union and
covenants of our congregations. The Unitarian Society of Menomonie, Wisconsin, was organized in April
1888 for “religious, charitable and educational purposes.” The bond of union was signed by about thirty
people, who expressed the desire for a “religious organization which shall make integrity of life its first aim,
and leave thought free” and welcomed to membership “all of whatever theological opinion who wish to unite
with us in the promotion of truth, righteousness, reverence and charity among men.”
The historical sketch of the Omaha First Church speaks of two ministers: The Reverend W. E. Copeland
(1878–88) and the Reverend Newton Mann (1889–1909) are credited with bringing Theodore Parker’s
philosophy, the use of reason and common sense, to the Midwest. Mann published several books and was the
first American minister to accept and proclaim the philosophy of evolution.
That human values were the core of ministry at First Unitarian in Minneapolis prior to the ministries of John
Dietrich is evident in the articles of incorporation (November 18, 1881). The aims were set forth as “Where
people without regard to theological differences may unite for mutual helpfulness in the intellectual, moral,
and religious culture and humane work. And that all persons whatsoever who sympathize with these aims shall
be welcome to this society.”
On May 18, 1887, 18 persons endorsed the articles of incorporation for the First Unitarian Society of Duluth.
The particles described “an association where people, without regard to theological differences, may unite for
mutual helpfulness, intellectual, moral and religious culture, and humane work, by meetings and such other
educational, social and charitable movements as may be agreed upon.”
In some instances the preeminence of human values are seen in actions rather than in statements of purpose.
First Universalist of Minneapolis is justly proud of Unity Settlement House, the first charitable institution in
Minneapolis, founded by the minister and members of the church in 1893. Other histories of local
congregations reveal similar programs of social outreach that were significant.
As we share the stories that we have heard about our local congregations, we will undoubtedly hear again and
again expressions of how humanism has been characteristic of the Unitarian and Universalist congregations of
the plains.
Congregations may have utilized the teachings and stories of Jesus and may have identified themselves as
liberal Christian churches. The use of the word “god” may have been customary. The setting for the church life
may have been within the Christian tradition, but the emphasis in the congregations was on human values and
human effort and the betterment of human life in the present age.
1. Koren Arisian, “Humanism: American Democratic Faith?” Religious Humanism, Vol. XIV, No. 1, page 7
2. Mason Olds, Religious Humanism in America—quoting Curtis W. Reese p. 31, 32
3. Paul Beattie, “Is Secular Humanism a Religion?” Free Inquiry, Winter 1985–86
4. James Freeman Clarke, Freedom Moves West, p. 158–9, Beacon Press.
16
Ever Onward and Upward:
A History of Religious Education in the Prairie Star
District
By Eleanor Morton
First off, let’s remind ourselves that children have not always gone to Sunday School, or even to church. In
England in the late 18th century children could be found playing in the streets of industrial cities, yelling and
cursing, stirring up trouble on Sunday mornings. One Robert Raikes, a well-to-do businessman in Gloucester,
established the first Sunday School in 1780, and thereafter the Sunday School idea began to spread far and
wide. The original intent, of course, was to teach religion, but the leaders soon found themselves teaching
reading and writing as well, and thus in a very real sense these Sunday Schools were the forerunners of
public-supported education.
The Sunday School idea soon spread to New England where the Congregationalists used Sunday Schools to
teach morals and religion. Our early heritage of religious education is one of divergence from the mainstream
of Protestant philosophy, beginning with a disagreement between Jonathan Edwards and Charles Chauncy.
Elizabeth Anastos in her paper, “Unitarian Universalist Religious Education: A Brief history,” describes the
situation in this way:
Jonathan Edwards held that the child could come to know God and goodness only through a
conversion experience, “by an act of divine violence suddenly and miraculously recreating the
human will, making it for the first time instantly and forever capable of good.” He believed that
children should be taught the Calvinist catechism and instructed from the pulpit, but that
conversion was ultimately the only way to salvation
Charles Chauncy, however, believed that one came to a gradual realization and understanding of
religious truths through teachings. He denied that one was saved only by a conversion
experience, and left the door open to the possibilities of growth through religious education.
Another 18th century liberal, Jonathan Mayhew, believed that humans had the capacity to
17
distinguish right from wrong, to think for themselves in matters of religion, and to respect the
religious conscience of others.
Dr. Benjamin Rush founded the “Sunday School Society” as early as 1790 in Philadelphia. By 1827, there
were more than two dozen Sunday Schools in Unitarian churches in New England, in spite of the fact that at
first some of the clergy had voiced loud opposition to what they considered a newfangled idea imported from
England. They feared that attendance at services would drop, and that if the sexes were mixed immorality
might result!
By 1827, the Boston Sunday School Society was formed, and at their 10th annual meeting the prophetic words
of William Ellery Channing rang out and were to resound along the years:
The great end in religious instruction, whether in the Sunday School or family, is not to stamp
our minds irresistibly on the young, but to stir up their own; not to make them see with our eyes,
but to look inquiringly and steadily with their own; not to give a definite amount of knowledge,
but to inspire a fervent love of truth; not to form an outward regularity, but to touch inward
springs; not to burden the memory, but to quicken and strengthen the power of thought … I do
not think that so much harm is done by giving error to a child as by giving truth in a lifeless form.
The trouble with some Christians is not that they hold great errors, but that truth lies dead within
them.
While Unitarians and Universalists have always tended toward the more liberal movements in educational
philosophy and psychology, they were to struggle along for fifty years with the standard Bible and church
history-centered content accompanied by question and answer manuals for teachers. One hundred years were
to go by before Channing’s charge truly came to fruition in the New Beacon Series in Religious Education
(begun in 1937).
Although we know that published courses are not the sum total of religious education, a large part of the history
of Unitarian and Universalist religious education is to be found in published books, course materials, and
bibliographies. Another portion is to be found in minutes of meetings, in anniversary booklets of individual
congregations, and in the living memories of dedicated teachers and leaders.
Available written records chronicle the rise and fall of no less than eight curriculum series, from the first one
published in 1833 and edited by Henry Ware, Jr., to the “multi-media” programs of the 1970s.
The phenomenon has been aptly described by Elizabeth H. Baker in “RETSPECT, Study Paper No. 14A” for
the UU Advance, 1980, as follows:
In 1875 the Rev. George F. Piper became Secretary of the Sunday School Society and he
prepared about 300 lessons, which had a circulation of about 9000. These were considered too
liberal by the conservatives and too conservative by the liberals; too advanced for the age group
according to some people, too elementary for the age group, said others. It was ever thus!
Certain advances had been made by that time, however. In 1852, the second Unitarian Church School
curriculum had been published. It was similar in content to the first, but with a graded series of eight manuals.
This was a first in religious education, for the mainstream Christian denominations were developing the
18
so-called “Uniform Lessons,” which prescribed the same Bible text on a given Sunday for all ages. Some
Unitarian and many Universalist schools used these uniform lessons because of the convenient teacher’s
guides, which accompanied them.
The spread of Unitarianism and Universalism across the continent proceeded along the Ohio River, up the
Mississippi and Missouri rivers and their tributaries. According to Charles Lyttle in Freedom Moves West,
preachers came to Burlington and Davenport in the 1840s and found fertile ground among German free
thinkers who heartily approved of their young people dancing in the church!
The Universalists reached Minnesota in the early l850s and organized a parish at St. Anthony on the
Mississippi River. Seth Barnes arrived in l855, and they built the first brick church in Minneapolis, which is
still standing. A church was established in Rochester, Minnesota in 1860, and Sunday School was begun there
in 1866. Davenport, Iowa, organized in l868; Cedar Rapids in 1869. Both had active church schools soon after.
All Souls Unitarian Church of Kansas City was organized in 1868.
Little has been recorded of these early times. One story worth repeating is that of the “Universalist Picnic,” the
tale having been recorded in Prairie Star Sagas, by V. Emil Gudmundson, 1975. Apparently the ministry of
Seth Barnes was highly successful and the size of the Sunday School was the envy of orthodox congregations
in the city. Rev. Barnes left for a time to go East because of his health, and immediately the superintendents of
three other Sunday Schools invited the Universalists to join them in a “Grand Union” Sunday School
organization, using the strategy “if you can’t beat them, get them to join you!” The ministers of these churches,
however, suspected a conspiracy and refused to go along with the idea. In their minds, Universalists were not
Christians. Well, it so happened that the orthodox groups chose the same day for a big parade as the
Universalists chose for their Sunday School picnic. To the Universalists’ good fortune, a steamboat captain
offered to take the Universalist children for a ride on the river. Two hundred people piled on. Wind and rain
came up and wiped out the parade, but the Universalists stayed dry under the roof of their steamboat. The
excitement wasn’t over yet, however. The water rose, the current was swift, and the boat was in danger of
hitting an old bridge. Sure enough, it did, and the water poured in, but the boat was safely moored and everyone
got off alive and unharmed.
By 1872, a Universalist Church school was started in St. Paul, at Cedar Rapids in 1875, Omaha in 1878, and
Sioux City in 1885. It is said that in St. Paul, William Channing Gannett, minister there from 1877–1883, wrote
in lesson form his own curriculum for the church school. In Sioux City, the congregation’s much-loved
ministers, Mary Safford and Eleanor Gordon, supported and actively promoted the Church School program.
Indeed, by the 1870s, the winds of change were blowing strong out on the prairie. The Western Conference had
been organized in 1852, and by 1873, the Western Unitarian Sunday School Association was established to
publish and distribute curricula. A six-year course of study included a book, Beginnings According to Legend
and According to the Truer Story, by the Rev. Allen W. Gould. His book was possibly a forerunner of
Beginnings of Earth, Sky, Life, Death by Fahs and Spoerl. Mother Nature’s Children (birds, bees, reptiles,
mammals) and Mother Nature’s Helpers (sun, fire water, iron) were harbingers of How Miracles Abound
(1941) and The Science Series (1961–64).
According to Baker, the Curriculum of Studies in Morality and Religion for the Sunday School and Study Club
of the First Unitarian Church of Davenport, IA, in 1906 listed 287 titles for use in the 15-year curriculum, plus
140 supplementary materials arranged by class, plus 24 books for parents and teachers, plus 13 books on
geography, antiquities and customs. (Compiled by Dr. Arthur Judy and published by the Western Conference.)
19
Charles H. Lyttle’s Freedom Moves West, A History of the Western Unitarian Conference, stands as a
monument to the prodigious energies of Jenkin Lloyd Jones. Along with all his other endeavors in the vast area
stretching from Cleveland to Denver and Duluth to Kansas City, he became deeply involved in writing
religious education material. For his own small children he wanted something better than the doctrinal, preachy
offerings from the East, and so in 1872 he began publication of a periodical, The Sunday School, for which he
wrote articles on theory and methods as well as lesson materials. He promoted weekly teachers’ meetings,
published a songbook, and also a book for festival occasions. By 1878, the new periodical, Unity founded by
Jones, began publishing Sunday School courses. The Little Unity (1881–1883) for children combined lessons
with children’s stories.
It was due to the efforts of Jenkin Lloyd Jones that the Norwegian Unitarian Mission of Rev. Kristofer Janson
was established in Minnesota in the 1880s. Janson came from Norway of aristocratic lineage and studied at
Harvard. He came to Minneapolis with the objective of converting Norwegian peasants to religious liberalism.
At least four “Free Christian” churches were organized. Two remain to this day—the Nora Free Christian
Church at Hanska, and what is now the Unitarian Church of Underwood. The first record of religious education
classes at Hanska are dated 1906. At Underwood the youth program began the year the church was
founded—1885, and apparently in the early part of this century they had an active chapter of the Young
People’s Religious Union (YPRU), with the Rev. Frank 0. Holmes of the Minnesota Unitarian Conference
officiating at the organizational meeting in 1923.
Boston Unitarianism, meanwhile, was still in the throes of trying to define itself as Christian or theistic, not
being ready for “new-fangled ideas. “In the 1890s under the leadership of Dr. Edward A. Horton, a fourth
Unitarian curriculum was published. It followed a one-topic, three-level format with seven topics in the series,
so that on a given Sunday, the entire church school studied the same topic at the primary, junior, and senior
levels. Thus it did recognize different levels of development, but the content was still the Bible and Christian
history. The methods of teaching were didactic, and the education theory that of “classical realism,” or the
passing on of tradition and the imparting of moral character through drill and memorization. After 50 years,
still no “stirring up the child’s mind!” By 1909, Dr. Horton had inspired a fifth curriculum, the first to be called
The Beacon Series. It used myths from many cultures, ethics, social awareness, evolution, and applied critical
scholarship to the Bible. It was still content centered, however, and did not draw upon the experiences of the
children. It did not last long!
At this point, let’s step back a few years and pick up the Universalist religious education story. In 1888, the
Universalists agreed that they would use the uniform lessons of the orthodox churches, but with the addition of
Biblical interpretations that would illuminate Universalist principles. Finally, in 1901, the Universalist Graded
Lessons were published, similar to the Protestant curricula but more liberal. By 1920, however, they were out
of print and never reissued. Things picked up with the establishment of the General Sunday School Association
in 1913. Funding was made available for staffing and publications. Clinton Lee Scott in The Universalist
Church, A Short History wrote: “It operated in a period of tentative pedagogical theories and experimentation.
It magnified the place of the child in the church, pressed for better housing of children’s classes, and enlarged
the scope of religious nurture in the home and community. The Association was able to make the transition
from Bible-centered to curriculum-centered to experience-centered teaching, with a facility less readily
achieved in the larger denominational bodies.”
20
Few personal recollections from this early period are to be found anywhere. Two accounts that do exist are in
the History of the Peoples Church, (1869–l959), Cedar Rapids, Iowa, by Gertrude James. The first gives the
general flavor of what went on.
Grace and Elisabeth Low, whose parents brought them up in this church, have vivid and fond
memories of the Sunday School in the early l900s. It was held after church from twelve to one
and opened with a general meeting of hymns, prayers, and a number of quotations, called
“sentiments,” by the children, chosen from the Bible or literature in general. Then the children
divided up into classes. Both Grace and Betty, as high school pupils, belonged to Carrie M.
Palmer’s class, called the “Blue Ribbon Class,” that met in what was later the minister’s study
and is now the choir room. They studied the Bible, memorizing beautiful passages, and a booklet
on Universalism. From year to year the class dipped into World Religions and thus learned at an
early age their basic oneness. Salvation by character was also stressed in their class. They tried so
hard for excellent attendance that they were usually the monthly winners of the banner, as an
award of merit. There were 18 or 20 in the class, with monthly “spreads” and plenty of fun.
Later in the account, we read:
One of their most vivid memories was of the Iroquois Theater Fire, December 30, 1903. And the
reason? Miss Josephine Munholland, who taught Mamie Doud, later wife of President
Eisenhower, at Jackson School had become superintendent of our Church School in the fall of
1902. She went to Chicago for the holidays in 1903 and was in the theater at the time of the fire.
She got out safely, but once outside, she suddenly remembered all the children in the audience.
So she went back in to help them, rescued a good many, but she lost her life. A few weeks later,
a special memorial service was held in the church auditorium, attended by both the adults and the
school.
For the Unitarians, the first trickling down of John Dewey’s philosophy could be seen in the Sixth Unitarian
Curriculum published in 1912, and called The New Beacon Course in Religious Education. The content was
broadened to include more non-biblical materials, the study of other denominations, science, great lives, and
social concerns as they affected young people. The intent was that the courses would be child-centered, yet
content-centered discussion questions were given. The activity projects consisted of coloring, pasting, and
writing in the missing word. The New Beacon Course was published over a period of years and was for its time
far in advance of anything being done by other denominations.
In the late 1920s, two curriculum committees were meeting, trying to plan for future curriculum development.
One headed by Waitstill H. Sharp (later to become minister at Davenport) was conservative in theology and
educational philosophy. The other, chaired by Edwin A. Fairley (and attended occasionally by Sophia L. Fahs),
was well aware of educational and psychological advances. The two groups did manage to arrive at a joint
statement by 1931, which made no reference to the Bible, Jesus, or Christianity. By 1935, Rev. Ernest Keubler
had been appointed Secretary of the Department of RE He was a liberal theist, influenced in his thinking by
Bushnell, Coe, and Hartshorne, and in educational philosophy, a follower of Dewey and Kilpatrick. The 1936
report of the Commission of Appraisal found interest in religious education at a low point and saw this as a
21
serious indictment of a religious denomination. The challenge was taken up when, at age 61, Sophia Fahs
became curriculum editor in 1937. That fall the first title of the seventh Unitarian curriculum was published,
Beginnings of Earth and Sky.
The titles that followed in the New Beacon Series are all at least vaguely familiar to us; we may not use them
very often, but they are there on the shelf, and from time to time someone will come in on Sunday morning and
say, “Oh, I remember we studied magnets when I was in the third grade,” or “Oh, I remember when we acted
out the story of Akhenaten,” or “Mrs. Jones used to read to us from the book about Jesus, the carpenter’s son.”
Keubler and Fahs were naturalistic theists. They had great respect for the “old story of salvation,” yet saw in
today’s world no division between the sacred and secular. Fahs has helped us all expand our concept of
ultimate meaning, or God. In her view,” there are no acts and no things outside the moral realm. Every deed
includes a choice. Every thing presents an ethical challenge.”
The assumptions about how a child learns, which are implicit in the New Beacon Series, come from John
Dewey. The child’s own motivation is the starting point. In the proper environment, experience in problem
solving would lead to confidence and self-control. We must replace chance activity with directed experience so
that participation will lead to genuine knowledge and understanding.
Picking up the story out here in the Western Conference, from the 20s and through the 30s, we find Frederick
May Eliot at Unity Church in St. Paul. From Eleanor Otto’s history, we learn that Eliot had a tremendous
interest in religious education. He actually ran the program himself with a committee assisting. He paid
particular attention to grading the lessons according to age; he felt that activities were much more important
than lengthy readings; he had the children in for the opening part of the adult service. He had a flair for the
dramatic and introduced pageants into the curriculum. At Easter for many years the children performed “The
Sacred Flame,” adapted from a story by Selma Lagerlof—the flame symbolizing the immortality of the
spiritual life. Eliot laid great stress on young people’s activities. Unity Guild was part of the National Young
People’s Union (NYPU). It was the forerunner of the Tower Club for senior high people, begun in 1930, which
continued into the 1970s.
At the First Unitarian Society in Minneapolis, Viola Dreesen was the Director of Religious Education in the
30s and again in the 60s. She remembers attending classes as a child in the church building at 8th and LaSalle
when John Dietrich first came to the city. After several moves, a building known as The Unitarian Center on
Loring Park was purchased. During the 30s Mrs. Dreesen taught classes and then directed the program. She
remembers that there were no religious education committees then—people just did what had to be done.
Attendance grew steadily during the early forties and temporary quarters had to be obtained in a YMCA until
the new facility was built on Mount Curve Avenue. Even then, more classroom and meeting spaces had to be
constructed in the early 60s.
A number of histories acknowledge declining enrollments in our church schools during the thirties, due in large
part to the Depression and the falling birth rates. By the late 40s, however, it was “full steam ahead” through
the 50s and 60s, the years of surprising growth for the Unitarians and Universalists. The Fellowship movement
had started in 1948; the post-war birth rate was at a record high, the economy was prospering, and church
schools were once again expanding throughout what is now the Prairie Star District. Building programs were
the order of the day. The First Unitarian Church of Omaha built a two-story church school annex, completed in
1952. No doubt even that was crowded when enrollment peaked in 1961 at 240 children. The Cedar Falls
fellowship was organized in 1952 and began church school immediately. Enrollment continued to climb as
22
they moved from basements and bedrooms to a downtown office building to the Waterloo Universalist Church,
to a university building in Cedar Falls, and then to cafeteria rooms at another university. Dorothy Grant tells us
that when plans were drawn for a new building, however, “the membership was more interested in a meeting
place for themselves than in facilities for the children.” They said they would add on when there were more
children. It was not a plan for a congregation intending to grow. When the new church opened in 1966, instead
of overflow audiences, they found that many visiting parents decided not to return when they learned there was
no suitable place for their children.
It was during the 50s and 60s also that the larger societies began hiring professional religious educators.
Elizabeth Whitman, hired in 1948 by Unity Church, St. Paul, was probably the first full-time director. All
Souls Unitarian Church in Kansas City, Missouri, hired Dorothy Nebgen in 1950 as their first salaried director
and enrollment increased from 75 students in 1952 to 315 in 1961. Several years after moving into their new
church in south Minneapolis, the congregation of the First Universalist Church hired Viola Dreesen as their
DRE in 1955. She developed their curriculum using The New Beacon Series and also began assembly
programs for the children.
In Rochester, Minnesota, Sue Bateman became part-time Director of Religious Education at the First UU
Church, the first person to hold the position, beginning in 1964. One hundred sixty-two children were
registered. In Lincoln, Nebraska the same year, the RE committee reported to the congregation as follows:
Teacher recruitment has become such a problem that conscription on one hand or total phase-out
on the other appear the only alternatives. The committee is considering a proposal for an RE
director, hoping not for a complete panacea but at least for a partial antidote to their
multitudinous ills.
In 1965, Vern Barnet (later to become a UU minister) was Lincoln’s first paid director of religious education.
In the 60s in the Twin Cities area, several new churches and fellowships were organized and immediately
began church schools: the UU Church of Minnetonka, White Bear UU Church, Minnesota Valley UU
Fellowship, and the Michael Servetus Unitarian Society. All but the White Bear group has contracted for
professional religious education leadership. The marked increase in recent years in the number of part-time RE
positions is certainly due to the increasingly limited amounts of volunteer time available.
Shifting again to the denominational scene, Sophia Fahs retired as Curriculum Editor in 1954, and Dorothy
Spoerl became Editor in 1959. She was a Universalist minister, an educator, a psychologist and a humanist
with a fine sense of history. Under her leadership were published The Science Series, Conversations With
Children, Unitarian Universalism by Henry Cheetham, These Live Tomorrow by Clinton Lee Scott, and
Tensions Our Children Live With. She supervised the publication of teacher’s guides for all curriculum
materials, pamphlets for parents, and statements of philosophy. She resigned in 1964.
Shortly after merger came the report of Commission III on Education and Liberal Religion, published in The
Free Church in the Changing World, 1963. While the Commission was supportive of the experimental,
developmental philosophy of the Beacon Series, it recommended that more emphasis be placed on ethics, UU
ideals, theology, freedom and responsibility, and social relationships. In 1965, the Rev. Hugo Hollerorth was
hired as curriculum editor, and shortly began the publication of the multi-media curriculum programs—the
eighth UU curriculum! He put together teams of educators, theologians, and writers to create curricula in
response to Commission III’s recommendations. Decision Making and Freedom and Responsibility dealt with
23
ethics; Man the Culture Builder and Human Heritage with human culture, Man the Meaning Maker with
perception, and About Your Sexuality with social relationships. The kits were designed to be sold to public and
private schools as well as UU societies. The About Your Sexuality is no doubt the outstanding achievement of
the Hollerorth era. It has become the “rite of passage” for our junior highers from childhood to youth.
Rev. Hollerorth was a follower of Paul Tillich and the philosophy of existentialism. He felt that liberal religion
failed to address the dark side of life—the potential for evil, the essential aloneness of each individual being,
the sense of alienation experienced in today’s world. Critics say that there is no underlying educational
philosophy in the multi-media programs, that there is no acknowledgement of problem solving through
intelligence, science, and the democratic method. Instead, the message seems to be that human beings are
buffeted by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, so let’s try to make the best of it. Nevertheless, the
“kits” met a real need in that they provided the busy volunteer with a range of valuable resources: background
books, audiovisuals, stories, values clarification strategies, detailed lesson plans, and other teaching aids.
The early and mid 70s was also a time of much experimentation with educational methods. We began to use the
open classroom approach. Children were offered choices as to what courses they would take on Sunday
mornings; we had interest groups on everything from futurism to tie dying. It was exciting and challenging, but
we kept asking ourselves, “What does this have to do with religion?” and “Should we really be doing this on
Sunday morning?” Some of us could answer, “Yes, all these experiences have a religious dimension.” At Unity
Church in St. Paul, however, the answer was “No, children should get on Sunday morning what they cannot get
in weekday school—something that gives them a sense of who they are religiously.” And so by 1973, Unity
Church had published their Images for Our Lives curriculum—their answer to the multi-media “kits.” Soon the
Boston area team of Brotman-Marshman-Fields was publishing content-centered curricula, with Why Do Bad
Things Happen? and How Can I Know What to Believe? RE leaders at the First Unitarian Society of
Minneapolis began developing their own framework for a liberal religious humanist education program. Using
the developmental levels from preschool through adulthood, and the five broad themes of the UU
Principles—self, others, community, environment, and world—they drew up a grid or framework of 45
curriculum modules. Connections, An Education Program for Liberal Religious Humanists, was published in
1982.
By 1980, the UUA again called for a denominational rethinking of religious education curriculum and goals.
The Religious Education Futures Committee was set to work, and in 1981, issued a report asserting that
Unitarian Universalists must aim to help their children build an identity through the affirmation of our
Principles, while at the same time recognizing the theological diversity within the UUA. Curriculum-writing
teams were established by the UUA beginning in 1983, to work in the following areas related to our newly
adopted statement of principles (1985):
1. UU identity
2. Peace and social justice
3. Gender identity
4. Racial justice
5. Judaism and Christianity heritages
6. Ecology and interdependence
7. World religions for Junior High
8. Spirituality and religious identity
24
The ecology and interdependence team is made up of people entirely from the Prairie Star District.
That many societies in the district have made outstanding contributions to the cause of religious education
attests to the creativity and imagination of their leadership. I want to mention just a few such projects by way of
example. During the 1950s, the Cedar Rapids church school produced several puppet plays, beginning with
“Rebekah at the Well,” adapted by Polly Ely from the Biblical story. As The Peoples Church Puppeteers, they
delighted audiences with further productions based on the lives of Albert Schweitzer and Joseph Priestley.
Unity Church ran a one-week day camp for 15 years, from 1956–1971. Also during Betty Whitman’s time,
they had what was called the “expanded session” for at least 10 years, offering activities and classes for
children from 9:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. every Sunday, concurrently with the adult forum and service.
The Willmar Unitarian Church started their Lake Camp on Green Lake in the summer of 1946, with 13
children. The program now serves 50 children from several Midwestern states, and they have celebrated their
40th year, thanks to Edith Haroldson, camp director for 27 years, and to Linda Mork, her successor.
Symbols and Golden Rules by Dorothy Grant of Cedar Falls, was published in 1960, and over 1000 copies were
sold to UU church schools throughout the country. The booklet carries out the idea that each of the main world
religions has its own Golden Rule, and each also has its own very different symbol. It is now being revised and
will be reprinted by the UUA.
Religious Education and the Prairie Star District Organization
No history of religious education on the plains would be complete without mention of the role of the Prairie
Star District through its Board and Committees. Under the Board, the Education and Program Development
Committee sponsors teacher training and leadership workshops within the district. It operates a resource
library, which lends materials free of charge to local societies. If offers scholarships to religious educators so
that they may participate in training opportunities in other parts of the country. Members of the Committee are
in touch with all societies several times a year, offering assistance and support to leaders of RE programs. In
1981, The New DRE Handbook, written by several religious education leaders in the district, was distributed to
all Prairie Star societies and is presently being prepared for publication by the UUA. Financial support for the
projects of the Education and Program Committee from the District has been substantial since at least 1975.
A big plus for religious education programs in the Prairie Star area was our participation in the Inter-District
Religious Education Program which operated throughout four other districts in the mid-section of the country.
A consultant was hired and journeyed far and wide leading workshops, introducing new curricula, advising
local committees, and offering encouragement and support to RE leaders. The position, begun in 1971, was
first held by the Rev. Margaret Odell, and then from l978–1984, by the Rev. Beth Ide. The position ended when
the funds contributed to the program by the district were shifted to the salary of the District Executive.
Another important program of the district was the Extension Ministry program in operation from 1979–1982.
Rev. David Phraener was employed. With a good background in religious education, he and Beth Ide sparked a
new fellowship in Rice Lake, Wisconsin (Blue Hills), where the impetus for organizing was the hope for a
church school program, and revived the Sunday School of the Fargo-Moorhead Fellowship to the point where
it was growing faster than the adult membership.
Another district-wide activity supported by the Prairie Star Board has been the youth organization. During the
time of the Liberal Religious Youth (LRY) during the late 60s and throughout the 70s, the attitudes and
25
activities of the local and district LRY groups were worrisome to many adults. Problems involved the role and
selection of advisors, the ties of LRY to the local church and the denomination, and conference rules. After a
continental Youth Assembly in 1981, the dissolution of the Liberal Religious Youth was proposed. At a
“Common Ground” conference in 1982, a new organization, the Young Religious Unitarian Universalists
(YRUU) was established as a planning, coordinating, and resource organization for local and district youth
programs. Here in Prairie Star, a district-wide youth conference including youth leaders and advisors is held
once a year at a camp near Boone, Iowa, planned under the direction of the Prairie Star Youth Committee.
Last, but not least, is the organization sponsoring this history—the Prairie Star Professionals. All salaried
religious education directors have been members of this group since the mid 70s, sharing in the responsibilities
and benefits of a once-a-year three-day retreat following the Easter/Spring holiday. It is an opportunity to
exchange experiences and insights with colleagues from throughout the district, and to hear speakers on recent
trends in philosophy, theology, and ministry.
Eleanor Morton,
DRE Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 1986
Bibliography
Publications, letters, and essays received from the following people:
•
Karen Manson, Blue Hills UU Fellowship, Rice Lake, WI
•
Tammy Hess, UU Society of Black Hawk County, Cedar Falls, IA
•
Dorothy Grant, UU Society of Black Hawk County, Cedar Falls, IA
•
Rosalie Rimrodt, Peoples Church, Cedar Rapids, IA
•
Jo Ellen Bunch, The Unitarian Church, Davenport, IA
•
Ruth Morton, UU Church, Fargo, ND
•
Nancy Crowder-Chaplin, All Souls Unitarian Church, Kansas City, MO
•
Ginger Luke, Unitarian Church, Lincoln, NE
•
Sarah Greene, Michael Servetus Unitarian Society, Fridley, MN
•
Georgine Tepley, Nora Unitarian Church, Hanska, MN
•
Melissa Helgesen, First Unitarian Church, Omaha, NE
•
Phyllis Layton and Elizabeth Katzmann, First UU Church, Rochester, MN
•
Mrs. H. I. Brown, “The Story of the Sunday School,” from Fifty Years of the Unity Church, 1885–1935
(Sioux City, IA)
•
Marjorie Barton, Unitarian Church, Underwood, MN
•
Rev. Alida DeCoster, Unity , Unity Church, St. Paul
•
Judy Ottman, White Bear Unitarian Church, Mahtomedi, MN
•
Edith Haroldson and Linda Mork, Unitarian Church, Willmar, MN
•
Meg Wilson, First Universalist Church, Minneapolis, MN
•
Viola Dreesen, Minneapolis, MN (phone interviews)
26
Devotional Literature from Plain and Prairie
Essay by Ronald Knapp
I. Introduction
My purpose in this paper is to make us more aware of contributions by people from what is now the Prairie Star
District to the collected devotional materials shared by the larger Unitarian Universalist movement. A
significant aspect of my thesis is that an appreciation of those contributions involves not only an interesting
exercise but is, in fact, crucial to an understanding of the shape and character of contemporary Unitarian
Universalism.
By devotional literature I mean the elements usually found in worship services such as hymns, readings,
responsive reading, prayers, invocations and benedictions which, for the purposes of this paper, I am
simplifying into two categories: hymns and readings. Specifically, I’m thinking of the hymns and readings,
which are widely used, in spite of our diversity, all over the North American continent.
Rabindranath Tagore’s powerful poem from Gitanjali, which we call “The Mind Without Fear” (Hymns for the
Celebration of Life [HCL] #391), is an example of shared devotional literature.
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depths of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
27
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action—into that heaven
of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
Although “The Mind Without Fear” does not come, historically, from our American liberal religious tradition,
it does find expression in many of our churches—as readings during church services, as fillers in our
newsletters or as illustrations in our sermons.
William Ellery Channing’s great piece on “The Free Mind” (HCL #420) is another example of shared
devotional literature:
I call that mind free which protects itself against the usurpations of society, and which does not
cower to human opinion: Which refuses to be the slave or tool of the many or of the few, and
guards its empire over itself as nobler than the empire of the world. I call that mind free which
resists the bondage of habit, which does not mechanically copy the past, or live on its old virtues:
But which listens for new and higher monitions of conscience, and rejoices to pour itself forth in
fresh and higher exertions.
From the founder of Unitarianism in America, we have a piece of devotional literature that is used in Unitarian
Universalism churches everywhere.
A third example of shared devotional literature is a selection which is used annually in the Spring/Easter
celebration of First Unitarian Church in Omaha, and which is being more and more widely used around the
country.
I am struck dumb with wild and wordless wonder
That on this planet, hurtling ‘round the sun,
The green laughter of Spring rises to clothe
Our earth through cell and seed and birth—
Eternally, in spite of winter’s storms and cold.
Through ages of fire and of ice the flow of life
In countless deaths and multi-million forms
Has known the con-fraternity and miracle of birth.
This, my miracle, my ‘resurrection of flesh’—
Too vast, too true for little creeds, is Spring’s
Unbridled mirth!
When I first began to use this selection, I did not know the name of the author and listed its source as
anonymous. Then, a few years ago, I discovered that the author was not other than John Cummins who recently
retired, after a long ministry, from the First Universalist Church of Minneapolis.
A final example of shared devotional literature is “Tranquil Streams” (HCL #253) written by Marion Franklin
Ham, a Unitarian minister who served Unitarian churches in Texas and Massachusetts:
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As tranquil streams that meet and merge
And flow as one to meet the sea
Our kindred fellowships unite
To build a church that shall be free.
Free from the bonds that bind the mind
To narrow thoughts and lifeless creed;
Free from a social code that fails
To serve the cause of human need;
A freedom that reveres the past,
But trusts the dawning future more;
And bids the soul, in search of truth,
Adventure boldly and explore.
We shall now explore, specifically, contributions to our denominational literature made by people from what is
now the Prairie Star District. Here are some things to keep in mind as we proceed:
Selection references from Hymns for the Celebration of Life are indicated by the initials HCL
Some additional information is given in the notes found in back of Hymns for the Celebration of Life
Resources used for this paper and for further exploration are noted at the conclusion of this paper.
II. Hymns for the Celebration of Life
The one collection of devotional materials that all, or nearly all, Unitarian Universalist congregations have in
common is Hymns for the Celebration of Life , the blue hymnal, which contains 327 hymns and 231 readings.
I shall begin this exploration of contributions by people from Prairie Star by examining contributions to that
hymnal.
If I am permitted to extend the boundaries of Prairie Star District just far enough to include Quincy,
Illinois—which is, after all, now yoked with Burlington, Iowa—then I can fairly say that at least 10 percent of
the selections in Hymns for the Celebration of Life are by people with ties to the Prairie Star District.
Hymns with such ties include the great contemporary UU hymn, “Bring, O Past Your Honor” (HCL #254),
which was written in 1942 for the centennial of the First Unitarian Church of Geneva, Illinois, by Charles
Lyttle who was—early in this century—a minister of the First Unitarian Church of Omaha; “Who Thou Art, I
Know Not” (HCL #46), which was written by Harry Kemp while “under great stress upon attending the
Unitarian Church in Lawrence, Kansas;” “Past, Present, Future” (HCL #116), which was written by Frederick
Elliot, one of the great presidents of the UUA who was at one time minister of Unity Church of St. Paul.
There are also a number of hymns in Hymns for the Celebration of Life by William Channing Gannett, another
minister of Unity Church, and Frederick Hosmer, the Quincy Connection, but I want to deal with them a little
later in this paper. The reading collection found in Hymns for the Celebration of Life contains many readings
29
by people from what is now the Prairie Star District. Among my favorites in that collection are “Awake, O
Man” (HCL 356), by Edwin Palmer—once minister of the Lincoln, Nebraska, Church—which deals with both
human achievements and failings; and “An Eternal Verity” (HCL #456) by Waldermar Argow, who served the
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Church. I frequently use Argow’s reading to open Sunday services:
Because we are human, we shall ever build our altars;
Because each has yearnings, we offer everywhere our prayers and our hymns.
For an eternal verity abides beneath diversities:
We are children of one great love, and members of one another.
One reading I have a strong personal attachment to is found in the “Benedictions, Closing Words” section of
the hymnal (HCL #537), and is by John Brigham, minister of the Burlington, Iowa church before Eric Haugan.
Brigham was in the UUA Department of the Ministry when I decided to become a Unitarian Universalist
minister, and it was he who assisted me in receiving fellowship. “Hold the Hope of discovery High within
you,” Brigham says,
Sharing the hope,
and whatever discovery may come,
with others.
In my opinion, the most significant single piece of contemporary devotional literature to be found in Hymns for
the Celebration of Life was written by a minister who served the First Unitarian Church of Omaha. That
minister is Robert Weston and the selection is “Out of the Stars” (HCL #345):
This is the wonder of time;
this is the marvel of space;
Out of the stars swung the earth;
life upon earth rose to love.
This is the marvel of man,
rising to see and to know;
Out of your heart, cry wonder:
sing that we live.
Here is a list of other contributors to Hymns for the Celebration of Life, all of whom have ties to churches, as
named below, in the Prairie Star District. There are, no doubt, others whom I have missed, but this list should
well illustrate contributions by people from Prairie Star District.
Napoleon Lovely, Cedar Rapids, Iowa (HCL #510)
Wallace Robbins, Unity Church, St. Paul (HCL #460)
Frank Carlton Doan, Iowa City, Iowa (HCL #474)
Robert French Leavens, Omaha, Nebraska (HCL #477, #483, #544)
30
Samuel McChord Crothers, Unity Church, St. Paul (HCL #484)
James Villa Blake, Quincy, Illinois (HCL #494)
Arthur Foote II, Unity Church, St. Paul (HCL #533)
Robert Weston, Omaha, Nebraska (HCL #421)
III. The Blue Hymnal and the Red Hymnal: A Contrast
The blue hymnal, Hymns for the Celebration of Life, was published in 1964, the year I left the Methodist
ministry to become a Unitarian Universalist. I immediately fell in love with the blue hymnal and though I know
that there are many who feel it has major shortcomings, I love it still. It was one of the things that convinced me
that liberal religion could continue to deal with religious questions in the contemporary world.
The predecessor to Hymns for the Celebration of Life was the red hymnal, Hymns of the Spirit, published
jointly by the Unitarians and the Universalists in 1937. Some UU ministers and congregations still prefer to use
the red hymnal.
At first glance, the two hymnals are very much alike and, for that matter, much like most other hymnals.
Basically, they both contain a collection of hymns and a collection of responsive readings. When you look
more closely into the matter, however, there are some important differences. Hymn of the Spirit, although it
contains some token elements for humanistic worship—some hymns and readings and orders of service—it is
primarily a traditional collection: a collection that identifies the movement within Protestant Christianity, a
collection that reflects Channing Unitarianism.
The blue hymnal, on the other hand, is much broader and represents, more completely, the contemporary
realities of liberal religion. This difference is especially noticeable in the two collections of responsive
readings. In one, Hymns of the Spirit, most of the readings, like those in the hymnals of most Christian
churches, are taken from the scriptures; taken from the Old and New Testaments. The other hymnal, Hymns for
the Celebration of Life, contains many readings from the other great religions of the world, from UU historical
sources, and from the great literature of the world.
It occurs to me, whenever I compare the two hymnals, that publication of the red hymnal, Hymns of the Spirit,
in 1937, was a traditional event which represented the world of Channing Christianity and which expressed an
Eastern spirit, whereas publication of the blue hymnal, Hymns for the Celebration of Life in 1964, following
close upon the merger of the Unitarians and the Universalists, more clearly represented the world of Parker
Unitarianism, and expressed a Midwestern vision. The editor of the blue hymnal, after all, was a minister from
what is now the Prairie Star District, Arthur Foote II, who was minister of Unity Church in St. Paul.
IV. Responsive Readings and Great Companions
That last thought—the thought that Hymns for the Celebration of Life expresses the Midwestern
spirit—occurred to me only after Charles Stephen of the Lincoln, Nebraska, Church sent me, in preparation for
this paper a copy of Responsive Readings, which was published in 1939 by the Iowa Association of Unitarian
Churches. I’m not sure of the geographical boundaries of the Iowa Association, but I am sure that it included
the Nebraska churches since it was edited by Arthur Weathersly of the Lincoln Church, with Lawrence Plank
of the Omaha Church on its editorial committee.
31
Responsive Readings is a broad, diverse and lively collection of responsive readings for use in Unitarian
churches in our area. The collection—54 readings in all—includes selections from the Judeo-Christian
tradition and from traditional UU sources like Channing and Emerson, but also includes selections from
Buddhism and Hinduism and from literary sources that range from Plato to Nietzsche, from Marcus Aurelius to
Romain Roland, from Tagore to Bertrand Russell.
Responsive Readings was published two years after the red hymnal, Hymns of the Spirit. I do not know the
circumstances under which Responsive Readings was conceived and published, but it is not difficult for me to
assume that it was a reaction to the types of readings found in the red hymnal—readings which are largely
traditional in nature. Again, it is not difficult for me to assume, although I do not know this to be the case, that
Responsive Readings became one of the prototypes of the spirit, if not exactly the content of the broad
collection of readings found in Hymns for the Celebration of Life.
The publication of Responsive Readings was itself influenced by another publication event; an event, which I
think greatly, influenced the evolution of Unitarian Universalism in 20th Century America. I am thinking of
the publication of the two volumes of Great Companions: Volume I was published just after the First World
War; Volume II was published in 1941. The two volumes of Great Companions contain hundreds of selections
from world literature, which pay attention, as the author says,
… to that which is excellent and permanent,
to that which gives grandeur to the passing
hour, to inner resources and possibilities
proper to us, on which we have never drawn.
Copies of Great Companions, which were printed on fine paper and, after the publication of the second
volume, in boxed sets, were found—and still are found—in Unitarian and Universalist homes all over the
continent, and were often presented to young people when they became church members.
Like Responsive Readings, Great Companions expresses an expansive vision and, like Responsive Readings,
its editor, Robert French Leavens, had ties with what is now the Prairie Star District: he was minister of the
First Unitarian Church of Omaha. The spirit of Midwestern liberal religion had a profound effect on the
evolution of contemporary Unitarian Universalism.
V. The Western Conference and “Things Commonly Believed Among Us”
The spirit that found expression in Responsive Readings and Great Companions was itself, in turn, a reflection
of the spirit of the Western Unitarian Conference. To understand something of that spirit we need to take a brief
and, to be sure, superficial excursion into UU history. A more detailed account of the Western Conference can
be found in Freedom Moves West by Charles Lyttle.
After the formation of the American Unitarian Association in 1825, the new denomination began to establish
new churches in the Midwest. After a number of new churches were established, they were organized into an
association called the Western Unitarian Conference. As the Western Conference grew, a conflict developed
between the American Unitarian Association and the Western Unitarian Conference—between the Eastern
churches and the Western churches—a conflict known in our literature as “the issue in the west.”
32
The crux of that conflict was ideological. The Western churches, influenced by Theodore Parker, became more
open to non-Christian and non-theistic ideas. The Eastern churches, loyal to William Ellery Channing, insisted
that Unitarians must be both theists and Christians. The conflict grew and intensified until, it can be fairly said,
there were two Unitarian denominations on the continent: the American Unitarian Association and the Western
Unitarian Conference.
The controversy raged through the last half of the l9th Century and began to be resolved only when the
Western Conference passed a resolution, in 1887, called “Things commonly believed among us.” That
resolution is one of the most important documents in American Unitarian history, so it is reprinted here in full:
The Western Conference has neither the wish nor the right to bind a single member by
declarations concerning fellowship or doctrine. Yet it thinks some practical good may be done by
setting forth in simple words the things most commonly believed among us—the Statement
being always open to re-statement and to be regarded only as the thought of the majority.
All names that divide “religion” are to us of little consequence compared with religion itself.
Whoever loves Truth and lives the Good is, in a broad sense, of our religious fellowship;
whoever loves the one or lives the other better than ourselves is our teacher, whatever church or
age he may belong to. The general faith is hinted well in words, which several of our churches
have adopted for their covenant: “In the freedom of the Truth and in the spirit of Jesus Christ, we
unite for the worship of God and the service of man.” It is hinted in such words as these:
“Unitarianism is a religion of love to God and love to man.” Because we have no “creed” which
we impose as a condition of fellowship, specific statements of belief abound among us, always
somewhat differing, always largely agreeing. One such we offer here:
We believe that to love the Good and to live the Good is the supreme thing in religion;
We hold reason and conscience to be final authorities in matters of religious belief;
We honor the Bible and all inspiring scripture, old and new;
We revere Jesus, and all holy souls that have taught men truth and righteousness and love, as
prophets of religion.
We believe in the growing nobility of Man;
We trust the unfolding Universe as beautiful, beneficent, unchanging Order; to know this order is
truth; to obey it is right and liberty and stronger life;
We believe that good and evil invariably carry their own recompense, no good thing being
failure and no evil thing success: that heaven and hell are states of being; that no evil can befall
the good man in either life or death; that all things work together for the victory of Good.
We believe that we ought to join hands and work to make the good things better and the worst
good, counting nothing good for self that is not good for all;
33
We believe that this self-forgetting, loyal life awakes in man the sense of union here and new
with things eternal—the sense of deathlessness; and this sense is to us an earnest of the life to
come.
We worship One-in-All—that life whence suns and stars derive their orbits and the soul of man
its Ought—that Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world, giving us power to
become the sons of God—that Love with which our souls commune.
“Things commonly believed among us,” says David Parke in The Epic of Unitarianism, “paved the way for
eventual reconciliation in the Western Conference in 1894, and represents Western Unitarianism at its best.” I
think it does more than that. It represents the emerging spirit of liberal religion, not only regionally, in the
West, but for the continent and the movement as a whole.
To understand the contemporary shape and character of liberal religion you need to know this resolution and to
understand how influential it was in determining what Unitarian Universalism was to become. “Things
commonly believed among us” is one of the great documents of our heritage and deserves to take its place
along side Channing’s Baltimore address, Emerson’s Divinity School address, and Parker’s “The transient and
the permanent in Christianity.”
The author of this important document, the author of this Unitarian declaration of independence, was William
Channing Gannett, minister of Unity Church in St. Paul. Gannett—more than any other person related to our
regional history, I expect—represents the spirit of this part of the world; a spirit that played a central role in the
transformation of Unitarian Universalism.
VI. Unity Hymns and Chorals
William Channing Gannett, minister of Unity Church in St. Paul and author of “Things commonly believed
among us,” along with Frederick Hosmer, who served the Quincy church, were the two great Unitarian hymn
writers of the last quarter of the l9th Century and the first quarter of the 20th Century. In 1890, Gannett and
Hosmer teamed to produce a new hymnal called Unity Hymns and Chorals, a work which was revised and
enlarged in 1911. My copy is the 1911 edition.
Unity Hymns and Chorals is a most unusual hymnal, one with pages literally divided horizontally, so that the
singer can match words to a hymn of any appropriate tune. It also is unusual because of its philosophical tone.
There is an almost prophetic quality to parts of the introduction to the hymnal.
… our hymns reflect the religious feelings underlying what is called the Liberal Faith, feelings of
moral longing and consecration, of dependence on the One in All, of childlike trust in the Eternal
Goodness, of happy thankfulness for life, of free communion between man and man in
brotherhood, and between the child-soul and the indwelling Father-Soul. There are not so many
hymns of Duty, Brotherhood and Service in the book as we had hoped—mainly because such
hymns, in singing and poetic forms, are not yet many in the world. But there is more than the
usual proportion of herald-songs—songs of the Good-to-Be. More, also, than is common of
hymns touched with the wonder and beauty of Nature, and of what may perhaps be deemed
“poems” rather than “hymns.” Songs suffused with the thought and feeling, without the name, of
34
God will be used increasingly as “hymns,” we think. The imagery of Christian hymns has been
largely borrowed from a drama of salvation now passing out of credence; its place will be taken
by imagery drawn from Nature and life, and this is almost equivalent to saying that “hymns” are
likely to broaden in their scope, and, in broadening, to grow more poetic and more beautiful.
Gannett and Hosmer, from our part of the world, from the area that is now the Prairie Star District, contributed
some of the greatest hymns of liberal faith, some of the most moving celebrations of the uniqueness, vitality
and spirit of free religion.
It was Gannett who contributed the opening hymn in Hymns for the Celebration of Life, “The Morning Hangs
a Signal” (HCL #1). I never fail to be moved by this hymn, especially in the final stanza:
The soul hath lifted moments, above the drift of days,
When life’s great meaning breaketh in sunrise on our ways.
Behold the radiant token of faith above all fear;
Night shall be lost in splendor and morning shall appear.
It was Hosmer who fit new and beautiful UU words to the tune of “Onward Christian Soldiers” (HCL #215):
Wider grows the kingdom, Reign of love and light
For it we must labor Till our faith is sight.
Prophets have proclaimed it Martyrs testified,
Poets sung its glory, heroes for it died.
Forward through the ages In unbroken line,
Move the faithful spirits At the call divine;
It also was Hosmer who penned the words for the beautiful Autumn hymn, “I Walk the Unfrequented Road”
(HCL #277):
A beauty springtime never knew haunts all the quiet ways,
And sweeter shines the landscape through its veil of autumn haze.
I face the hills, the streams, the wood, and feel with all akin;
My heart expands; their fortitude and peace and joy flow in.
But a last word should be given to Gannett who, more than anyone else, I think, represents the spirit that
energizes the Prairie Star District. That spirit is found in “It Sounds Along the Ages” (HCL #247):
It sounds along the ages, soul answering to soul;
It kindles on the pages of every bible scroll;
The psalmist heard and sang it, from martyr lips it broke,
And prophet tongues out-rang it till sleeping nations woke.
35
From Sinai’s cliffs it echoed, it breathed from Buddha’s tree,
It charmed in Athens’ market, it hallowed Galilee;
The hammer stroke of Luther, the Pilgrims’ seaside prayer,
The oracles of Concord one holy word declare.
It calls—and lo, new justice! It speaks—and lo, new truth!
In ever nobler stature and unexhausted youth.
Forever on resounding, and knowing nought of time,
Our laws but catch the music of its eternal chime.
VII. Conclusion
The contributions of people from the area that now is the Prairie Star District to the larger liberal religious
movement is enormous. It is not too much to say that, in our history, we received a “goodly inheritance" from
the East and passed it back to the whole nation immensely enriched.
VIII. Resources
•
Hymns for the Celebration of Life, denominational hymnal of the UUA, edited by Arthur Foote II, et
al., and published by Beacon Press, 1964. Copies found in most UU churches and available, for
purchase, from the Sales Distribution Office of the UUA.
•
Hymns of the Spirit, edited by Henry Wilder Foote, et al., and published by Beacon Press, 1937: No
longer in print, but copies are found in many UU churches.
•
Responsive Readings, edited by Arthur Weathersly and published by the Iowa Association of
Unitarian Churches, 1939. No longer in print, but can be found in the libraries of several ministers in
the Prairie Star District.
•
Great Companions, Vol. 1 & 2, edited by Robert French Leavens and published by Beacon Press. No
longer in print, but often found in the homes of older Unitarian Universalists.
•
Unity Hymns and Chorals, edited by William C. Gannett and Frederick L. Hosmer, and published by
The Unity Publishing Company, Chicago, 1913. No longer in print, but sometimes found in UU
church music collections.
•
Freedom Moves West, a history of the Western Unitarian Conference, written by Charles Lyttle and
published by Beacon Press, 1952. No longer in print, but frequently found in UU church and ministers’
libraries.
•
The Epic of Unitarianism, Basic Documents in the Liberal Religious Tradition, edited with
commentary by David Parker and published by Beacon Press, 1957: Copies found in most UU church
libraries and available, for purchase, through the Sales Distribution Office of the UUA.
36
PART 2: Congregation Histories
IOWA
Ames
Unitarian Fellowship of Ames
The 1946 informal meetings of Unitarians in Ames actually anticipated the nationwide fellowship movement.
The original group consisted of people who had been Unitarians outside Ames, together with those interested
in learning about Unitarian thought. They met at 3 p.m. on Sunday afternoons, every other week, for
discussions with the Unitarian minister from Des Moines, Grant Butler. Dr. Butler would present the main
points of the sermon he had given in Des Moines that morning; then he would ask for questions and discussion.
Early in 1948, Dr. Butler was called to Boston to a position with the national Unitarian Association to organize
fellowships. On November 7, 1948, Dr. Butler returned to Ames for a visit and gave a rousing talk about the
Fellowship concept, its benefits to individuals and local communities and the strength it would add to
Unitarianism nationally. That evening we voted to accept the invitation to become one of the first fellowships.
Andy McComb was elected to be the first president of the Unitarian Fellowship of Ames.
Our first meetings were held in the Memorial Student Union on the Iowa State campus. Soon we had music and
a more formal type of service; Sunday school classes began, as Cleo McComb became our first D.R.E.
After about four years of meeting in the Union we moved to Alumni Hall, renting the YWCA rooms for our
Sunday school. This led to an expanded program in Religious Education, which was a drawing card to
membership for young orthodox churches. For the next sixteen years we continued meeting at Alumni Hall,
renting additional space from the YMCA to supplement that we were already renting from the YWCA.
During these years there were ups and downs. The lowest point came in 1959 when several active families left
Ames. We held a meeting to consider disbanding the group; however, the outcome of that meeting was that we
decided to put its treasury—about $50—into a building fund. Another ten years passed while money was
raised, lots were purchased, an architect drew up plans, more money was raised, and ground was broken at
1015 N. Hyland.
Throughout the history of the fellowship, religious education has been a primary focus of our concern. Back in
the ‘50s and ‘60s there would often be more children in the Sunday school than there were adults in the adult
meeting. The primary motive for building was to get adequate Sunday school space. In fact, the building we
dedicated in 1970 was built without the proposed adult meeting room. For fifteen years the adult meetings (and
pot luck suppers, and dances, and weddings, and memorial services) have been held in the foyer! Now that
we’ve paid off our last mortgage (February, 1986), we can think about expanding again.
The reason that we have maintained our fellowship status so long has not been size (with 135 members, we
were larger than many churches) or lack of financial resources. It has been a dedication to the fellowship ideal.
A fellowship is qualitatively different from a church, because of the necessity of developing our own resources
to meet each other’s spiritual needs. The immanence, the spiritual power, must come from the group, not from
37
any individual leader. In a fellowship with a rapid turnover in membership, there is a constant renewal of
discovery and enthusiasm. We did acknowledge that our ability to minister to each other was enhanced by the
six-week residence of a couple of ministers on loan (Dave Sammons in 1973 and Rupert Lovely in 1984), who
helped us with organization and structure; but we continued to fear that a full-time minister would steal the fire
from heaven. From the denomination we would occasionally get questions that implied, “Are you ready to
grow up and become a church yet?” The answer, based on extensive goal setting is, “We hope we never will
be.” We would like to grow, to meet the needs of more diverse people, and to become a more vital presence in
the community, however. In order to do this, we have finally reached the consensus to call a minister. By the
time this history is published, he or she should be installed—as minister to a fellowship, not a church.
(No author information)
Burlington
Unitarian Fellowship of Burlington
The Unitarian Fellowship of Burlington was founded in 1950 with sixteen original members. Two public
meetings had been addressed previously by Monroe Husbands from the American Unitarian Association. For
two years, monthly services of worship were held in a small auditorium at the YWCA. In 1952, with some
financial aid from the Iowa Unitarian Association, an old carriage house was purchased and remodeled into an
attractive meeting house, which stands on a spacious lot in an excellent situation. Besides the principal room
for worship services and other meetings, it contains a small kitchen, rest room and the common room for coffee
hours on the first floor, and religious education rooms and the minister’s study on the second floor.
During the first six years, 27 successive guest preachers conducted worship services. They included Dr.
Frederick May Eliot, President of the American Unitarian Association, and the leading Unitarian ministers
from Chicago, Omaha, Kansas City, Davenport, Urbana, Miami, Florida, and the President and faculty from
Meadville Theological School, including an eminent Dutch theologian.
In 1956, the Rev. John W. Brigham came to be the first minister of the Fellowship, also acting part-time in
ministerial recruitment from coast to coast for the Stevens Committee of the American Unitarian Association.
When he was called to the Department of Ministry in Boston in 1959, the Fellowship ordained James Curtis
who served us for two years. During an interim, the Fellowship was assisted by Rev. Carl Bretz, a Chaplain at
a nearby mental health institute. In 1963, the Fellowship called George Brooks who also taught physics at the
high school. Justin Kahn was ordained in 1968 and left to serve in the navy in 1970, followed by Raymond
Rohrbach who was ordained in 1970 and who died in an auto accident in 1973. In 1974 Dr. Brigham returned
as the minister of the Fellowship, and soon after he began to serve a joint ministry with the Fellowship and the
Quincy, Illinois Unitarian Church. The present minister, the Rev. Eric A. Haugen, was ordained in 1982 and
also serves this joint ministry.
The Fellowship currently has 43 members. Worship services are held every other Sunday, with forums on a
variety of timely topics at the same time on alternate Sundays. Church school convenes at the same time each
week.
Finally, since it is housed in a former carriage house, the Fellowship has possibly the only church building
where the Commons room has a windowsill, which a horse has chewed!
April 16, 1986
(No author noted)
38
Cedar Falls
Unitarian Universalist Society of Black Hawk County
For more than a century, liberal religion has had organized groups in the Waterloo/Cedar Falls area. In 1863
the Universalist Society built a church at 5th and Main in Cedar Falls, and its minister also held services in
Waterloo. In 1874 a Universalist Society was organized in Waterloo and a church was built on the corner of 4th
and Mulberry Streets. This was used until 1919 when the group bought a house, the James Black home, and
had a flourishing church organization for many years. Among the many ministers who served the Waterloo
Universalist Church were two women: the Rev. Effie McCollum and the Rev. Edna Bruner.
Unitarianism had its start in Cedar Falls in 1950 when Munroe Husbands came from the American Unitarian
Association (AUA) office in Boston to help set up one of the new Fellowship groups that were started at that
time. This group first met in private homes and after that, met in rented rooms downtown. In the book, Bright
Galaxy, Laile Bartlett made many references to the unique Cedar Falls Fellowship.
In the early 1960s both the Universalist Church and the Unitarian Fellowship were having difficult times with
leadership, finances, and building needs. Experimental joint meetings were held, which led to a decision to
merge. This was done on October 21, 1962, when 23 Universalists and 24 Unitarians formed the Unitarian
Universalist Society of Black Hawk County, Iowa. For four years the group met in the Price Lab School of the
University of Northern Iowa.
The Universalist Church sold its former church property and purchased a lot for $10,000 near the border of the
two cities. In November 1965, groundbreaking ceremonies were held; one year later, the $65,000 building was
dedicated at 3912 Cedar Heights Drive, Cedar Falls. They had too small an income to support both a building
and a minister, but the group thrived remarkably well with lay leaders doing the necessary work to keep the
Society functioning. After several good years, however, a plateau was reached. Revitalization took place when
the Rev. John Cummins of Minneapolis, UUA Minister-on-loan, came to serve the group in 1972. His ideas
brought a new spirit to the group, plus new members and a successful finance campaign.
The idea of using a support minister began in 1972–73 when the Rev. Robert Latham of Davenport’s Unitarian
Church came for one weekend each month. In 1973–74, the Rev. Tom Mikelson of Iowa City and the Rev.
Walter Kellison of Cedar Rapids served alternately as support ministers. The pattern continued the next year
with the Rev. Alexander Meek, Jr. of Rochester, Minn. and with Walter Buenning in 1975–76.
In 1976, one of the founders of the Cedar Falls Unitarian Fellowship, Dr. John Cowley, agreed to serve as a
paid lay minister. A retired professor of English from the University of Northern Iowa, John officiated at
weddings, funerals, and child dedications. He led a Sunday morning service once a month. He also took part in
local and district ministerial associations. In April of 1981 the Society named John Cowley “Lay Minister
Emeritus.”
In the fall of 1979, the Society applied to the Prairie Star District for the services of its Extension Minister, the
Rev. David Phreaner. David served the Society for four months, beginning February 1980. He led two services
a month and worked closely with the Board and all the committees in helping to realize the goal of a permanent
minister.
The Society’s desire for a full-time professional minister resulted in the formation of a five member Search
Committee in May of 1980. Its effort resulted in a congregational vote on September 14th to call its first
39
minister since the merger. The Rev. Michael Hennon began his ministry to the Society on November 15, 1980.
He was ordained and installed on March 29, 1981.
Under his leadership the membership almost doubled from 75 to 135 members. The congregation still desired
to have lay-led programs, so only one half of the year’s Sunday services were led by Michael. A program
committee was responsible for the others. A paid Religious Educator Director was hired, from the Society’s
membership, Tammy Hess.
Several traditional celebrations continued: a pancake breakfast for the first meeting in September, a Treats and
Talents auction, a Christmas observance, a Symbol Tree on which items of symbolic concern are hung, an
all-family Easter breakfast and celebration, a finance dinner, and a final year’s end picnic.
Michael served the society well during his leadership. He resigned (Spring 1985) to move to Seattle where his
wife was starting her medical residency. The Society functioned as a lay-led group while a second search
committee of seven members was working toward finding a minister.
By January 1986, it had chosen a husband-wife team. On the 19th, after an eight-day period of meeting with all
the church groups and many individuals, the Congregation voted to choose the Rev. Carol Hilton and the Rev.
Dwight Smith to be the ministers, beginning to serve the Society in April 1986.
(The above history has been written by Dorothy Grant, Archivist and Historian, February 1986.)
Cedar Rapids
History of the People Church Unitarian-Universalist
The Peoples Church (Unitarian Universalist), the current manifestation of the liberal religion in Cedar Rapids,
stands on the shoulders of many giants and is the result of several changes in character during its history.
It was originally a Universalist Church, incorporated in 1870. An attempt in the 1850s to start a Universalist
church in Cedar Rapids failed due to local opposition and the dispersal of some of its leaders.
The cornerstone for the present building was laid in 1875, and the sanctuary on the second floor was completed
in 1878.
A succession of ministers during the first thirty years of the church’s life struggled to keep the finances up.
Though the church was blessed with a few substantial donations, it became indebted to the Iowa Universalist
Convention during this time.
A major turning point came with the selection of the Rev. Joseph Fort Newton in 1908. An eloquent speaker,
he had a compelling vision of a non-dogmatic liberal Christian community church. He had come under the
condition that the church should be a liberal Christian church (Universalist). During his tenure the membership
reached 500 members. He left in 1917 to serve the City Temple in London and later Episcopalian churches in
New York City and Philadelphia. He also wrote a syndicated column of spiritual advice that appeared
nationally. His ministry marked the beginning of the strong community role of the church and its ministers.
About 1920, the church changed its name to The Peoples Christian Church, and withdrew from the Iowa
Universalist Convention. There was an effort to merge with the Congregational Church, which failed. Finally
the church called a Baptist, W. Waldemar W. Argow, of New York City. The church grew rapidly, with 163
members joining the church between 1921 and 1924. In 1928, there was an invitation for the church to join the
40
American Unitarian Association, with the benefit that the AUA would lend the church $10,000, and pay off the
debt to the Iowa Universalist Convention.
Dr. Argow left in 1930 to accept a call at May Memorial Church in Syracuse, NY. His successor, Rev. Melvin
Welke, arrived with the Depression. The church struggled financially through those years, but had a quite
active life, nevertheless. In 1938, Rev Welke accepted a call to the First Unitarian Church in Cincinnati. Rev.
Rudy Gilbert was called then, but within a year discovered he had tuberculosis. Between leaves of absence and
an every other week preaching schedule, the church failed to keep up, despite the opportunity to hear other UU
ministers and various interesting speakers. In 1944, the church called Waldemar Argow, the son of W.W.W.
Argow.
Soon the church was again full of energy and drive with book lectures, the development of a social action
committee, and other community building activities.
In 1948, the name of the church was changed from The Peoples Christian Church to The Peoples Church. In
1949, Polly Ely became chair of the Religious Education committee. The church school developed a puppeteer
program, and in the mid 50s dramatized the life of Schweitzer, also exchanging letters with him.
In 1956, a new wing was added to the church for expanded office space and religious education work. In 1957,
Argow left to become the minister of the Unitarian church in Toledo. He was followed by Napoleon Lovely,
father of Brandy and Ruppert, currently ministers in the UUA. In 1963, Walter Kellison came, and was known
for the diversity of worship and his involvement in community affairs. He died in 1975, and the church called
Judith Urquhart, its first woman minister. She has left a record of outstanding preaching and denominational
involvement. After the church had an interim ministry of half a year in 1984, Jeremy Brigham arrived in
August 1984, after having served churches in Tempe, Arizona, Cincinnati, and Columbus, Ohio.
The church currently has about 175 members and a $75,000 budget. Sunday school averages around 50 each
week. The members are well known and respected in community affairs. A long-range planning committee is
beginning to work on handicapped access to the building. The future looks promising for Peoples Church.
(Author not noted)
Clinton
Unitarian Universalist Church
Unitarian Universalist Church of Clinton, Iowa—the fourth name and third incarnation of a fellowship of
liberals reaching back to the early days of a boisterous lumber town/railroad center on the Mississippi River.
On the 31st day of December 1869, “The First Universalist Society of Clinton Iowa” formed itself into a “body
corporate for Religious purposes.” Several months before, the Society had engaged the Rev. R. G. Hamilton of
Waterloo for six months at a salary of $500. A singer was employed at “$5.00 per Sabbath,” and when a plan to
buy an existing church building failed, new building construction was undertaken through the donations of
more than 100 individuals and companies, headed by the town’s most prominent lumber barons.
The Rev. J. P. Sanford of Des Moines and the Rev. W.W. King of Chicago participated in sermons and lectures
dedicating Murray Church late in May 1871. As late as 1884, the organization was sponsoring lecture and
entertainment, but it could not maintain ownership of the building, which fell first into the hands of the
41
atavistic American Protective Association and finally became the home of sacred Heart Roman Catholic
Church, 4th Ave. S. and 4th Street.
Organized liberalism disappeared over a period of seventy-five years, and then, in April of 1960, ten
individuals from Clinton, Iowa, and Fulton and Albany, Illinois, met to form Gateway Unitarian Fellowship.
Programs varied; generally, a topic was presented for discussion by the membership. Occasionally, members
attended the Unitarian Church in Davenport. In 1961, the group moved to the YWCA, and a Junior Fellowship
(RE) program was organized.
Always plagued by scant and transient membership, the Fellowship finally was forced to dissolve in 1964.
Although widely scattered (and none remain in Clinton), members continue to keep in touch with one another
and with Unitarian/Universalism.
In late 1979, almost completely unaware of the earlier activities of the Gateway Fellowship, another group of
religious liberals began meeting in a series of Circle Suppers. Under the sponsorship of the Rev. Alan Egly and
with financial support from Davenport Unitarians, the group continued to meet; it held a series of public
services in the spring of 1981. Cedar Rapids Peoples Church, through the Rev. Judith Urquhart, presented a
chalice, which has been lit before each service held since. Clinton Community College was chosen as meeting
place.
On May 17, 1981, Murray Unitarian Universalist Society was officially organized, with a name chosen to
commemorate the church home of the earlier Universalist congregation. In September the Rev. Steve Crump of
Peru, Illinois, began a ministry shared with his LaSalle-Peru congregation of the Central Midwest District.
Membership included representatives of western Illinois as well as eastern Iowa. An RE Program was begun,
and Steve Crump’s music played a major part in worship services. After eighteen months, Crump left to begin
a fulltime ministry in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, at the end of 1982.
The Rev. Martha Newman was welcomed to Clinton in September 1983 and quickly became active in local
theological and environmental groups. She was ordained and installed in November 1984. Although the
college continued as regular twice-a-month meeting place, such locations as Eagle Point Park, Nature Barn,
Old School House, and Bickelhaupt Arboretum were appropriate backdrops for celebrations.
In May 1985, the congregation voted to change its name to Unitarian Universalist Church, to hold services and
church school every week, and to join with the newly formed fellowship in Dubuque in a yoked ministry.
When meeting rooms at the YWCA became available in the fall of 1985, it became the group’s home, just as it
had served the fellowship in the 1960s.
In the summer of 1986 Gateway area liberals, still plagued by low membership numbers and industrial
transfers, face another transition. Newman is expected to accept ministry elsewhere, and the congregation will
once again be on its own—this time with firm resolution to continue as a liberal church in the Gateway
community.
Congregational presidents who have served since 1981 are: Alberta (Bertie) Edwards, Jacquie Davis, Robert
Rutenbeck, and Agnes Edwards. Richard Huyck takes office for 1986–1987.
(Author not noted)
42
Davenport
The Unitarian Church of Davenport
In the 1850s, religious liberals and transplanted New Englanders supported a “free thought society” in
Davenport, while Universalist missions appeared in Davenport and across the Mississippi River in Moline,
Illinois. These fledgling groups disappeared during the Civil War, even though the interest remained. In 1866,
Carleton Staples appeared as a Unitarian missionary and within two years a congregation was formed in
Davenport. Rev. Nathaniel Seaver was called in 1868, and he ministered to the needs of Unitarians in Iowa and
western Illinois. The bi-state nature of support persisted, and under the dynamic leadership of Rev. Arthur M.
Judy, the church became influential in the community.
Rev. Judy (1854–1922) transformed his immigrant heritage into American acceptance. The family name had
been changed from its original Swiss spelling of “Tschudy” to a more Americanized version of “Judy.” He
studied under Horace Mann while an undergraduate at Antioch College, and received a Bachelor of Systematic
Theology degree from Harvard in 1881. For more than twenty-five years he created a reputation as a “scholar
expositor” of New England valued for the citizens of Davenport and Moline in the Middle West. He was
known throughout the region because of his theological positions at the Western Unitarian Conference
meetings in Chicago in 1985: he strongly urged that admission to the church organization be based upon ethical
considerations, not strictly theological ones. In his sermons, Judy “preached a faith which the best reasoning of
our age will more and more substantiate.” (Davenport Democrat, 30 September 1901). Under his leadership,
the church congregation built a permanent meetinghouse on the Davenport bluffs, Unity Hall (1897). G. A.
Hanssen was the architect who designed this functional building which directed “the mind back through the
traditions of the liberal church in sturdy New England.”
During his ministry, many traditions were devised for the growing metropolitan area. The Moline Church
continued and grew large enough to have their own minister, the first woman Unitarian minister in the district;
fairs were held as fund raisers for many purposes; The Sunday Evening Guild provided adult education courses
for the community at large; the Harmonie Society encouraged musical activities. Three writers were members
of the congregation during this period: Alice French, local colorist; Arthur Davison Ficke, Harvard poet; and
Henry Downer, regional historian.
In the twentieth century, the congregation has remained a microcosm of national trends and currents of
thought. During World War I, ultra-Americanists caused many members to resign and led to the resignation of
the minister. By the time of the church’s centennial celebration in 1968, activists for social change (anti-war
and civil rights) changed the consensus within the congregation. While F. D. R. was President, Rev. Charles E.
Snyder resumed the leadership role of Judy, participating in many community organizations and pursuing his
interest in local history. In the late 1950s when membership stood at 170, a new church was built in a cornfield
along US 6, the old Grand Army of the Republic highway, three miles north of Unity Hall. Services were held
in Temple Emanuel, which along with Edwards Congregational Church held an annual Interfaith Thanksgiving
Service. Non-members joined with the church sponsored plays, public debates, and the Hilltop Bazaar. By the
early 1980s, the membership has risen by 47% to 250 members. A missionary effort in Clinton continued
during these decades as part of the congregational responsibility for extending the liberal faith.
Dr. William Roba, chair
History Committee
Davenport Unitarian Church
43
Des Moines
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
During the first week of June in 1877, the Rev. J. R. Effinger of Keokuk, Iowa, came to Des Moines, a city then
of some 16,000 residents, “to confer with the liberal element for the purpose of effecting regular services.” He
spoke to about 30 persons in a hall in downtown Des Moines. On August 7, the First Unitarian Church of Des
Moines was formally organized. Nine individuals are listed as charter members.
Sylvan Stanley Hunting became the first regular minister for the Des Moines society, and his years of service
(1880–1886) were not easy ones. During his first cold Iowa winter, he tried to hold services in an unheated hall
and “people nearly froze and would not come out.” His net income for preaching in 1882–1883 was $33.
Despite the hardships it was in his tenure that the society built its first meetinghouse. The wooden building,
dedicated Dec. 3, 1882, cost around $9,000.
Women played a strong role in the early history of the church. The society’s second minister was Ida C. Hultin,
who came from Algona, Iowa in October 1886 and resigned in 1891 because of ill health. The fourth minister
was Mary Augusta Safford, elected in 1899, who served until 1910. Two other women ministers spelled Miss
Safford at times during her tenure.
A new church was built during Miss Safford’s ministry. The building was dedicated April 5, 1905 and was to
serve as the spiritual home of the Des Moines Unitarians for 51 years. The church’s new pipe organ was a gift
of Miss Safford, who also at that time paid off the society’s entire indebtedness of about $5,680. She was
elected pastor emeritus upon her retirement in 1910. A bronze plaque memorializes Miss Safford in a room that
bears her name in the present meeting house. Following her death in 1927, an editorial in the Des Moines
Tribune noted that, “It can be said of Miss Safford that everybody who knew her is better for her example and
her affirmative leadership.”
The Des Moines Society is indebted to an English Unitarian minister for its “Hymn of Valor,” used most of the
time at the conclusion of Sunday services in Des Moines and by a number of other churches and fellowships.
Henry J. Adlard came to Des Moines in 1924 and remained until 1928 when he returned to England and served
a Unitarian church in Bath. He wrote the words and music for the “Hymn of Valor.”
The active involvement of the society in concerns of the community was particularly evident during the trying
times of both World Wars. In World War I, thousands were stationed at Camp Dodge near Des Moines. The
church opened its building for the entertainment of servicemen and volunteers from the society staffed the
facility. Curtis W. Reese was minister at this time. Reese delivered a sermon in 1917, “A Democratic View of
Religion” that became instrumental in the formative stages of the Humanist movement in the United States.
When the American Humanist organization was formed in 1941, he became its first president. The Des Moines
society also was active in providing relief for the suffering people of Europe following World War II. Under
the tireless leadership of then minister Grant A. Butler and his wife, Calla, the Des Moines church stood second
only to All Saints Unitarian Church of Washington, D. C. of all Unitarian societies in the United States for
contributions to the Unitarian Service Committee’s effort for help to Europe.
The third and present meetinghouse for the First Unitarian Church was dedicated in October 1957. It is located
on a 4½ acre site given to the society by Amos Emery, a Des Moines architect, as a memorial to his parents
who had long been identified with the church.
44
Over its history of more than 108 years, 23 ministers have served the Des Moines society. The longest tenure
was held by John Isom, installed in 1961 and retiring in 1974. He was given the title of minister emeritus in
1975. He and Mrs. Isom remain active in the church. Kenneth Hurto was elected in 1975 and resigned at the
close of 1985 to take a pulpit in Alexandria, VA. The society with a current membership of 237 begins 1986 in
search of a new minister.
Knox Craig
Dubuque
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Dubuque began in November 1982 when Dave and Lisa Fryxell, who
had been UUs in Minneapolis before moving to Dubuque, contacted Boston about Unitarian possibilities in
Dubuque. This resulted in learning of Jan and Bill Ternent who had been members of the Fairfax Unitarian
Church in Reston, Virginia before coming to Dubuque. The Ternents in turn knew Craig and Betty Scott,
originally UUs from Maryland.
The first meeting of the UUs in Dubuque came in January 1984 at the Fryxell’s home. Rev. Alan Egly came
from Davenport and brought Rev. Martha Newman from Clinton, who would ultimately become the first
minister. Present were the Fryxells, Scotts, Ternents, the Scotts, and from nearby Galena, Illinois, Jeanne Pitz.
(The Scotts, Ternents, and Fitzs were employed by Catholic Clarke College while the Fryxells were employed
by the city newspaper.)
After a couple more meetings at the Scott’s home, the first service was held on February 19, 1984 at Comisky
Park, a city park building. Martha Newman, minister of the Murray Society in Clinton spoke on “Why are we
Unitarian Universalists?” Dave Fryxell recalled, “I remember we all lit little candles, then from those multiple
flames we lit one large candle. The facilities were crude; the sunlight through inadequate blinds bothered our
eyes; the piano was hopelessly out of tune, but we made a beginning. I believe about a dozen people would
become committed members, others never came back.”
A high point as well as a low point came that first Easter Sunday, when the acting executive director from
Minneapolis came to give us advice and to preside over an Easter service. On that snowy Easter morning he
was presented with an audience of six adults. He could not have held out much hope for the fledging
congregation.
After the summer break, meetings returned to the Fryxell’s residence where they had started. At one meeting
we elected our first officers. Jery Clark, President, found a new meeting place for us upstairs in an old brick
home downtown. The many hours of fixing up this “upper room” were traded for rent. Soon we gathered our
20 signatures needed for membership in the UUA. On January 25, 1985, the Fellowship received its charter.
Beginning in Sept. 1985, we started meeting weekly at the Masonic Temple downtown. We also had a room for
the children’s Sunday School. Classes averaged four youth, ages two to four. Chalice Lighter’s money enabled
Rev. Martha Newman to become our part-time minister providing services on the first and fifth Sundays. She
also continued to serve the Clinton Church.
Our first fundraiser was a garage sale held at the Fryxell’s in May 1985 that netted $227.60. Our first public
action was President Frank Potter writing a letter to the editor of the Dubuque newspaper criticizing the Boy
45
Scouts of America for ejecting a scout who when standing for Eagle rank would not state that he believed in a
supreme being. Our first public function was hosting a successful celebration on Jan. 20, 1986, honoring
Martin Luther King on his birthday.
As of March 1986, there is an active membership of 20 with an average attendance of 13.
(Author not noted)
Iowa City
Unitarian Universalist Society of Iowa City
In 1840, as part of the process that led to Iowa’s statehood six years later, a temporary statehouse was erected in
Iowa City. As there were as yet no houses of worship in the tiny settlement, the territorial governor
immediately opened the public rooms to any and all groups or preachers, of whatever sect, who wished to
conduct public services. Over the prior two years several itinerant preachers of the Universalist persuasion had
stopped in Iowa City to hold meetings in various settlers’ cabins, but none had taken up residence. Once the
statehouse was opened, however, the Reverend A. R. Gardiner, Universalist, was among the first to accept the
governor’s invitation. On November 6, 1841, the First Universalist Society of Iowa City was organized at the
house of Mr. Ed Foster, president.
By 1842, Gardiner’s congregation had grown to the point of seeking its own permanent quarters. As part of the
original city plan, the territorial government had set aside several quarter-blocks in central locations to be
deeded in grant to any religious society that would agree to erect a permanent within two years. The
Universalist Society of Iowa City received the second such grant. After Gardiner’s successful fund-raising trip
to the East, which yielded contributions from Horace Greeley and P.T. Barnum among others, the Society
dedicated its first building in 1844.
Following Gardiner’s departure in 1845, the Society languished under intermittent and short-lived leadership.
Not until 1869 was another strong minister secured, the Reverend Augusta Chapin, and not a moment too soon.
Almost immediately after Chapin’s arrival, the Society’s meeting house burned to the ground. Despite being
forced to gather in a former bowling alley, and later in the Lutheran church sanctuary, the congregation
prospered under Chapin’s hand. Lecturers Mary Livermore and Susan B. Anthony graced its pulpit. In 1870,
the Society bought property located directly across the street from the growing State University of Iowa, and
erected a grand Byzantine-style church, dedicated in 1873. Unfortunately Reverend Chapin was unable to
preach at the dedication due to poor health. When her condition failed to improve within the next year, she was
forced to resign.
Once again, the Society languished. By 1878, the congregation had dwindled to the point that services were
held only when itinerant preachers could be enticed to visit. In that year, however, a third savior arose. The
Rev. Oscar Clute was a Unitarian minister, assigned by the fledging Iowa Unitarian Conference to the Keokuk
church to do missionary work. Upon learning of the Iowa City Universalists’ need, he convinced the American
Unitarian Association to underwrite his initial salary as minister in Iowa City on the condition that the
Universalists permit him the use of their building. As soon as the deal was sealed, Clute commenced an
energetic public ministry specifically aimed at the University community. By 1882, the Society was thriving
with new people, most attracted by Clute’s Unitarian approach, and the congregation formally changed
46
denominational affiliations to become a member of the AUA. In 1884, Oscar Clute resigned to become
General Secretary of the Western Unitarian Conference.
Throughout the century since Oscar Clute’s ministry, the Iowa City Society has maintained a strong liberal
presence in its community. The Reverend Eleanor Gordon brought the Society through the crisis of yet another
fire in 1896, before resigning in 1900 to become Secretary of the Iowa Unitarian Association in Des Moines.
When the University’s expansion converted the church building to a student union in 1908, the Reverend
Robert Loring led the congregation to purchase its current site a few blocks away and designed the original
portion of the current meeting house. The Reverend Arthur Weatherly raised the society’s social consciousness
during the 1920s, and the Reverend Evans Worthley brought it through the depression and war years in style.
The Unitarian Universalist merger in 1961 reconnected the Society to its roots, and, in 1962, a three-story
classroom and office building expansion, now named “Worthley House,” prepared it for future growth. Recent
ministers have been Al Henriksen (1952–58), Khoren Arisian (1958–64), Bill Weir (1965–70), Thomas
Mikelson (1971–83) and Fritz Hudson (1984–present).
(Author not noted)
Mason City
The Unitarian Fellowship of North Central Iowa
The Unitarian Fellowship of North Central Iowa was chartered in 1959. Dorothy Grant of the Blackhawk
County Fellowship, and Monroe Husbands assisted in its founding. The first president was Gene Shepherd.
The first secretary was Selma Ulvestad, and the first treasurer was George Wharam. The latter two were “Born
Unitarians.” They have left their previous church affiliation because it was not fulfilling their needs.
In the 27 years our membership has varied from 8 to 20 members. We have never attempted to purchase our
meeting place. We have met in hotel rooms, YWCA, library and hospital auditoriums, and often in the homes
of members. Probably over half of the programs were presented by our members. Some of these were the
reading of a sermon preached by some Unitarian pastor. There were cassette tapes, and recently VCR tapes
obtained on loan from the Unitarian Society. We have had outside speakers from nearby Unitarian Churches or
fellowships. One speaker was Rev. Mr. G. Kubose of Chicago Buddhist Church, who drew a crowd of about 50
after it had been advertised locally. We have also had, as speakers, local people who have a record of
accomplishment in service to humanity.
As we have no church building to maintain, and no pastor’s salary to pay, we have not experienced financial
difficulty. For many years we have met our suggested share for giving to the Annual Fund.
One of the reasons our Fellowship has not grown larger; we have never been able to attract enough young
adults with children to have a meaningful children and youth program (Sunday School). We regret that none of
our members has ever been sent as delegate to the General Assembly. Several of our members have, however,
attended Star Island, or Lake Geneva assemblies.
(Author not noted)
47
Sioux City
The First Unitarian Church of Sioux City
On Sunday morning, February 1, 1885, the Reverend Oscar Clute, Unitarian minister from Iowa City, spoke to
a good crowd in the courtroom of the Woodbury County Courthouse. According to old records, his “clear
reasoning and logical argument caused a very favorable reaction.”
A board of trustees was chosen and on March 11 Articles of Incorporation adopted. The group then bought a
skating rink located at the corner of Sixth and Douglas and transformed it into a meeting house, which was
dedicated on Easter Sunday, April 5, 1885.
To raise money for the operation of the new church, the ladies of the Circle sponsored a series of lectures by the
Rev. Jenkin Lloyd-Jones, pastor of the All Souls Unitarian Church of Chicago. As the records state, this effort
“enriched the church by the sum of $22.35 financially, and spiritually and intellectually beyond price.”
When enough funds were available, the congregation searched for a minister. One of those invited to speak on
two Sundays in May was the Reverend Mary Safford. She created such a favorable impression that even those
skeptical about a woman as minister were persuaded and the vote to select Miss Safford was unanimous.
A rapidly expanding congregation enabled the purchase of a lot in May 1877. Two years later, May 5, 1889, a
new church was dedicated. Although incorporated as the First Unitarian, the church was usually referred to as
the Unity Church. Membership was over 300 with an average Sunday attendance of 250.
Of the twenty-one ministers who have succeeded Mary Safford up to the present, some are outstanding. The
first, the Reverend Charles E. Snyder (Aug. 1917–April 1931), a man of varied interests and accomplishments
was listed in Who’s Who. Several years after the Depression years, John Brigham, another of the exceptional
ministers, was appointed in December 1946. Among his many activities was a fifteen-minute Sunday morning
radio program.
Seven months after Mr. Brigham became minister, the church was destroyed by fire “of unknown origin” on
July 29, 1947. Thanks to the generosity of Jewish friends, services were held in the Jewish Community Center
until the summer of 1948. A house was purchased in September 1948 and was used for five years until the
congregation outgrew the facilities (that house is currently owned and lived in by a family in our
congregation). In the spring of 1954, the church house of current location was purchased and the chapel was
begun in August of that same year.
As we begin our second century, our history has run full cycle. We have just called our second woman
minister, the Reverend Penelope Binger.
Information from “Celebrating a Century of Spiritual Freedom” Marlene Sturdevamt, President, Board of Trustees.
September 1986
48
KANSAS
Lawrence
Unitarian Fellowship of Lawrence
Unitarianism in Lawrence, Kansas, is as old as the beginning of the town in 1855; settlers from Massachusetts
established one of the first churches, and erected the first church building in the new town. The church on
Ninth Street was for years a sort of town gathering place, and its bell, which survived a sinking during its
transportation from Massachusetts, tolled for years to inform the citizenry of good news and bad. This first
building outlived its usefulness and was ultimately torn down, but the bell still survives in the lobby of the High
School. A second building on 13th and Vermont served the congregation for decades until the war years
brought an end to an aging congregation in 1945. (This second church building was taken over first by the
Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints, and then by St. John’s Catholic Church, which razed it in order to
erect a parochial school in the site.)
That the 90-year tradition of organized Unitarianism in Lawrence should cease irrevocably was unacceptable
to some officials at 25 Beacon Street. An attempt at revival in the early 1950s did not succeed, but the energy
and determination of the late Munroe Husbands could not accept defeat. In 1957, Mr. Husbands set out upon
another of his many travels to revive and to enrich Unitarianism. A member of the Church of the Larger
Fellowship, Ambrose Saricks, on the faculty of the University of Kansas, was requested to set up a meeting of
interested persons in Lawrence to consult with Mr. Husbands. By newspaper and telephone some 30 people
were brought together at the Hotel Eldridge in November of 1957. That meeting marked the start of the present
Unitarian Fellowship of Lawrence.
A steering committee, chaired by Professor Saricks, spread the word of the new beginning and arranged for
further meetings. From the basement of the Medical Arts Building at Fourth and Maine Streets, the incipient
Fellowship moved for Sunday evening meetings in a day care nursery building on Alabama Street. There, in
February 1958, it received its official recognition in the form of a Charter from Boston and elected its first
officers. The first great need thereafter was space to establish a Sunday School. The immediate answer was
found on the campus of the University of Kansas where, for three years, adults and children came together on
Sunday mornings, first at Meyers Hall (the old School of Religion) and the Kansas Union and then in Strong
Hall, central administrative and class-room building.
During this time, officers of the Fellowship sought more permanent quarters. The most attractive opportunity
arose not in the city, but four and a half miles south of its then boundaries. As a consequence of school
consolidation, the old Pleasant Valley School House came on the market at an affordable price. The building
was purchased but required much work to make it usable as a regular Fellowship Meeting House. As in other
communities, the goal could be reached only through a drive to raise money and through the willingness of the
membership to provide considerable physical labor as well as money. All efforts were successful, and, in the
fall of 1961, the Fellowship dedicated the refurbished school building and a new Sunday School building in a
special ceremony, which brought joy and satisfaction to many whose efforts had made possible this success.
This year the Fellowship, still in its Pleasant Valley setting, will have another special celebration to mark its
25th year in its own building.
49
Overland Park
Unitarian Fellowship of Johnson County
Peace and contentment are sometimes the children of controversy. In the winter of 1980–81, a divisive issue
arose within the Shawnee Mission Unitarian Society, a congregation of some 120–130 persons in Overland
Park, Kansas. The minister had previously resigned, effective September 1981. With his encouragement, a
member of the congregation asked the Board of Directors to adopt a resolution requesting the minister to
withdraw his resignation. The Board, being aware of a division of viewpoint on the matter, determined that the
question was one for the congregation to decide. The minister opposed a congregational vote. A petition
followed, and the congregation engaged in a verbal and literary knockdown—with the minister taking an
active part in the contest. As “sometimes” happens with Unitarians, feelings ran high. When the dust settled
and the minister was permitted to withdraw his resignation, most of the Board and a third of the congregation
made their own withdrawal—and formed what is now the Unitarian Fellowship of Johnson County.
By the end of 1981, the Fellowship had become a corporation and adopted by-laws under the name, Unitarians
of Johnson County. On November 21, 1982, it was formally affiliated with UUA, and 30 founding members
signed the membership rolls.
By the end of 1981, the Fellowship has held its Sunday services in the evening—in rented quarters—initially in
meeting rooms in a Prairie Village shopping center, then at the clubhouse at Greenbrier Apartments, and since
1982, in the facilities of a Unity Church in Overland Park. Two factors combined to keep the Sunday services
in the evening: the availability of a suitable meeting place and a desire to avoid direct competition with the
Shawnee Mission Unitarian Society which serves the same geographical area.
For five years, the Fellowship has conducted regular services from September through May. No minister has
been employed, but clergymen of various faiths have been speakers, including ministers from other area
Unitarian churches. Question-and-answer periods and group discussions are frequent, and members take turns
with outside speakers in presenting programs. Attendance has held fairly steady, with 20-30 generally present.
A rudimentary RE program was carried on for about two years, but then discontinued.
The Fellowship has a lively social program. Most members—there are currently 45—participate in monthly
Dinners for Eight at the homes of one another, and there are monthly congregational parties celebrating our
fellowship. These include theater parties, potluck dinners, New Year’s Eve bashes, gourmet dinner parties,
boating trips and commiseration events dedicated to the IRS in mid-April each year. Without doubt, we have
put the emphasis on fun and fellowship—while not neglecting attention to ethical values and social concerns.
(Author not noted)
50
Shawnee Mission
Shawnee Mission Unitarian Society (SMUS)
Overland Park, Kansas
SMUS was founded in 1967 with the encouragement of the Rev. Raymond Bragg and his congregation at All
Souls Unitarian Church, Kansas City, Missouri. SMUS’s first sixty members came from the All Soul’s
congregation.
The newly formed group originally met in a school building; in May 1970, SMUS purchased its present
property at 7725 W. 87 Street in the heart of Overland Park. Two buildings—the barn-chapel and Sager
House—provide space for worship, administration, and a variety of activities.
Reluctance to leave the fellowship character of SMUS yielded in 1969 to the calling of its first minister. The
Rev. Frank Smith served the congregation through 1973.
The Rev. Dr. Vern Barnet was called in 1975 and remained until 1984. He was a proponent of world religions,
Eastern thought, and liturgical experimentation. He provided multi-media services that were experiential as
well as didactic.
During his tenure, SMUS moved in many exciting and innovative directions; religious education for children
was greatly expanded; the church was a pathfinder in initiating a “Coming of Age” program for younger
teen-agers; a World Religion Series was offered for adults and the church structure was reorganized, and new
by-laws enacted.
The steady growth of the congregation was interrupted twice. The first setback was in 1981 when
approximately one-third of the congregation left the society to form a fellowship. The disagreement centered
on the administrative style of the minister and the emphasis on ritual and Eastern religions.
In 1983, the expansion of the Religious Education program as well as the growth of the congregation made it
necessary to consider a building program.
Disagreements over the program led to a second membership loss, the scrapping of building plans and Dr.
Barnet’s resignation.
The Rev. Fred Campbell became interim minister in September 1984. Skilled in conflict resolution, he
approached congregational disagreements in the pulpit and individual and group counseling. There was
remarkable progress in these efforts.
In September 1985, the Rev. Dr. Dale Robison, SMUS’s second interim minister, assumed the pulpit. During
his tenure, membership growth became a top priority for SMUS.
With renewed confidence and enthusiasm as well as the introduction and strengthening of several programs,
SMUS believes it is entering a new era.
Carolyn McMahon, Board President, 1985–86
51
Topeka
Brief History of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
A visitor to our Fellowship gazing at the sleek lines of the 1983 building addition would not be likely to stop to
consider that this congregation of religious liberals has a rich history of 102 years. Until recently few of our
own members were aware that our congregation was organized and first held services in 1883 as a fellowship
of twelve people, meeting in the home of our founders, George and Adelaide Wood. The congregation
dedicated the building that was to be its home for fifty-six years in November of 1886.
So it is with the challenge of new endeavors that we learn about ourselves, our history, and are inspired by the
visions and hopes of our forebears. None of us expected the search committee’s project would lead us to
understand our past in the detail that has been revealed. And yet in the process of researching our history, we
have discovered original documents, lovingly kept logs from the depression years and records of district
Unitarian meetings held in Topeka beginning in 1889.
The “Golden Age” of First Unitarian Church was in the years 1921–1932 when Clifton Merritt Gray served as
its minister. Under his leadership the church became an intellectual and cultural center where controversial
ideas were aired in Sunday night forums and prominent Americans, Unitarian and otherwise, frequently made
Topeka a way station in their travels. The church and its activities were often in the headlines of the Topeka
Daily Capital. Mr. Gray, a Harvard classmate of American Unitarian Association president Louis Cornish, was
AUA Minister-at-Large, with a salary partially subsidized by the Association.
The Depression years brought a decline in membership, financial support, and a subsequent merger with First
Congregational Church in 1940. The original building was sold, razed and fifty of our members joined the
Congregational Church, which became nominally affiliated with the AUA. One of our more cynical members
referred to this as a “submerger.”
The core group from the old church was never really satisfied at First Congregational, so a new fellowship,
including some of the older members, began to meet in 1950. In 1954, the group called Raymond Bragg as its
part-time minister. Mr. Bragg was then serving the church in Kansas City, Missouri. The small congregation
met at the Kansas NEA building, the YWCA and two other sites before deciding to find a new permanent
home. With generous financial assistance from one of the members, a two-bedroom house in southwest
Topeka was purchased in 1968. The garage was converted into the main meeting room, and a parking lot was
added later.
In 1977, the group again began to consider professional religious leadership, and with the help of the Prairie
Star District called a “Weekend Minister,” Alexander “Scotty” Meek, who came to Topeka periodically from
Rochester, Minnesota over a three-year period. David Phreaner, the district extension minister, who served the
Fellowship full-time in 1981 and 1982, followed Mr. Meek in 1981.
This five-year period saw significant growth in the Fellowship, a doubling of the budget, and a significant
increase in membership—from 60 to 90. With Mr. Phreaner’s assistance the group formed a committee to
consider building expansion, and a $130,000 addition was dedicated in the fall of 1983. Most recently the
congregation reached two more milestones: surpassing the 100-member mark and voting to call its first
regularly employed minister in forty-five years.
(Author not noted)
52
Wichita
The First Unitarian Church of Wichita
The First Ninety-Nine Years
The records are not clear: was it two societies or one with two names that became the Unitarian Society of
Wichita in 1887? The Emerson Society and/or The Sunday Circle began negotiations by December and called
themselves a church.
It must have been a handful of people who welcomed the first minister, apparently sent from Boston in 1888,
thus beginning a struggle to both pay a minister and begin financing for a permanent building.
Somehow money was raised to build a church that was to be their home until 1953. Total cost was about
$12,000, which was a considerable sum for such a small group. On October 16, 1902, the Society dedicated the
new building. These events set the trend for recurring continuity, severe financial hardship, great difficulty in
adequately financing a minister, and receiving fiscal help from the AUA. That latter began in 1900 and
continued until 1915. In the interim, one minister left because funds ran out, and another existed on $40 a
month.
To continue the theme of difficulties, with their recurring drop in morale and probably membership, a popular
minister, Mr. Walter Vail, died in office in 1907, and the record indicates the group was temporarily stunned.
Another minister, in the 1920s, left to become an Episcopalian, and then came the Depression—and the dust
storms. Again the AUA came to the rescue, subsidizing part of the minister’s salary from 1930–1937. When
the Rev. John MacKinnon left in 1937 after a popular (but financially depressed) ministry, the Sunday bulletin
referred to “a very generous offer from Mr. MacKinnon in the way of a settlement of the rather large
accumulated deficit on his salary that had been carried for several years.”
Present memories of older members recall the tempestuous days of a young man without full Unitarian training
hired in 1950 who proceeded to siphon church funds for his own purposes, which meant study trips to eastern
European countries and lecture tours recounting their glories. When membership and money fell, he demanded
the building be repaired. To enforce his demands, he took a sledgehammer and knocked the plaster off the
walls. The members spent a hot humid summer (before air conditioning) doing the repairs themselves and then
that fall sent the young man on his way. Again the AUA came to the rescue and underwrote the new minister,
John Isom, who successfully brought the church renewed membership, financial stability and a new building in
the form of a fine old home near Wichita State University. Later, in 1970, we added a fine octagonal shaped
meetinghouse.
This theme of difficulty is really only half the story, for the group did always win out in the end and managed to
persist. Further, it found its original theology, based on James Freeman Clarke’s Five Points of Unitarianism,
broadened both by its association with the Western Conference and the ministry of L. M. Birkhead, 1915–17,
one of the signers of the first Humanist Manifestos, and some of his successors.
While the church had not been successful in having a pipe organ, it did acquire early a manually operated reed
organ and this instrument, now supplemented by a fine Hammond electric and a grand piano, is still in use
today, as is a valuable rabbi’s chair given the congregation by the reformed Temple who early rented the old
building on Fridays and Saturdays.
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A constant theme, beginning shortly after the group became a church, is the role of the Women’s Alliance. In
1905, that group numbered 35 and was described as having “grit.” Time and again they came through with
clutch fund raising and aid. But sex roles do not stay constant. The first woman to be president was elected in
1919, and many have followed her footsteps. The Alliance metamorphosed into the People’s Alliance in 1984,
but continued their historical continuity with the gift of a computer in 1986. Meanwhile, the annual Unifest, a
bazaar, sale, games and fun occasion, has become an all-church affair and has been headed by a man, while last
year women took over the pledge drive. All this occurred under the successful ministry of Rev. Greta Crosby.
From the beginning the church school has been small, with the exception (an echo of the national trend?) of
about 1957–65. Indeed, in 1923, an AUA staff member spent three weeks organizing a “Sunday School” by
recruiting unchurched children from the neighborhood. Today the RE Director is paid a foot-in-the-door token,
but church school enrollment is under 30.
In 1889, the third year of our history, the church served the greater community by sponsoring a visit from Julia
Ward Howe attended by “193 people.” More recently, Wichita can thank its Unitarian church and its members
for the Wichita Community Theatre, the South-central Kansas of the ACLU, leadership city and statewide in
the League of Women Voters, and Planned Parenthood of Kansas, among many other causes dealing with
social and racial concerns.
Wichita’s geographical position in the center of the nation has meant healthy contacts with the Western
Conference, then membership in the Southwest Conference, and then in 1973, reunion with Prairie Star
District and the Southern Cluster. Its historical trend now continues its past 35 years: a healthy active church in
a healthy active district.
John Millett, March12, 1986
MINNESOTA
Angora
Unitarian Church of Alango, Minnesota
The organizational meeting of the Alango Unitarian Church was held on October 1, 1916. Rev. Risto Lappala
and Rev. Elmer Forbes of the American Unitarian Society conducted the meeting. Twenty-five area people
attended. They were asked if they were ready to form a liberal Christian church. The vote was unanimous.
Services were conducted in Finnish. The minutes of membership and board meeting were hand written in
Finnish script. Bylaws were drawn on Oct. 8, 1916.
Plans to build a church were made in April 1918. Before the structure was built, services were held at rural
School #44 and at various homes. Land for the church was donated by the Rainy Lake Lumber Company. The
property is located at the intersection of St. Louis County roads #22 and 668.
Construction of the church building began after spring planting in 1918. Materials were purchased locally.
Donations were made and a loan of $600 was received from the American Unitarian Association. Carpenters
were paid 50 cents per day.
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Members who would be accepted into the church had to be at least 16 years of age, and had to pay dues of 15
cents per month. Wood was used to heat the building until 1950.
Rev. Risto Lappala was the first installed minister. He died in 1922. His wife, Rev. Milma Lappala, carried on
until she passed away in 1950. Her second husband, Rev. Matti Erkkila, assisted her during her last years. He
continued to serve the congregation for a year and a half after her death, when he moved back to his former
home in Montana.
Rev. Milma Lappala was a very popular minister who was asked to conduct numerous funerals and weddings
for people who were not members of the church. She faithfully held confirmation and religious education
classes all through her years with us. In 1922, her starting salary was $5 per month.
In 1934, a one-room school was purchased and moved to the church site. It was added on to the existing
building for use as a dining room, kitchen and social area. In 1958, the Lappala children deeded the lovely
family home, “Metsola” on the Rice River, to the church. This property was sold and the funds used for
remodeling the church building, purchasing folding chairs, installing a new furnace and various other
improvements.
The Women’s Alliance, founded in 1917, is still active. Dr. Preston Bradley officiated at both our 50th and
60th anniversaries.
In addition to the Reverends Lappala and Erkkila, and Preston Bradley, the congregation has been served by
Reverends Berkley Moore, Kenneth Jackson Smith, Thomas Smith, and Ben Bortin. We have had many lay led
services through the years. Our current minister is Rev. Carol Hepokoski. 1986 is our 70th year.
Adelaide Hyppa, Box 425, Cook, MN 55723
Bloomington
Minnesota Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (MVUF)
The years 1966 to 1969 were a time of experiment and discovery as the group began to settle into character. A
high level of work, thought, and enterprise characterized this period, as it has marked the entire life of the
fellowship.
Later we shared the difficulties of many UU congregations across the country—static or decreasing
membership and budget. Fatigue also took a toll, and our confidence drooped a little. In 1971, our morale got a
boost from the Prairie Star District Minister-on-Loan Program.
From 1972 to 1975, the fellowship grew slowly, refined its organization and operations, and looked for a
permanent home. (Services had been held in the Fort Snelling chapel, a Masonic lodge, two public schools, and
a Holiday Inn.) The home we eventually found was an empty and slightly run-down church building in the
suburb of Bloomington. The membership committed itself financially, and with the help of the Interdistrict
Representative, Prairie Star District, the Unitarian Universalist Association, and the Veatch Committee we got
four loans and made the down payment. In September 1975, we held our first service in our new building.
Thus began a love-and-sometimes-hate affair with building management that continues today.
Since the building was bought there has been a fairly steady growth in membership—slow at first and more
rapid later with new young families joining.
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In 1981, MVUUF took part in Prairie Star District’s Extension Ministry Program and in 1982 we hired, as
Administrative Assistant and later as Director of Religious Education, an experienced DRE who had long been
a member of the fellowship. For the past three years a young minister from St. Paul has addressed us once a
month. Now in 1986 the congregation has begun a search for a regular half-time minister.
A celebration in September of this year will mark MVUUF’s twentieth anniversary. At the age of twenty we
are proud of our successful Women’s Group, our members young and older including thirteen 20-year
members, our strong interest in music and the arts, the devotion of our committee members and our religious
education teachers, and the steadiness and warmth of our support of each other. Membership at present is 87,
and with the budget also at an all-time high Minnesota Valley Fellowship looks forward to the next twenty
years.
(Author not noted)
Brainerd
Northwoods Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship
Northwoods Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship is a small fellowship in rural north central Minnesota. We first
met in late fall 1982 and were officially recognized as a fellowship in June 1983. Brena and Glen Lakes (who
have since left the area) were the main organizers, inviting people from a wide geographic area and varied
professions to join in a liberal religious group.
We meet the 2nd and 4th Sunday of each month, usually in a member’s home and occasionally at a local
conservation reserve meeting room. Our meetings always begin with a song session and then we divide into
child and adult groups. One or two parents teach RE for our seven children (if all are present) aged 2–10.
Our adult discussions are most often led by a member; occasionally we have a speaker from outside the group.
The adult discussions have covered a wide variety of issues. Gandhi, Thoreau, mindfulness, the soul, COACT,
the value of entertainment, modern marriages, nuclear freeze, behaviorism, and courage are a sampling of
topics we’ve covered.
After the discussions, we always have a potluck dinner and then visit for an hour or two. The fellowship
satisfies many social and “community” needs of its members.
We are fortunate to live in a beautiful area with many recreational opportunities near by, and we do take
advantage of them. In September 1983, we started a tradition of a fall (post mosquito and tourist season)
camping weekend. In 1985, we added a spring camp out and a winter afternoon ski trip to our outdoor
activities. In the summer, we often go swimming if we meet at a member’s lake home.
Individually, some of our members are very active in social and political concerns and as a group we have
collected for local food shelves.
Because of the geographies of our group (we have five families with school-age children in five different
school districts), it is difficult for us to get together other than on Sundays. In 1983 and 1984, we had a monthly
adult dinner and discussion, but lately even that seems impossible to schedule.
Although we are listed in the church section of many local newspapers, we have not attracted many new
members. We sometimes have visitors who come for a meeting or two, but our very small, family-oriented
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fellowship cannot meet the needs of all religious liberals in the area. We hope to someday find a permanent,
centrally located meeting place (preferably on a lake!) and think that would attract more members.
(Author not noted)
Duluth
First Unitarian Church of Duluth
On May 18, 1887, ten women and eight men endorsed articles of incorporation for the First Unitarian Society
of Duluth, “an association where people, without regard to theological differences, culture, and humane work,
by meetings and such other educational, social, and charitable movements as may be agreed upon.” In the fall
of the same year, the Reverend James H. West assumed the pulpit, the first of seventeen full-time ministers
who have served the church, throughout its history. In January 1888, six ladies formed “a society to aid in the
building up of a liberal religious society,” known successively as the Ladies Aid Society, the Women’s
Auxiliary, and the Women’s Alliance. In the same year, the Unity Club was formed for the study and
discussion of religious, social, political, educational, and cultural subjects. A Sunday School was started early
in 1889 and a Young People’s Society not later than 1896. Ten years after its founding, a fairly complete
Unitarian society had been established.
Early services were held in the homes of members, or in rooms in different down-town buildings, for a time in
a rented unused church, when in a modest frame building constructed for church use. In 1910, after longer than
twenty years of movement from one location to another, the present church was designed and built for the
congregation—“a tiny almost domestic Craftsman Medieval church in stone and half-timbering,” whose most
striking architectural feature is its lone stone tower with a remarkably squat steeple. (Gebhard and Martinson,
Guide to the Architecture of Minnesota, p. 195. The building is included in the Duluth Historical Resources
Survey, 1984.)
The Unitarian Society began keeping a register of its members in 1890. The same register, containing some
five thousand names, is still being used today.
The purposes of the church have been served generally through a variety of religious, social and cultural
activities. Included among those, and at times the most conspicuous, have been stands on important, and
sometimes sensitive, public issues, taken by ministers, by groups of church members, or on occasion through
decisions and actions of the whole congregation. The earliest of these was women’s suffrage, a concern
initiated by founders of the society and long promoted by members. Such interest is maintained to this day in
the form of continuous advocacy of equality and full social autonomy for women. One memorable early action
was the sponsorship on 1890 or a lecture defending women’s rights by pioneer Universalist minister, Olympia
Brown.
At the end of World War I, members gave active support to international relief agencies. Other important
concerns have been the promotion of racial equality in the support of Afro-Americans and Native Americans,
appreciable gifts to public food shelves, a modest program of aid to “latch-key” children until the public
schools assumed that responsibility, in 1923 the endorsement of the theory of biological evolution, throughout
the century frequent and sometimes intense opposition to war. Possibly the boldest action in support of the
offices of peace was taken in 1984 when the church joined two other Duluth congregations in endorsing
sanctuary for Central American political refugees and serving as cohosts for a young Salvadoran guest.
57
The record of the church over ninety-nine years has shown as alternation of extended periods of success and
briefer periods of membership, now 160, has probably never been larger, and if present circumstances allow a
prediction for the future, the Duluth Unitarian Church will continue to keep the resolution adopted by its first
members, to promote liberal religious and social culture.
(Author not noted)
Excelsior
Lake Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
The Lake Fellowship of UUs had been active since 1960. The membership of the group has been relatively
small, about thirty family units. Attendance has been very good, averaging about 25 on Sunday morning. The
group is more of an extended family than the average organization.
The lake referred to in the name of the fellowship is Lake Minnetonka, located in the western side of the
Minneapolis area, in the City of Shorewood, near Excelsior. The group enjoys a fine A-frame as a permanent
home, and it is located on an off-the main-road lot with a wooded view through the glassed-in wall at the front
end.
In the early days, the Lake Fellowship met in typical rental places: schools, lodge room, town hall. Good
fortune smiled one day. In 1968, a gas company exhibited the A-frame at the State Fair as an all-gas home. One
of the members was a successful bidder to buy and move the building within two weeks. The A-frame, the
moving, purchase of property, and building of a basement was a boon to the group at about sixteen thousand.
When the balloon date of the loan arrived in 1979, the members handled their own financing. In one day,
enough members accepted debentures to pay off the mortgage. The plan is going well, and they will be paid at
the maturity in 1990.
Sunday mornings are informal, consisting of opening music, a reading, and a presentation followed by open
discussion. Volunteers from the membership present the topic about half of the Sundays; speakers are engaged
on others. Criteria for content of the presentations were set through the years. Programs committees have
agreed that they should not simply be instructive or only entertaining, but be philosophical, issue-oriented, or
thought stimulating.
Enough years have passed so that fine younger people are coming to the Lake Fellowship, and all indications
are that it will continue to be a steady, important part of life to those who belong.
(Author not noted)
Hanska
Nora Unitarian Church
For over 100 years, Nora Church has served as a “Beacon on the Hill” for liberal thinkers in South Central
Minnesota. Located one mile east of Hanska, MN, it is situated on the highest point in Brown County. Jesuit
missionaries, making their way through the wilderness, named the “Hill” Mount Pisquah or Pisgah.
A number of factors were involved in the conception of Nora Church. All of the founders were born in Norway,
and were influenced by such liberal performers as Hans Nilson Hauge, Kristofer Bruun, and Henrik Ibsen.
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They were members of a local Lutheran church, but became dissatisfied there over local matters, one of them
being the location of the cemetery.
Kristofer Janson, a poet-preacher from Norway, who was also an ordained Unitarian minister, was on a lecture
tour, when a number of the Lutheran dissidents heard him speak in a neighboring community. Later they
invited him to speak in Hanska, and from that Nora Free Church was organized on August 21, 1881. The
members resolved that day to be called Nora Congregation; the name Nora comes from the three symbolic
maidens representing the three sister Scandinavian countries, Nora, Svea, and Dania. Nora means simply
Norwegian. It was the better part of one year before the church actually became an institution in the American
Unitarian Fellowship.
Kristofer Janson, who was serving the Nazareth Church in Minneapolis as minister, was called as minister
January 14, 1882. He was to hold church services here in Brown County six times a year. The first adopted
constitution called for the Bible as the foundation for church law, but did not accept that work as infallible.
There was much community controversy over the new church, and at one point, Johannes Moe, Chief
Spokesman, wrote to Budstikken, (a Norwegian newspaper) pleading that Norwegians in America live and let
live. Much of the controversy was carried on in the Scandinavian newspapers of the day, and is well
documented.
The first church was built on top of Mt. Pisquah, behind the present one. It was nearing completion when it was
destroyed by a tornado in July 1883. Rev. Janson’s family and the carpenters were in the building at the time,
but no one was seriously injured. During the following week, clothing and pieces of his manuscripts were
found clinging to tree branches. It was jokingly said that indeed, money grew on the trees. Some people of the
community however, saw the destruction as a sign from God, denouncing “the church on the hill”. The
following Sunday members met and decided to build a small meetinghouse using the materials that remained.
However, when contributions from the East began to come in, the plans were changed, and the erection of the
present church began that fall.
Rev. Amends Norman was hired to serve the church upon the resignation of Kristofer Janson in September
1893. Rev. Janson and Rev. Norman served Nora Church for the first 50 years of its existence. Since that time,
the church has been ably ministered to by the Revs. George Walen, P.J. Hanson, V. Emil Gudmundson, Peter
Weller, Charles Flagg, Leroy Egenberger, Paul Johnson, Harold Babcock, and Ralph Johnson. Each of these
men shared their concerns, talents, and philosophies with the congregation.
(Author not noted)
Mankato
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Mankato
In the fall of 1952, a notice in the Mankato Free Press announced that Munroe Husbands, from Boston, would
be at the Saulpaugh Hotel (now razed in favor of the Holiday Inn) to meet with those who were interested in
Unitarianism. G.S. Peterson (“Soci-Pete”), Professor of Sociology at Mankato State College and long-time
member of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, and the Rev. Arthur Foote, minister of Unity Church, St. Paul,
MN, laid the foundation for the first meeting. The kindred spirits that met that evening formed what was to
become the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Mankato.
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Charter members of the Fellowship included Jane and John Foster, Grace Burnell, Wm. F. and Harriet
Hinrichs, Louise Roth, G.S. Arnold, Ethel Ann Devaney, C.A. and Dorothy Arnold. Louise Roth and the
Fosters (when they are not in China) are still active in the Fellowship.
Religious education was an important goal for those who had children. Some say that the parents decided to
hold adult meetings as something to do while their children were in Sunday School. Even though the
Fellowship met in rested spaces during its early years, it maintained an active religious education program.
The Fellowship incorporated as a non-profit organization in 1961 for purposes of acquiring a permanent home
at our present site. The building was a substantial eight-room house on approximately two acres of land
bordering on Glenwood Creek. Spacious lawns and fine old trees graced the property. In 1979, the group took
on a second mortgage in order to remodel the basement church schoolrooms and bring them up to code. Five
years later, we finally “got the L out of the Fellowship,” when we added a sizable meeting room to the facility.
It was formally dedicated on September 15, 1985. Betty Mills of Bismarck, ND, and the Rev. Gordon
McKeeman, president of Starr King School for the Ministry, were guest speakers on this occasion. A concert of
classical music was included in the weekend of celebration.
Fellowship means people. Many of ours have been Mankato State University faculty members, so our fortunes
have glowed or faded with arrivals and departures associated with that transient population. Despite the
turnover, the membership has remained at 30–35 members for several years.
(Author not noted)
Minneapolis (FUS)
First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis
The First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis, which is housed in a handsome modern church built in 1951 at 900
Mount Curve Avenue, was founded in 1881. The membership in the past several years has stabilized at about
900. Among the members are residents of other cities and states. In addition, the Society receives support from
a number of contributing nonmembers.
At the time of the Society’s founding, Minneapolis was a scattered, open frontier city of 50,000 people without
a foot of paved street but with an almost savage faith in their ability to control their own destiny. The founding
of the Society was an expression of that faith. On November 18, 1881, meeting in the old Adventist Hall on
Third Street and Nicollet Avenue, the Society was incorporated and its aims set forth: “Where people without
regard to theological differences may unite for mutual helpfulness in the intellectual, moral, and religious
culture and humane work. And that all persons whatsoever who sympathize with these aims shall be welcome
to this Society.”
Henry M. Simmons was minister of the Society from its founding in 1881 until 1905. Under his ministry the
Society soon outgrew Adventist Hall and in 1881 began to hold services in the Jewish Synagogue at Fifth
Street and Marquette Avenue. Construction of a new church was undertaken in 1885. Located at St. Mary’s
Place, now Eight Street and LaSalle Avenue, the handsome church, designed by a noted architect of the time,
L.S. Buffington, was dedicated in June 1887. Mr. Simmons, a powerful and provocative minister, established a
standard of excellence that has been a hallmark of the Society’s ministers ever since.
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The Society continued its growth in size and stature under the ministries of E. Stanton Hodgin, who served
from 1905 to 1909, and Wilson Backus, who served from 1910 through 1916. Next to assume the pulpit was
John H. Dietrich, a major figure in the development of the Society and of American Unitarianism in the Twin
Cities and in the nation.
Under Dr. Dietrich, who championed carefully conceived religious humanism, the Society experienced rapid
and exciting growth so great that Sunday services were moved to the Garrick Theater in Downtown
Minneapolis and later to another large downtown theater, the Shubert, to accommodate the audiences that
regularly exceeded 1,000. Eventually the Dietrich sermons were extensively broadcast on radio and published
in leaflets that were mailed to religious liberals throughout the world. Thus, during the 1920s and 1930s the
First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis became a center of religious liberalism in the upper Midwest.
In 1926, the Society moved from its church in downtown Minneapolis to the Unitarian Center at 1526 Harmon
Place. Sunday services were still held in the theaters to accommodate the large audiences while the Center
itself became the scene of a variety of innovative programs.
After Dr. Dietrich’s retirement in 1938, the pulpit was filled by another dynamic humanist religious leader,
Raymond B. Bragg, who served during and after the difficult years of World War II. Raymond Bragg was
succeeded by Carl Storm, who served for an 18-year period that saw the Unitarian church move to its present
location. Robert Lehman succeeded Carl Storm, from 1965 to 1978.
The present minister, Khoren Arisian, began his service with the Society in 1979 and has continued and
strengthened the religious humanist tradition of John Dietrich and other past leaders of the Society. Mr.
Arisian, in addition to his vigorous leadership of the Society, has been instrumental in the formation of the
North American Committee for Humanism and the establishment, by the Committee, of the Humanist
Institute, which has its headquarters in the Meeting House of the New York Society for Ethical Culture. The
institute serves as a national training center for humanist leadership education. Mr. Arisian, a graduate of Tufts
University, has also studied at Harvard and at Oxford. He has served in Unitarian Universalist ministries in
Iowa City, Iowa and Sarasota, Florida, and as a religious leader with the Ethical Culture movement on Boston
and New York.
Through its members the Society has always been a strong force in its community. A number of civic and
social organizations, such as the Minnesota Memorial Society, the Humanist Credit Union, and Group Health
(a pioneer Health Maintenance Organization) largely had their beginnings among member of the First
Unitarian Society.
Janet Salisbury
2006 Girard Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55405
Minneapolis (First Universalist)
The First Universalist Church of Minneapolis
Universalism in Minneapolis traces its history back to 1850, eight years before Minnesota became a state. A
church building had already been completed in 1855 (and still stands) on the highest point of land overlooking
Nicollet Island when Minneapolis laid out its first streets.
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W. D. Washburn was a chief founder of the church when it was formally incorporated in 1859, and a faithful
member for fifty years. From the Washburn family and the Crosby family also early members of the church)
came the present day Pillsbury and General Mills companies.
Dorilus Morrison was Chairman of the Board of Trustees and was elected as the first mayor of Minneapolis
when it was incorporated as a city in 1867. George Chowen, a member of the Board, was Hennepin County’s
first Registrar of Deeds.
Dr. Carl Olson, minister of the church from 1939 until 1965, chaired the city’s first Urban Redevelopment
Commission. He also led the congregation in building its present building, which was completed in 1949.
The tradition of leadership and public service remain an important priority for the church today. Unity
Settlement Association continues to initiate and support novel projects of civic improvement and social
change. A weekday nursery school, church school, social concerns, adult classes and forums, and a host of
social activities make the church an active center of religious concerns for the congregation’s 685 adult
members and 200 children.
In over 125 years there have been just five ministers of the First Universalist Church including the present
minister, Dr. John Cummins. Dr. Cummins, the son of a Unitarian Universalist minister, has received degrees
from Bowdoin College, Harvard and the University of Chicago. Continuing the Church’s tradition of long
pastorates and liberal leadership, Dr. Cummins has been twice President of the United Nations Association of
Minnesota. As a lifelong pacifist, John Cummins was active in the anti-war movement and draft counseling.
Prior to that, he participated with Martin Luther King at the racial watershed of Selma and Montgomery,
Alabama. He is currently Ministerial Settlement Representative for some fifty Unitarian Universalist
congregations in the upper Midwest.
(Author not noted)
Minnetonka (Wayzata)
Unitarian-Universalist Church of Minnetonka
The Unitarian-Universalist Church of Minnetonka (UUCM) began in 1965, springing from two fellowships.
Under the leadership of our first minister, Rob Brownlie, the West Hennepin Mental Health Center was
founded. Brownlie also led in the formation of the Wayzata Human Rights Commission.
During the trying “civil rights” years, Brownlie represented the congregation at Selma, Alabama, and under his
leadership a “Black Market” wholesale purchasing system was created to assist the North Minneapolis
community after the assignation of Dr. Martin Luther King. Later, a creative idea of selling “stock “ to help
American Indian college students was launched.
The church became a center of ethical and philosophical activity during this period. It came to a rather tragic
end when our congregation split, as the country did, over Vietnam.
Our second minister, Bill Hammond, led a splintered and diminished congregation. He is remembered fondly
by many for his healing efforts. He established “Life Support Groups,” and the membership focused in a more
inward direction, creating a sense of fellowship and an “extended-family” orientation, which continues to be
prized by many today.
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Our third ministry with Roger Smith once again was a time of significant activity and achievement for our
church. UUCM’s community involvement and contributions were impressive for our size. Under Smith’s
leadership we were instrumental in founding interfaith Outreach and Community Partners. Denominational
involvement was revived and expanded through his participation in the UU Ministerial Association and his
work with the Twin Cities UU Publicity Committee, which held a successful “Big Event” in 1983 and again in
1984, bringing Unitarian Universalism to the attention of the metro area.
As the oldest church on Piety Hill in Wayzata, UUCM preserved a historic landmark and restored its antique
stained glass windows. Together with the Wayzata Community Church, we participated in the formation of an
Amnesty International group, and recently helped host a regional conference. Roger Smith resigned in June
1985, and we are currently operating as a self-directed fellowship.
Our purpose is “to help people achieve their richest fulfillment through growth in understanding freedom and
responsibility; to search for truth wherever it may be found; and in the spirit of personhood, undivided by
nation, race, creed or sex, to provide more effective opportunities to help nourish the highest hopes, values, and
ideas of humankind.” This is the spirit, which unifies all those of diverse beliefs in this church.
Clare Carlson, Interim Administrator, August 1986
Rochester
First Unitarian Universalist Church
Our church was founded in 1860 with the preaching of a Universalist sermon by Rev. I.M. Westfall. This was
only four years after Rochester was first settled. Meetings were non-existent between 1863 and 1866 due to the
impact of the War Between the States. On January 6, 1866 the Universalist Conference met in the city under
the leadership of Rev. H. Bisbee and Rev. S. Barnes. On March 3, l866 the first meeting of the Rochester
Universalist Church was held.
Since that time our church has been served by 25 ministers. From 1870–1873 we were served by the Rev. Miss
Eliza M. Tupper.
We have had four buildings over the years. Twice there have been fires, which damaged our buildings.
Our membership has fluctuated over the years, reaching a high of 250. It is now 192. Over the years there have
been periods of financial hard times, which threatened closing our church, but each time we have managed to
pull through.
The history of Rochester is dominated by the growth of the Mayo Clinic over the last 100 years, beginning with
one-doctor, then two brothers, and now 800 physicians with a major research program. The other major
employer in Rochester is IBM Corporation. Our church seeks to meet the religious needs of individuals and
families these two corporations draw to our area. We seek to define and enable the practice or religion in the
lives of scientific and technological people. Currently our minister is Rev. Fred F. Campbell. We have a strong
RE Program capably led by Elizabeth Katzmann. Our music program is directed by Kevin R. Dobbe. We are
delighted with the quality of our organ, piano, and harpsichord.
(Author not noted)
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St. Cloud
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of St. Cloud
From a religious viewpoint, St. Cloud, Minnesota is known as a city of many Roman Catholic and Lutheran
churches, established because of the large German, Polish, and Scandinavian elements in the community’s
population. Nevertheless, Unitarians started a church in St. Cloud in the 1880s. This liberal religious church
flourished for a time, but by the 1920s the congregation was struggling, and in the 1930s it disbanded and gave
its building to the city of St. Cloud. Then for almost thirty years, no organized body of Unitarians existed in the
community.
By 1960, the stage was set for the founding of a Unitarian fellowship. Three groups of people, some of who
were in more than one of these groups, combined to launch this new venture in Unitarianism in the city. Some
of the members of a liberal discussion group, which met occasionally in the late 1950s to converse about
political, social, and philosophical topics, constituted one element. A second set of individuals who were
involved in this were a few members of the Unitarian Church of the Larger Fellowship who resided in St.
Cloud. The third strand of these founders of the fellowship was a small number of Unitarians who had
belonged to Unitarian churches elsewhere before moving to St. Cloud. Under the leadership of Munroe
Husbands, the field man for the American Unitarian Association at that time, these three groups came together
and organized a fellowship in 1960.
The members of the fellowship (subsequently called the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship) met at first in a
place called the Mohr Guest Home near the campus of St. Cloud State College (now University). Their
meetings, which were essentially adult discussion sessions, occurred one or two times a month on Friday
evenings from September through May. Soon people within the group organized a religious education
program, meeting in the homes of those who had children. By the mid 1960s, the growth of the group, plus the
desire of the RE advocates to have the RE lessons held at the same time as the adult programs, resulted in:
renting two rooms in the St. Cloud Labor Home and simultaneous RE and adult sessions on Sunday mornings.
During this time, the fellowship organized in a more formal manner with a governing board, which met every
month. It also developed many of its traditions in the mid 1960s such as pledge dinners in members’ homes and
an annual picnic in May. By this period a few members of the fellowship were very active in regional UU
activities and sometimes attended the national general assembly.
IN 1966, the group, desiring its own building, purchased a former schoolhouse in SE St. Cloud and took
possession of it in 1967. At the mid-point of the 1970s, fellowship members determined that they needed a
larger building both for the adult meetings and for the RE programs. This new structure was occupied in 1979
and rings with the sounds of RE activities and the varied programs for the adults each Sunday from September
through May.
In general the fellowship has increased in membership over the years, although, due to the nature of members’
vocational pursuits, there has been a considerable turnover in membership.
(Author not noted)
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St. Paul
Unity Church of St. Paul
The first record of Unitarianism in St. Paul bears the date of June 1852, when the Rev. George Woodward of
Galena, Illinois, journeyed up the Mississippi River and held a service in the hall of the Sons of Temperance.
There is no further mention of Unitarians until December, 1858, when Frederick Hewell, formerly a Unitarian
minister in Boston, and now owner of a feed store in St. Paul, agreed to conduct services if he could use his old
sermons. In 1859, lack of funds forced the group to disband and for the next six years services were held only
on the rare occasions that a minister was sent West by the Unitarian Association in an effort to keep this and
other groups going.
The year 1872 marks the first step in the real organization of a Unitarian church. A subscription was taken to
maintain a minister for one year. John Effinger came from Keokuk, Iowa, and preached his first sermon on
Feb. 11, l872, and the date that has been adopted as the actual birthdate of Unity Church. Two weeks later, 50
members signed Articles of Association and the next year saw the official incorporation of “Unity Church.” In
1875, the now fast growing membership took a big step, moved into the vacant Universalist Church, and paid
$1,000 yearly rent for the luxuries of a “pleasant church and softly cushioned pews.” Ill health forced Mr.
Effinger, a highly respected minister, to resign in 1876, and Sunday services ceased.
William Channing Gannett, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, arrived from Boston in 1877. By this time
the congregation numbered about 150 and there were 70 children in the church school. The Unitarians now
dreamed of their own church—they chose a site and an architect, and asked to have the church look like a
“church home.” The opening service in the new “Queen Anne” cottage-style building was held on April 15,
1883. Mr. Gannett resigned that summer, and was replaced by Mr. Clay McCauley of St. Paul, who stayed for
only one year. In 1886, the trustees invited Mr. Crothers from Brattleboro, VT to be their minister, a post he
held for over seven years. He was a noted and much-respected minister. Following his resignation in 1894
came the short pastorates of William Lord (1895–97) and Clarence Diven (1898–1900). Richard Boynton
came in 1900. In 1902, the congregation felt a new church in a new location, “up the hill,” was advisable and
plans were underway. Unity Church, at its present site at Portland and Grotto, was dedicated on December 10,
1905. After Mr. Boynton’s resignation in 1907, John Reid came from Greenfield, MS [MA?] and stayed until
1917.
Frederick May Eliot came from Cambridge, MA in 1917, where he shared the pulpit with Mr. Crothers. His
ministry lasted for 20 years. The church grew steadily in this period and the Parish Hall and the Ames Chapel
were added to the building. Mr. Eliot left Unity Church in 1937 to become president of the American Unitarian
Association in Boston.
Wallace W. Robbins succeeded Mr. Eliot and was our minister from 1938–1944, when he resigned to take
office as President of Meadville Theological School in Chicago. He still occasionally returns to Unity Church
as a guest preacher.
Our minister emeritus, Arthur Foote, came to Unity Church from a parish in Stockton, CA and served as our
senior minister for 25 years. During his ministry, the church and church school grew steadily, and in 1957, a
new wing was added as a memorial to Frederick Eliot. A disastrous fire in 1963 gutted the main church, but the
successful reconstruction has given us a handsome and modern structure. The restored building was dedicated
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in January 1965. In addition, during this time Unity Church gave significant financial support to establish a
“branch church” in White Bear Lake. Frederick Rutledge served as an Associate Minister from 1966–1970.
Our present minister, Roy D. Phillips, came to Unity Church in May 1971. He is a graduate of Boston
University and of Meadville Theological School and came to us from the UU Church of Racine and Kenosha,
WI. During his ministry, there has been significant growth in membership and the church school as well as in
program. A capital campaign has secured funds for building renovation and further expansion of the facilities,
to house a growing congregation and staff, and to provide additional meeting space and classroom area.
(Author not noted)
Underwood
Unitarian Church of Underwood, Minnesota
The Unitarian Church of Underwood, Minnesota (pop. 332) can celebrate its centennial in 1989. Founded by a
group of Norwegian immigrants as the Free Christian Church, it has persisted all those years in a conservative
and predominately Lutheran community.
Its founding is related directly to Kristofer Janson, Norwegian minister and poet, who spent some time at
Harvard before traveling and lecturing in the Midwest. He established Unitarian societies and churches in
Minneapolis, St. Paul, Hanska, Underwood, Fergus Falls, Brainerd, and Crookston in Minnesota and at
Hudson, Wisconsin. He made trips to Underwood in 1888 when at least one meeting was held in a blacksmith
shop. And he made six trips there in 1890.
First trustees at Underwood were Hans P. Bjorge, Peter Jensen, Martin O. Nass, Christian O. Kolstad, Anna C.
Kolstad and Josepha Medjaa. For a number of years the minutes were written in Norwegian.
First meetings at Underwood were held in the Liberal Union Hall, which the congregation purchased in 1894
for $300. The hall has undergone many changes but it is still the Underwood church, in the same block as the
more affluent Sverdrup Lutheran Church.
For a numbers the Underwood church had a resident minister who lived in a parsonage purchased by the
Women’s Alliance. A subsidy, amounting to as much as 80 percent of the minister’s salary, was discontinued
by the American Unitarian Association in 1929.
The church had its ups and downs. Many non-Unitarians helped keep the church active when it no longer had a
resident minister. A merger with the Presbyterians was proposed in 1949 and affiliation was proposed in 1964
with the Congregational Conference. Both proposals were voted down and many Unitarian Universalist
ministers have come to Underwood to speak since 1965. The have included Dr. Dana Greeley of Boston,
Arthur Foote from St. Paul, John Cummins from Minneapolis, and others from Winnipeg, Hanska, Duluth, and
the Twin Cities.
Survival of the Unitarian Church at Underwood is due primarily to the efforts of John Gronner (1903–1981)
who received the Unsung Unitarian Universalist Award in 1979 and was cited as “the Light on the Prairie.” He
was the church’s president for 25 years and kept the church “functioning as a regional outpost of our mission,”
the plaque reads. He was the son of Norwegian immigrants who were among pioneer members of the church.
The name of the church was changed in 1965 to the Unitarian Church of Underwood when changes also were
made in the constitution.
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The church presently has about 55 members, many of whom live in Fergus Falls and a few of whom travel 50
miles to services that are held twice a month from September to June. Picnics have become a monthly event in
the summer and there are occasional other social gatherings.
Attempts are made to secure a Unitarian Universalist minister once a month. Other speakers are engaged from
the community, from Fargo or Bismarck and they speak on a wide variety of topics. A religious education
program is carried out at the time of services and there are occasional potluck dinners. Marguerite Andrews of
Pelican Rapids is the current church president.
(Author not noted)
Virginia
First Unitarian Church
In northern Minnesota there are two small Unitarian churches of Finnish-American origins. The Alango and
Virginia Unitarian Churches were founded by Finnish immigrants to the Mesabi Iron Range during the second
decade of the twentieth century. They were organized and served by the Revs. Risto and Milma Lappala.
The Virginia church is the older of the two. It was founded in December 1911. Meetings and services were
temporarily held in the local temperance hall and in homes. The Rev. Risto Lappala’s salary was paid in part by
the Department of New Immigrants of the American Unitarian Association. In the fall of 1912, the church
building was completed and the church named: Vappa Kristillinen Kirkko—The Liberal Christian Church.
Meetings were conducted in the Finnish language, a practice that continued into the 1940s. Most of the 26
founding members were under 30 years of age.
The Finnish American community historically has been deeply divided between the conservative “church
Finns” and the radical socialist and communist Finns. Some have understood the northern Minnesota
Unitarians churches to be institutions, which bridged the gap between the two extremes. Here was a place for
Finns with progressive social intellectual concerns, who also felt a desire for a spiritually oriented community
life.
The Rev. Risto Lappala was the first minister of the Virginia church. His wife, Milma, a seminary graduate,
also served the church by helping to organize the Sunday school and the Ladies Alliance. She organized the
first “mission” of the church, the Alango Unitarian Church, founded in 1916, in a rural area some twenty miles
north of Virginia. Risto was also involved in missionary work, making periodic trips to Finnish American
communities in Montana and Utah. Risto died in 1923 at the age of 40. At this time, Milma became the
minister of both churches and continued to serve the Virginia church until the 1940s.
The Virginia church began to Anglicize in the late 1930s. Attendance and membership records are sketchy, but
it appears that attendance averaged 25 to 35 people. Although the group was small, its influence was greater
than the numbers would suggest. The program of the Sunday school, the Alliance, the minister’s officiating at
weddings and funerals, and the minister’s radio programs greatly increased the number of people reached.
There was an active schedule at the church of fundraising and social activities.
In the early 1940s, an English speaking minister was hired, the Rev. Edward Redman. Other ministers
following him include the Revs. Berkeley Moore, Kenneth Smith, and Thomas Smith. These ministries were
shared with the Duluth and Alango Unitarian Churches.
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During the 1960s and 1970s, the church was operated fellowship style, with strong lay leadership provided by
Jay Scholtus. The Women’s Alliance continued through these years to provide heavy financial support of the
church. In the late 1970s the church again had the services of the Duluth minister, the Rev. Ben Bortin, who led
services approximately once a month. The Rev. Carol Hepokoski currently serves the church on a part-time
basis. She was ordained there in September 1984 and began serving one year later.
The last several years have seen a renovation of the church building and increased activities within the small
congregation. Membership in 1986 is approximately 30. The church membership remains two-thirds Finnish
American and it is still possible to hear Finnish spoken in the church parlors, sample Finnish foods during the
coffee hour. The congregation looks forward to increasing growth as it looks forward to its 75th anniversary in
1987.
(Author not noted)
White Bear (Mahtomedi)
White Bear Unitarian Church
The White Bear Unitarian Church came to life as an offspring of St. Paul’s Unity Unitarian Church. With the
help of Arthur Foote, Unity’s minister, 18 people met on November 29, 1955 to organize a branch church.
Sunday evening meetings were held in a town hall. By the fall of 1956, Unity’s White Bear branch found a
more permanent home at Wildwood Elementary School in Mahtomedi, MN. A small but hearty congregation
of 56 kept the church equipment and hymnals in a cabinet called “our barn and altar.” Church life was animated
by picnics, celebrations, and vigorous debates.
By 1958 the congregation decided to become an independent fellowship. After considering several possible
buildings, a decision was made in May 1959 to buy a small Methodist church in Mahtomedi for $12,500.
(Originally, this church was a chapel for the Mahtomedi Chautauqua Assembly). By the fall of 1959, White
Bear Unitarian Church was formally incorporated. Rev. Arthur Foote spoke at the dedication service on
September 13, 1959 welcoming the new group as “fellow champions of liberal religion.”
The next six or seven years were busy ones for the new fellowship. A second story was added to the back of the
church for religious education. An organ was purchased and, with the help of Helen Fillebrown, a choir
formed. Two questions thread themselves through the church records of this time: should they remain a
fellowship or hire a minister? And how much growth is needed to support a minister? In the early 1960s three
men shared the ministerial role: Dick Sykes, Carl Peters, and Richard Marsh. In 1963 the church called Dick
Sykes as part-time minister. Two years later, Rev. Grant Butler came from the UUA to help the church grow
enough to support a full-time minister. These efforts came to fruition when Charles Grady was called as
minister in 1966.
From 1966 to 1973, the church went through growing pains. Several sites for a new building were considered,
one was purchased, but there were not sufficient funds to build a new church. Under Charles Grady’s
leadership the church grew rapidly, but not always happily. After his second year, Rev. Grady moved east to
serve a church in Arlington, MA. Dissent about the location of the church and its professional leadership
caused large membership losses. For a while the church returned to a lay-led fellowship. In 1971, Rev. Bill
Hammond was hired as half-time minister, but the relationship between church and minister was not convivial.
By 1973, the church leadership decided to return to a fellowship mode. For the next four years, the church
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happily operated as a close extended family with nature hikes, book clubs, seasonal celebrations, musical
programs, and guest speakers. Despite the warm dealings, there was a steady decline in attendance and loss of
lay leadership.
In 1976, the church again sought professional help. Derek Kiewatt, a recent graduate of Harvard Divinity
School was hired as part-time minister. Derek is remembered for his provocative talks, his TV appearances,
and his building of lay leadership. Some of the unused church property was sold to remodel the basement and
social hall. Ministry was increased to half time. It was with regret that the church accepted Derek’s resignation
in 1979 and formed a new search committee.
In the summer of 1980 the church called a recent Starr King graduate named Ted Tollefson as their half-time
minister. The next five years were marked by a steady growth in membership and income, brimful brunches
and dinners, and Sunday programs both playful and serious. The remainder of the unused land was sold to
establish a futures’ fund. The meeting room was renovated and a new roof put on. New curriculum and a
church songbook were created. The custom of Summer Chautauqua was revived with concerts, lectures, and
homemade ice cream. Full-time ministry was restored in 1986 as the White Bear Unitarian Church prepared to
celebrate its 30th anniversary.
Dee Smith, Ted Tollefson, and Ann Bushnell
November 17, 1986.
Willmar
First Unitarian Society of Willmar
The First Unitarian Society of Willmar was organized at Renville, MN on June 9, 1929. Thirty-four religious
liberals, from the surrounding area, signed as charter members. Elected to direct the organization were: Mrs.
Harry Molenaar-president, John Molenaar-vice-president, and Mrs. Arvid Larson-secretary-treasurer.
During 1929, meetings were held at member’s homes, there was a picnic and ice-cream social, and Dr. John H.
Dietrich was the first minister to address the group on Oct. 25 at the Masonic Hall in Willmar. Dr. Dietrich
continued to be mentor for the organization until his retirement.
In April of 1930, the group voted to affiliate with the Minneapolis Unitarian Society and a close relationship
was held with that church for many years.
In 1934, Mrs. Harry Molenaar was the first delegate to attend the Minnesota Unitarian Conference. A
$F100.00 gift from the Conference was given to the infant Willmar Society.
Meetings were usually held during the evening in the 1930s and a social hour with dancing followed the
lecture. Meeting places were the Masonic Hall, Carlson’s Hall, and the Elks Hall. Donations to the
Minneapolis Unitarian Society, the western Unitarian Conference and the American Unitarian Association
were started.
In March of 1944, the Willmar Society purchased a church building at 5th and Trott Ave., Willmar, MN, and
improvements were made to fit their special needs. Donations had been solicited earlier and full payment was
made when the church was bought.
On June 16, 1945, the Society voted to call Konrad Bose as their minister. Mr. Bose was ordained and installed
at the Willmar Church on September 23, 1945 and served there until 1947.
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A religious education “Lake Camp” was organized in April of 1946 with Edith Haroldson and Geneva
Molenaar as co-directors. “Lake Camp” has been held continuously since that time and will be celebrating its
40th year this summer. It also serves children from UU Fellowships and small churches in Minnesota, North
Dakota and South Dakota.
The Willmar Unitarian Society meets every Sunday except during the three summer months and has guest
ministers and speakers who talk on a wide range of topics. A picnic is held during the summer, a “Skills
Auctions” is used for fund raising and there are “Family Night” get-togethers.
Some of the prominent people who have addressed the group over the years include: Dr. John H. Dietrich, Dr.
A.U. Haydon, Dr. F.M. Elliot, Dr. R.C. Dexter, DR. W. E. Cole, Dr. R.B. Bragg, Warren Creel, Dr. H.J.
Adlard, Rev. Lester Mondale, Rabbi Minday, Maurice Visser, Harold Deutsch, Frank Rarig, H.H. Humphrey,
Kenneth Patton, Rev. Carl Storm, Norman Thomas, Rev. Beale, Mulford Sibley, Paul Blanchard, Dr. John
Brigham, Dr. Arthur Foote, Wm. Luyten, Scott Nearing, Werner Levi, Dr. M. Levine, Dr. John Cummins, Dr.
A. Norman, and others.
June M. Mork, Route 1, Box 107, Renville, MN 56284
MISSOURI
Kansas City
All Souls Unitarian Church of Kansas City
On June 2, 1868, a charter membership of eight people organized this congregation, at first meeting in rented
halls. Enthusiasm and growth led to the congregation constructing and moving into the first building in 1871. A
period of decline followed, with the church almost closing in 1877. The ministry of David Utter brought new
life, and a trade of the old lot and building for a new much larger lot on which a new brick church was built.
During construction the congregation met in the Music Hall.
Then the cyclone struck, literally. The Great Cyclone of 1885 destroyed most of the city, and though the new
brick church survived, all records of the church were destroyed. A later oral history project enabled many
memories to be collected. They are all the history that remains of the earliest period.
In 1885 (before or after the storm?), the congregation changed its name from the First Unitarian Society of
Kansas City to All Souls Unitarian Church. A split occurred in 1897 when the minister Mr. Roberts left All
Souls and the Unitarian denomination and moved across the street to the Schubert Theater to form the “Church
of This World” (still active in 1927). The church itself also became steadily more humanist, in 1925 removing
the sentence, “We take the Bible to be a sufficient rule of faith and practice” from its Constitution.
In 1903, the brick church was sold and a new stone church built which housed the congregation until January
1951 when it was destroyed by fire. The church increasingly became a center for liberal thought, indeed,
during the ministry of Dr. L. M. Birkhead, 1917–1931, it was known as “The Liberal Center” (though All Souls
remained its official name). Dr. Birkhead became an early, prestigious, and controversial voice in opposition to
Hitler Germany.
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Dr. Lester Mondale, minister from 1939–1952 and Dr. Raymond Bragg, minister from 1952–1972 continued
the strong humanist, liberal tradition in their preaching and comprehensive community activities.
After the fires, in the fall of 1952, the congregation purchased the “Old Velie House” at 4500 Warwick, and
used, in addition, various rooms in the nearby Art Institute and Conservatory of Music. The old house was torn
down, and by 1960 the congregation moved into the first portion of the new church built on the site.
In recent years, the Rev. Rich Meyers and Donald Vaughan served the church as settled ministers, and the
Revs. Paul Bicknell and Ward Knights served as interims. In January 1986, the Rev. Judith Walker-Riggs
began her ministry here.
A recent addition to church property is the Simpson House, a stately mansion purchased after the death of the
last member of the Simpson family who had lived there since construction in 1909. After much repair and
renovation, the ground floor is used for church events, prestigious social events of city residents, and public
events co-sponsored by the church, and the third floor is the caretaker’s apartment.
The congregation supports a full church program, with a thriving Religious Education section with a full time
director, a well-known Public Forum on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. preceding the service, and a variety of
adult programs, social events, etc.
We regret that histories written to date seem to concentrate on names of ministers and buildings. The history of
the activity and meaning of the church in the community remains to be written. But the liberal reputation of the
church in the community is a solid and well-known one, and the humanist tradition, while changing its points
of emphasis somewhat in more recent years, remains strong. The congregation has, in recent years, become
much more involved in district and denominational activities, including summer conferences.
There is a sense of excitement at All Souls in 1986. We hope that future historians, when they look back on the
next few years, will have a lot to write about!
(Author not noted)
NEBRASKA
Lincoln
The Unitarian Church of Lincoln
All Souls Unitarian Church of Lincoln arose from the symbolic ashes of All Souls Universalist Church, which
had been formed as a congregation in 1870 and which built a small chapel in 1872 on land granted to it by the
State Legislature. Two decades later a larger building was needed and was built on the same site. At the same
time there was a small Unitarian group abiding in the city, and it even had a minister for a one-year period, but
the Unitarians were few in number even though it was publicly charged in 1890 that Unitarians “controlled”
the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska.
Back at the Universalist Church there was trouble. The economic collapse of 1893 and the general demise of
Universalism throughout the Midwest were making it difficult for the Universalists to remain solvent. Their
minister, Eben Chapin, resigned, but the group remained intact, struggling to pay the mortgage. When Boston
clergyman Edward Everett Hale came to Lincoln to speak at the university he was approached by the
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Unitarians to see if the American Unitarian Association might loan them some money to buy the Universalist
building. That was done and the two groups merged, changed the name of the congregation from Universalist
to Unitarian, and called a minister. 1898 was the founding year. The Reverend Mr. Marsh stayed for nine years
and was paid an annual salary of $1800.
The most illustrious minister of the early years was Arthur Weatherly, who served from 1908 until 1919, and
again, from 1929 to 1942. He was a writer and preacher and was fully involved in the community. He worked
for women’s suffrage. He helped form a community hospital (now Lincoln General Hospital). He is
recognized as the father of the Workmen’s Compensation Law in Nebraska. He invited well-known figures to
his pulpit (Clarence Darrow and Lincoln Steffens among them) and with a colleague, John Haynes Holmes,
formed the Unitarian Fellowship for Social Justice. An annual Holmes-Weatherly Award is still given each
year by the Unitarian Universalist Association.
The congregation supported Weatherly in his social activism, but they did not fully support him in his pacifism
during the First World War. He had been a member of the Ford Peace Expedition, along with a layman, C. A.
Sorensen. As the United States was drawn into the war, Weatherly became an opponent of our policy. He was
granted leave to work in civilian work projects, but when the war ended he felt it unwise to return to his
ministry in Lincoln. He moved on. But he returned ten years later, to continue his ministry of social
involvement. He helped form a local Urban League and he chaired the organization that became the Family
Service Agency. He retired in 1942 and died in 1944.
The 1920s were difficult years for the congregation. Attendance and membership were down. Even with the
return of Weatherly in the 1930s, membership was low and income slight. The total income of the church in
1940 was $2,630.86. Growth was slow, but able ministries helped in the next generation, and a series of
five-year ministries (Carl Storm, Philip Schug, Peter Raible) contributed to the stability of the congregation.
A new building was constructed in 1961, the result of congregational growth under the ministry of Peter
Raible. Growth since his departure has continued until the congregation today (1986) has a membership of 410
and a budget of $105,000. Charles Stephen came as minister in 1961 and will observe his 25th anniversary this
year. During his ministry an addition was built and the post of Religious Education Director was created.
Ginger Luke remains in that half-time post.
Charles Stephen, March 1986
Omaha (1)
Historical sketch
First Unitarian Church of Omaha, Nebraska
From 1869 through March, 1986
The articles of incorporation of the First Unitarian Church of Omaha were signed August 22, 1869 by
twenty-six men and women prominently identified with the early life of Omaha. Its first settled minister was
the Rev. Henry E. Bond. A small brick chapel was built at 17th and Cass and dedicated in 1871. The Rev. H. L.
Cargill and the Rev. Samuel P. Putnam were respective ministers through 1878, after which the Rev. W. E.
Copeland began twenty years the church experienced a powerful growth. A large addition was joined to the
chapel. Mann published several books and was the first American minister to accept and proclaim the
philosophy of evolution.
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The Rev. M. Lillifors came for two years in 1910 to find the church going through some difficult times
financially. The building was sold, but the Women’s Alliance managed to hold the congregation together with
vespers, church school classes, and meetings, which were held in various available halls with visiting ministers
from other parts of the area.
In 1916, the Rev. Robert F. Leavens (author of Great Companions) was called. The present building at 31st
and Harney was built, and dedicated in the fall of 1918. The church’s early years were marked by moves on
both the theological and physical levels. Theodore Parker’s philosophy, the use of reason and common sense,
was brought to the Midwest by Unitarian ministers, notably Copeland and Mann.
The Rev. Charles H. Lyttle served as pastor in 1921–22. He was later to write Freedom Moves West, a
historical account of the Unitarian movement in this area. The Rev. Ralph E. Bailey served from 1922 to 1928.
The Laymen’s League and the Get Acquainted Club attracted many, and membership reached 200.
In 1929, the Rev. Laurence R. Plank began a seven-year ministry. Church attendance was high, a not unusual
development during times of economic depression, and Plank spoke to an overflowing audience each Sunday
morning and for a successful series of evening lectures. In 1931, Omaha’s beautiful Joslyn Museum opened its
doors to the public, a gift of Sarah Joslyn in memory of her husband. Both were members of First Church. Mrs.
Joslyn also gave the church its present Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ.
During World War II, the Rev. Robert S. Miller served as pastor, but left in ‘43 to serve as a chaplain in the
Navy. The Rev. John W. Cyrus came then, to serve First Church for the next thirteen years. At the church’s
75th anniversary, former minister Bailey returned to give the sermon. Cyrus did a series of radio broadcasts
sponsored by the church and was on the board of the Omaha Urban League. In May of ‘52, a two-story church
school annex was added to the building. Sunday night public forums were popular. For ten years the Frank R.
Hoagland Lectures brought well-known national figures to speak. Membership reached 311.
The Rev. Charles W. Phillips was minister from 1956 to 1960. Sponsored by the American Christian-Palestine
Association and Omaha friends, Phillips made a three-week study tour of Israel and Arab countries. A
collection of his sermons, No Graven Image, was privately published by a member of the congregation. In
1960, the Rev. Robert Weston began a four-year ministry. Prairie Star District held its 85th conference in
Omaha. Midland Memorial Society was organized. Church membership increased to 409 and the congregation
voted to expand Unitarianism locally by buying property at 117th and West Dodge Road for the use of its west
Omaha members. Weston’s poetry made up the UUA’s Lenten manual, Seasons of the Soul, which since has
been widely used in Unitarian-Universalist services throughout the country.
During the eleven-year minister of Vester L. “Van” Vanstrom, the church’s 100th year was observed with
former minister Cyrus returning from Milwaukee to give the banquet address. First Church purchased the
property and building at 3012 South 119th Street, which was dedicated as Second Unitarian Church on January
12, 1974. After the sale of the West Dodge property, First Church’s congregation voted to give the Second
Church property to that congregation. A committee on social justice was active, and with other Unitarian
ministers, Vanstrom took part in the memorial march in Selma, Alabama, for the Rev. James Reeb, Unitarian
civil rights martyr.
In January of 1986, the church observed the 10th anniversary of the continuing ministry of the Rev. Ronald
Knapp in Omaha. Highlights of the past decade have been the institution of an annual fall homecoming, the
church’s listing as a nationally registered landmark, major interior renovations, several Sunday morning
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television broadcasts, the organization of Nebraska Advocates for Nursing Home Residents, an expansion of
various discussion programs, and the influx of new young members. First Church has benefited greatly over
the years from the continued loyalty of many and the generous gifts of such members as Sarah Joslyn, Dr. John
P. Merritt, Olive and Gordon Erickson, and Inez Coppom.
—Marie Bradley Helms
Omaha (2)
Second Unitarian Church
Second Unitarian Church celebrates only a tenth birthday in 1986, but we come out of an old tradition in the
city of Omaha. The First Unitarian Church was founded in 1869. Its distinguished ministers have included
Newton Mann, Robert French Leavens, John Cyrus, and Robert Weston. William Howard Taft laid the
cornerstone of First Church’s present building in 1918. In the 1950s the City of Omaha began its growth to the
west. Members of First Unitarian also looked west in their aspirations for the growth of Unitarianism in
Omaha.
Robert Weston, called as minister in 1960, provided the leadership. He saw in Omaha’s growth the potential
for a second Unitarian church in the new western part of the city. After some debate—and some false
starts—the congregation in 1963 voted to purchase for $50,000 a four-acre tract at 117th Street and West
Center Road. On the land was a brick farmhouse, which became the birthplace of what is today the Second
Unitarian Church of Omaha.
The new West Omaha Unitarian Church opened its doors for Sunday services in September 1963. Nursery care
and church school were provided. Services were generally conducted by lay leadership, drawing from our own
congregation and speakers from the community. Dr. Weston preached at West Omaha one Sunday per month.
We began with enthusiasm and looked forward to growth.
Although West Omaha was called a “church,” it was still part of First Unitarian. New members recruited “out
west” became members of the First Unitarian Church. Years later we recognized that this was a fatal flaw in
our plan to become a full-fledged second church. Until we bit the bullet and became entirely independent of
First Church, we were not going to succeed.
The first approach was to build on our four acres of land. In 1972, the Omaha Unitarians conducted a fund
drive aimed at a new building on the West Omaha property and some major rehabilitation of the downtown
church building. Although $96,000 was pledged, it was not enough for a new building. In the midst of this
discouragement, the Baptist Church at 3012 South 119th Street was for sale for about $100.000. We sold the
property on West Center Road to Occidental Savings and Loan for about $180,000. First Unitarian Church was
then able to buy the former Baptist Church, perform needed rehabilitation to the downtown building, and put
some money into savings.
In September 1973, the West Omaha Second Unitarian Church opened shop in the building that is now Second
Unitarian.
On May 23, 1976, thirty-one people signed Articles of Incorporation that were filed with the State of Nebraska
to found the Second Unitarian Church of Omaha. We began regular Sunday services in September 1976 for an
audience of 50 people and 25 children in the nursery and church school.
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Meanwhile we enunciated to the leadership in Boston our goal to become a full-fledged church with a minister
as soon as possible. Boston recognized our potential: we had enthusiasm and experienced leadership, money in
the bank; current pledges that paid our expenses, and a relatively new and debt-free building that will handle a
congregation of 150. Boston responded by sending Deane Starr to serve as our interim minister for three
months, January, February, and March 1977.
We thrived under Deane’s leadership. Membership more than doubled to about 70. New programs were
established. Regular committees were given new direction. Most important, new feelings of fellowship and
cooperation were generated. Under Deane’s guidance we took the first steps toward calling a regular minister.
Later in 1977 we called Betty Pingel. She stayed with us five years before leaving to serve the Unitarian
Church in Fresno, California. In January 1982, Jane Mauldin became our minister. After four years she left in
January 1986 to lead the Unitarian Fellowship in Slidell, Louisiana.
We look to the future with confidence.
—Al Harrison
NORTH DAKOTA
Bismarck
Bismarck-Mandan Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
The Bismarck-Mandan UU Fellowship is the oldest fellowship in the old North Star Conference. It began when
a group of social and political friends decided to answer an ad in Harper’s Magazine about the new fellowship
program of the AUA. They sent Rev. Arthur Foote from St. Paul to talk to us, and Monroe Husbands came out
from Boston to help us organize. We were made official in 1952.
We were organized during the oil boom in North Dakota, and many of our members were involved in the oil
industry, including our first president, Wendell Smith. He and his wife Joann were particularly influential
because they had been Unitarians elsewhere and brought that experience to that fledgling group.
At first we met in members’ homes, hotel meeting rooms, company hospitality room, holding Church School
classes in our homes. We then rented an apartment and soon launched our first capital fund drive to purchase a
moderately priced house. When a friend of the fellowship offered us a large lot for a small price, however, we
built our present building, which was dedicated in 1957.
We often sponsored public meetings on controversial issues at the church, and in the sixties we ran a Friday
night coffee house for young adults. Community groups use the church for their meetings, and for many years
a small Quaker society has held their services there on Sunday morning. Currently a Montessori School uses
our building during the week.
It was the need to provide a liberal religious education for our children that fueled our original organization,
and in the late 50s we had 56 children in class. Some of these children are now active members of the
fellowship and their children attend the Church School.
In the early years many UU ministers gave us encouragement and support, and William Hammond, then at
Grosse Pointe, Michigan, often spent a week with us during the summer. At that time we organized statewide
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conferences with the Fargo Fellowship and the now defunct Jamestown and Grand Forks Fellowships, and
included CLF members in the area. Arthur Foote continued to visit us and conducted both the fellowship’s first
UU wedding and its first UU memorial service. Carl Storm made regular appearances in our pulpit, and Emil
Gudmundson sustained us over the years with encouragement and advice. John Cummins helped us form our
social action policy during one of his weekends here.
The fellowship’s first paid coordinator was one of our members, Rev. Robert Horn who was chaplain at the
State Industrial School. Later we hired Brian Palacek with the specific goal of focusing the fellowship needs
and purposes. This led to our participation with Fargo in the extension ministry of Rev. Lucy Hitchcock.
In July 1986, the fellowship called its first fulltime minister, and Rev. Lynn Smith-Roberts conducted her first
service as our minister on September 7, 1986.
(Author not noted)
Fargo
Fargo-Moorhead Unitarian Universalist Church
The Fargo-Moorhead Unitarian Universalist Church was one of the first churches organized in this
community. In 1892, the first church and parish house was constructed. The initial congregation was made up
of prominent citizens and the Jewish community who were not large enough to build their own temple. The
minister for that congregation was William Ballou who held pacifist and socialist beliefs. This became a source
of controversy during World War I when the congregation came under community criticism. This controversy
drove members of the congregation away, and with the departure of the Jewish community (as they were now
large enough to build a temple) the church disbanded. The minister and his wife remained in Fargo and
purchased the church and parish house from the congregation, held concerts, and brought in speakers for the
public to hear.
There was no Unitarian presence in the community from approximately 1922 to 1952 when a group of NDSU
professors joined together as a Unitarian group and began meeting regularly in the NDSU YMCA. The 1957
tornado destroyed that structure and the Unitarians began meeting in the downtown YMCA. They met
Saturday nights every other week and were a discussion-oriented group. On Sundays the children’s religious
education would be held in various members’ homes around town. The membership was growing now, from
10 in 1955 to about 30, and the membership was feeling the need to establish a permanent presence.
Through the early sixties, the group met in the Moorhead Post Office, now the Plains Art Museum, and began
the search for a permanent meeting place. During this time the services consisted of speakers and discussions,
or music depending on the talents of the members. We would also receive visits from the Minneapolis churches
on a regular basis.
The search for a facility ended when Charles and Linda Moses purchased a building (our present location) and
offered to sell it to the congregation in 1966. With the income from the upstairs and lower level rental property,
and dedicated management and repairs, the building “paid itself off” and the mortgage was burned in 1982.
Membership had increased steadily and the need for ministerial leadership was becoming apparent. We
participated in the Prairie Star’s extension ministry program that brought Reverend David Phreaner to our
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church from January to June of 1982. David’s work helped the membership grow from 47 to 85 and with that
growth came younger families with children.
Having seen the advantages of professional leadership, we worked with the Bismarck Fellowship and together
entered into a three year shared extension ministry.
Reverend Lucy Hitchcock worked diligently and traveled many miles to develop the two congregations and
nourish the sparks of liberal religion in Minot, ND and in Underwood and Crookston, MN.
Lucy has left our congregation to be an Extension Consultant with the UUA in Boston. We are actively
involved in the search process and hopeful of settling a full time minister by September 1986.
Our current membership is about 100 and we have about 40 children and youth in our RE program. After
settling a full-time minister, we will start a search for larger quarters to house our growing congregation.
(Author not noted)
SOUTH DAKOTA
Brookings
The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Brookings
The Brookings Fellowship was founded in 1960 in one of the late Monroe Husband’s banner years and with the
major assistance from Dorothy Grant. No Fellowship is founded without a significant pre-history, and in this
instance it traces to the late Gabriel Lundy, a member of CLF, who introduced the late Marge Smythe to the
educational materials of Sophia Fahs. Subsequently a chance meeting with Elsie Seymour, a newcomer from
Minneapolis with a Unitarian background (and kids) produced such good chemistry that the organization
meeting of the Fellowship followed in just three months.
The early years produced a search for identity, a search for housing, and a search for new members. After some
initial success, growth stopped. It was later that it was realized that our membership already bore precisely the
same relation to local population as the larger denomination bore to national population. This still persists.
The search for housing started with rented quarters ($50 a month for a one room apartment was thought too
heavy a burden!). Meeting in rotation in member’s homes was the solution until recently. In 1985 it was urged
that meeting regularly in a public place would produce growth. It did not. It now seems that the next
experiment will be to meet regularly in a handicapped accessible home which is available.
The search for identity continues less urgently. The problem has been reformulated into the question of how to
identify our likenesses without endorsing likeness as a goal.
Religious education has been another chronic problem. It was tried in 1961, but the small number of children
and the diversity in ages proved too difficult. Efforts in this area have mostly taken the form of making parents
aware of available material and undertaking assist with its procurement and use.
An early perennial source of panic was the problem that is caused in a University town by staff turnover, with
important gaps left in the membership each spring. As new prospects appeared each fall the annual debate over
whether to disband has been ruled out of order.
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One definite trend has been increasing reliance on the membership for program resources. Outside speakers
and discussants, while still used, is now the exception.
Over the years Brookings has had a special relation with the Sioux Falls Fellowship, attending each other’s
meetings, trading speakers, and sharing the expense of travel for out-of-town speakers. Since Brookings
recently went from Saturday night to Sunday meetings, such opportunities have diminished but not ended.
Limen Smythe
Sioux Falls
The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Sioux Falls
1877
Eliza Tupper Wilkes, Universalist minister with degree in foreign missionary work,
moves to Sioux Falls, Dakota Territory. Is credited with founding and organizing eight
Unitarian societies: Sioux Falls, Madison, Miner, and Huron in South Dakota; Rock
Rapids, Iowa; Luverne and Adrian, Minnesota; Palo Alto, California. Sioux Falls and
Palo Alto still exist.
1882
American Unitarian Association sends a Rev. John Visher as missionary to establish a
church. The “First Unitarian Church” meets in Sherman’s Hall with a membership of 17
and lasts about a year. Pastors: The Revs. J. H. Keyes and A.A. Roberts. Mrs. Wilkes
continues to hold services 1878–1886.
Nov. 1886
Caroline Bartlett, former teacher, leaves Minneapolis Tribune writing staff, to visit the
Wilkes. Stays on to serve the church with sermons that were called “a model of literary
neatness.”
Jan. 1887
First Sunday School organized, followed by ladies’ Unity Circle.
June 1887
Incorporation papers for All Souls Church filed. Among 15 members were four married
couples, including Eliza T. Wilkes and her husband, lawyer W.A. Wilkes. He becomes
first president of Board of Trustees. The Wilkes shared interest in reform and cultural
activities. They had five children.
Apr. 1888
Mrs. Wilkes, prime force in building of all Souls Church at the corner of Dakota Ave. and
12th St., writes an 8-verse hymn for the dedication. Besides Bartlett, three ministers
served during the next eight years: J.E. Bagley, Arthur H. Grant, and J.T. Andrew. In its
most prosperous days, the church served 70 members.
Dec. 1899
All Souls Church building has been deeded to the city and becomes the first Free Public
Library. Mrs. Wilkes serves on the Library Board.
The 1900s
Interest in the Unitarian and Universalist denominations waxes and wanes but persists
with small groups meeting in homes, municipal courtrooms, YWCA, and other public
buildings. In the Twenties a Unitarian Club met regularly, Universalist Women is
organized. Visiting ministers come from near and far. Local residents sometimes attend
services in Sioux City, Iowa.
The first 50 years
Feb. 1951
U.U.A. of Boston grants charter to Unitarian Fellowship of Sioux Falls.
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May 1961
U.U.A. grants charter to Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Sioux Falls. The small
Fellowship (10–20) meets weekly for lectures or talks by members or their guests.
Religious Educations classes sometimes number 20.
The Seventies
With the influx of new residents to the city, membership rolls change and a growth period
commences. Board of Directors enlarged to accommodate increased services. Pledge
drives begin. A more traditional order of service is adopted. Adult membership continues
slow but steady growth to about 30–40, a level that remains steady into the Eighties.
Apr. 1978
Three-day celebration of Centennial of arrival of Unitarianism in Sioux Falls. Lectures by
two UU women ministers, Judith Urquhart and Betty Pingel, a banquet, parade of historic
personalities, gospel singing, and other music.
Dec. 1982
Purchase of a building at the corner of Cliff Ave. and 9th St. gives UUism its first home in
90 years. April 1983, Weekend Dedication, with the Revs. Jay Atkinson, Ronald Kanpp,
and David Phreaner. No full-time minister since 1895. Phreaner is Extension minister
1979–1980. Atkinson is visiting minister for three years. All other services and activities
depend on talents and dedications of members and friends. Six “Weekend Ministry” visits
planned 1986.
(Author not noted)
Rapid City
Black Hills Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
It was the summer of 1982 when Marion Zenker and Phyllis Olson talked about their need for a Unitarian
Universalist group in Rapid City and wondered how many others in the community would welcome a liberal
religious organization. They placed an announcement in the local paper and asked those interested to meet at
Canyon Lake Park Sunday morning. There were about twelve who came to the first meeting, some of whom
had belonged to the former fellowship, which existed in the late 50s and early 60s. Breakfast meetings were
continued through the summer with talk about each one’s needs and beliefs and desire for a religious circle
with others of liberal leanings.
As cold weather approached, it was obvious that none of these newfound friends wanted to disband and that
there was a nucleus upon which to build a lasting foundation. A meeting place was needed and the group (now
20–25) settled into the Canyon Lake Senior Citizens Center.
During the first year there were visits by the Reverends Russell Lockwood, Ken Herto, and Jay Atkinson, each
offering suggestions for the fledging fellowship. Bylaws and Articles of Incorporation were finalized, and the
fellowship officially affiliated with Boston in December 1983 with 24 charter members. In April 1984, the
group joined Prairie Star District.
During those first months there was much discussion about each person’s needs. Some stayed, some left the
fellowship. Gradually a fellowship evolved and a regular format for meetings took shape. Bulletins are printed
every month announcing the programs. Lori Gordon designed the front page, showing the building and the
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fellowship’s special logo—the UU chalice circle with a Black Hills Ponderosa Pine against a mountain
background.
The group leans toward a liberal point of view, and programs are varied with social concerns such as nuclear
waste, arms control, population growth, conservation, and women’s issues popular. Theologies, philosophies
and religious experiences produce exciting dialogue. Biographies of well-known UUs are a regular feature.
Members present most programs, but there are occasional speakers from community organizations.
A children’s religious education program is gradually taking place. Materials are being ordered and a teacher
has been recently engaged. The program is in its infancy but expected to grow to meet the increasing needs of
the fellowship. Members are vitally interested in local, state, national, and international affairs and are active in
organizations that work for the equality of mankind, global peace, environmental protection, women’s rights,
education, and social justice. Needless to say, liberal political views are standard.
The Black Hills Unitarian Universalist Fellowship looks forward to continued growth in membership and
continued commitment to the Unitarian Universalist beliefs.
(Author not noted)
WISCONSIN
Eau-Claire
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Eau Claire
The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Eau Claire has its roots in two other groups: Unity Church of Eau
Claire (Unitarian) and the Chippewa Valley Unitarian Fellowship. Beginning in 1888, the Rev. Henry Doty
Maxson would conduct Sunday morning services for the Menomonie Unitarian Society and then board a train
bound for Eau Claire where he would conduct an evening service. Maxson’s preaching gave rise to Unity
Church of Eau Claire (founded in 1889). The congregation met up through the 1920s, at which time their
building—located at the corner of Gray and Farwell Streets—was sold. Although we have no direct lineage
with the Unitarian, the Universalist, or the Free Religionist groups, which existed in Eau Claire in the 19th
century, we are philosophically related in belief and action to all three.
The origin of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Eau Claire is in the Chippewa Valley Unitarian
Fellowship, Founded in the late 1940s by the Unitarian missionary Monroe Husbands. The fellowship gathered
monthly (on Saturday nights) in members’ homes in Chippewa Falls, Rice Lake, and Eau Claire. Topics for
discussion included Unitarian history, Unitarian practice of religion, racial equality, and political campaigns
and issues. In the late 1960s, a small number of Eau Claire members with young children initiated a Sunday
School, which met in Eau Claire on Sunday mornings.
While the children were in their RE classes, the adults would sit in the kitchen of the building where the classes
were held and discuss maters of importance to them. This was the beginning of the Eau Claire UU Fellowship.
In 1975, with the blessing of the Chippewa parent group, the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Eau Claire
was formed with an active membership of approximately 25.
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The group met in three other locations in Eau Claire until 1981, when the former Immanuel Lutheran Church
building was purchased by the Fellowship. The present Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Hall stands at the
corner of Gray and Farwell Streets, kitty corner from the site of the first Unitarian church in Eau Claire. Our
current membership is just under fifty. The Fellowship meets three Sundays and one Friday evening a month.
Sunday programs include discussion of such topics as the Unitarian Universalist Merger, the current situation
in South Africa, creativity, the Transcendentalists, and, occasional sermons by the minister-in-residence. The
Religious Education program currently serves the needs of approximately 8–10 children.
We believe there are many more people in the Eau Claire area that could benefit from being a part of our liberal
religious fellowship. We are actively reaching out to these people who may be “Unitarian Universalists
without knowing it.”
(Author not noted)
Menomonie
Unitarian Society of Menomonie, Wisconsin
In the summer of 1887, Menomonie citizens invited Unitarian minister J. H. Crooker, of Madison, Wisconsin
to speak in the city. Menomonie was at that time known as the “queen of the Pineries”—its economy was
dependent upon lumbering and the brick-making industry. Rev. Crooker was engaged to take charge of the
liberal religious movement in the city beginning the first of April 1888.
At an organizational meeting held in April 1888, the Unitarian Society of Menomonie was organized “for
religious, charitable and educational purposes.” Articles of incorporation affiliated the new society with the
Unitarian or Independent Fellowship of America. The Bond of Union was signed by about 30 people, who
expressed the desire for “a religious organization which shall make integrity of life its first aim, and leave
thought free” and welcomed to membership “all of whatever theological opinion who wish to unite with us in
the promotion of truth, righteousness, reverence and charity among men.”
The early Unitarian Society of Menomonie met each Sunday in the auditorium of the Mabel Tainter Memorial
Building, which had been donated to the city for certain public uses and the Unitarian Society as a permanent
church home by Capt. and Mrs. Andrew Tainter. Capt. Tainter was a “lumber baron” of the Knapp, Stout &
Co. lumbering firm. Prof. Maxson’s sermon, “The Work of the Liberal Church,” is believed to have provided
the Tainters with the inspiration for the building.
Prof. Maxson died suddenly in late 1891. Rev. H. Stevens of Alton, IL, arrived in August 1892, but remained
only six months. In 1893, the Society hosted a conference of the Unitarian and Independent Churches of
Wisconsin and Minnesota at the Memorial Building. One speaker, Rev. C. F. Miles of Superior, WI, accepted
a call to become pastor of the Menomonie. He remained 23 years. 1905 records indicate some 250 persons
connected with the Society. Over the years, a Young Men’s Club was organized, also a Ladies’ Circle, a Girl’s
Guild, the first kindergarten in the city (1901), and a dancing club for young people.
After Rev. Niles’ resignation in 1916, the Rev. Walter Smith joined the Society. A 1918 report indicated a
membership of 144. After Rev. Smith’s departure, services were suspended for a time, but resumed with the
arrival of A. E. Von Stilli in 1921. He departed in 1924. With aging membership, dwindling financial
resources, and without a minister, members of the Society voted to dissolve the incorporation.
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In Sept. 1982, four families, having been associated with UU churches and fellowships prior to their residence
in Menomonie, gathered to discuss reorganizing the Unitarian Society of Menomonie. Monthly meetings
began immediately; Rev. Emil Gudmunson of the Prairie Star District met once with the group to advise them.
Family RE meetings began in January 1983. On April 10, 1983, a service and charter signing was held at the
Leisure Services Center. Prof. Tim Hirsch of the Eau Claire UU Fellowship, biographer of Capt. Tainter, spoke
of the early Unitarian presence in Menomonie; 15 members signed the Bond of Union.
In September 1983, the Society began holding twice-monthly children and adults’ meetings in member’s
homes. That December, arrangements were made to rent the new Friends (Quaker) Meeting House one Sunday
morning each month. One monthly service continued to be held in members’ homes until September 1984,
when twice monthly, morning services began at the meeting house, with concurrent children’s RE classes are
lay led. Current membership (March 1986) stands at 18, with 12 children in RE classes.
Rice Lake
Blue Hills Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
The idea of Blue Hills UU Fellowship was born one evening at a dinner party where several parents were
lamenting over the problem of what to tell their children they believed when their children came home from
Sunday school talking about Bible stories. The parents wished there was a “religion” in tune with teaching
children to be aware and caring adults in the world. They were interested in a religion that spoke to the issues of
the day. One of the women of the group, Karen Manson, did some library research in a small Midwestern rural
library and came upon the Unitarian Universalist Association. After more research and correspondence, Karen
excitedly told the rest of the group about Unitarian Universalism. The group decided to visit a fellowship to see
for themselves what UU was all about. They traveled to the Minnesota Valley UU Fellowship in Bloomington,
Minnesota. David Phreaner and Beth Ide encouraged them to pursue their dream of setting up a UU fellowship
of their own. Emil Gudmundson of the PSD Extension office helped with the particulars of the bylaws. After
several working meetings they came up with the following as their statement of purpose: Relying upon reason
as our guide, and upon freedom as our method, we seek to grow in understanding of ourselves and of our
world, to promote and serve the Universal human family. The following spring (1981) Blue Hills UU
Fellowship was accepted into the UUA with 12 founding members.
Over five years we have grown to include 22 adults and 17 children. Starting out, we met in private homes and
now we are meeting in a public union hall. We have been a lay-led society from the beginning and are now
considering part-time professional leadership. Our religious education program for all ages continues to
provide a focus for the search for personal religious truth.
(Author not noted)
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