This whole affair got started when Pauline (Polly) McCoo informed the membership committee that she had joined the First Unitarian Society of Chicago 50 years ago and expected a celebration!
Co-chair Joan Bernstein started looking up membership records and discovered there were others who had joined 50 or more years ago, who also should be recognized. And there were others who joined in the 50's we felt should be honored too.
Julie Neuman (congregation president), Cindy Carroll (president-elect), and Joan Staples (program council co-chair) took up the idea with enthusiasm. Soon Madeiria Myrieckes volunteered to plan the luncheon.
Our list kept growing; so we decided to stop with 1958 and make it a celebration of all members of 40 years or longer. This could be the start of a new tradition. Perhaps we might honor our members by the decade or even every five years! Also, by interviewing them and eliciting their memories, we are contributing to the history of our church.
If any of the names or events mentioned in these recollections are unfamiliar to the reader, why not go directly to these venerable sources for further information?
Interviews were conducted by the membership committee, including Joan Bernstein, Phiefer L. Browne, Betty Holcomb, Kay Mann, Barbara Thomas, and Jennifer Williams, and written primarily by Joan Bernstein. Olivia Nichols prepared the publication.
Jane and R. James Stevens (1942)
Jim and Jane Stevens were married at First Unitarian 60 years ago by Von Ogden Vogt. Vogt's son Ogden, one of Jim's best friends and a one-time boyfriend of Jane, was their best man. Four years later the Stevens joined the church.
They were present when the church passed the l947 resolution to actively welcome black members. They were present when minister Leslie Pennington, together with Rabbi Jacob Weinstein, helped organize the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference which, combined with the effort of the University of Chicago, helped preserve this community as one of the first successfully integrated communities in the United States. Jim, an attorney, represented the church in the purchase of Fenn House. He also helped organize the Chicago Memorial Association, another spin-off from our church.
The parents of five sons, Jim taught eight years in the church school, and Jane, an artist, served as church school art teacher for several years. Jim also has been president of the congregation and chair of the investment committee. He also helped organize square dances and a poetry seminar and wrote The Unitarian Fling. <top>
Nancy came to First Unitarian in the mid-40's, when her husband was attending the University of Chicago. The church's Channing lecture series, aimed at U of C students, got them interested in Unitarianism. Leslie Pennington was highly respected in the pulpit and the community, and the church seemed like a good place for their three children. And when Chris Moore arrived about 1955 to set up a children's choir, there was a strong reason to stay involved. As their children reached high school, the Liberal Religious Youth (LRY) program was attracting dozens and dozens of teenagers. Nancy and her late husband "Duke" helped the LRY and the children's choir develop.
A trained home economist and local nursery school teacher, Nancy has been a staunch contributor to all the hospitality aspects of church life, particularly the dinner committee (monthly church dinners were once the norm), the Seder dinners, and coffee hour. She originated the Sunday soup luncheons. Out of the recipes for these she compiled the popular Simply Soup cookbook as a church fundraiser. She was also church manager for a few years. <top>
Corinne and Robert Borja (1947)
When she was 16, Connie often walked by First Unitarian Church. One day she went inside. She found the architecture so inspiring, she often came in to sit quietly and think. She introduced Bob to the church when they started going together. She met Bob at the American Academy of Art while both were students. Native Chicagoans, coming from Lutheran (Bob) and Catholic (Connie) backgrounds, they were married by Leslie Pennington in 1947 and joined the church.
Connie has been a fashion designer and a children's book illustrator, and is a ceramic sculptor. Bob is a graphics designer, specializing in book design, but now concentrates full-time on calligraphy.
Bob has served on the board, the worship, interiors, and pulpit search committees, and chaired the art committee for five years. Connie was on the worship and art committees, and chaired the interiors and the renewal committees. The renewal committee was formed after the dismissal of minister Duke Gray, and worked to heal the membership during the 18-month interim of Peter Samson. But mostly what Bob and Connie gave the church were their own very unique talents.
All the signs, plaques, and directional maps, inside and outside the buildings, were done by Bob in his beautiful calligraphy. The orders of service, the newsletter, the church stationery (different for each minister) were designed by him. One of his paintings hangs over the crypt altar.
Connie arranged the Christopher Moore parlor, donating some of the chairs, tables, and lamps. She turned the VOV room into a gallery and mounted exhibits for five years. She created the designs for the chancel hangings and the crypt chapel, and designed seasonal antependia, and donated the Javan batik which has hung in the sanctuary. She designed and made the chalice which we light before every service.
Bob and Connie have traveled widely, visiting more than 40 countries. After negotiating with China for four years, Bob was able in 1978 to persuade Chinese officials to allow the first group of designers to enter China for a month-long tour. <top>
Al Hayes thought of himself as a Unitarian long before he became one. But circumstances conspired to keep him a Presbyterian for many years: a Presbyterian father; a mother remarried in the Presbyterian church; friendship with a Presbyterian minister; and marrying the daughter of a Presbyterian minister.
It was when he came to Chicago in 1943 to teach humanities in the University of Chicago college, and he was looking about Hyde Park for a home for his family, that he discovered the Unitarian Church on Woodlawn Avenue. The solo music for the Sunday service was George Gershwin's "Summertime." Al was impressed; he decided that he liked that kind of church.
First Unitarian had no Sunday school at the time. When Leslie Pennington became minister, in 1944, he enlisted Al to help him set up a church school, and Al became chair of the first religious education committee. The new school shared an R.E. director, Sally Story, with Chicago Theological School. We used every room we could find, he recalls: Meadville, Robie House; religious services were held at Thorndike Hilton Chapel. The Channing Club was started for the university students.
Al loved Dr. Pennington dearly. He remembers that sometimes Leslie wouldn't have quite finished his sermon, so he had to speak extemporaneously for the last five or ten minutes -- Al liked this even better.
As the church school continued to grow, the church decided it needed more space. Al helped negotiate the purchase of the house at 5638 South Woodlawn. It was named Fenn House in honor of William Wallace Fenn, dean of the Harvard Divinity School and a former First Unitarian minister.
Al's religious education activities continued into the 50's, when he became president of the congregation. In the early 60's, he chaired the committee to plan the construction of Pennington Center, as the church school continued to expand.
When Leslie Pennington left in 1962, the church did not need to hire an interim minister as there were so many ministers in the congregation: Jack Hayward, John Godbey, and other Meadville faculty; Chris Moore; Randall Hilton, dean of Abraham Lincoln Center; and Ellsworth Smith, later district director of the new UU Central Midwest District. All of them took turns at Sunday services.
Also in the early 60's, Al served on the board and as treasurer of the Unitarian Western Conference at the time when the Unitarian and Universalist denominations were merging.
In 1981 he and Alice Judson Ryerson were married. Since then, they spend their winters in Hyde Park and their summers in Lake Forest. Incidentally, Alice's grandfather Shaw was the architect of Fenn House, Quaker House, the Quadrangle Club, and the Church of the Disciples. <top>
Pauline (Polly) McCoo's involvement with First Unitarian reaches far back into our history to the 1940s. A native Chicagoan, she was born into a Congregational family in west Woodlawn, not too far from First Unitarian. Her parents were actively involved in church matters. At age 18 at a summer camp, Polly first heard of Unitarianism and was asked to be substitute kindergarten teacher at First Unitarian that fall, 1946. Parents of her pupils encouraged her to join First Unitarian, and she did so the following spring. Thus began 20 years of service in our Sunday school, where she taught, provided music, and was content. (She learned much later that her joining had been the subject of hot disagreement and argument at a board meeting about interracial membership. If you want a candid history of First Unitarian's struggle to become interracial, see Polly. She has tales to tell.)
In the late 60's Polly became a member of the Chicago Area Black Unitarian Universalist Caucus, which gathered black members together to share insights and help create better understanding of the concerns of the black community. She has been a member of our board three times and chair of the religious education and program councils several times. And if there's a celebration, installation, special service, potluck, or luncheon -- any special occasion or feast of any kind -- Polly will be there, inspiring, directing, helping, and making sure that things go right.
Polly was married in our church to Arthur McCoo in 1951 by the Reverend Leslie Pennington, Mack Evans providing the music. The McCoos designed their own wedding service. Polly's two children grew up in our church program. Her son Paul lives in Lakewood, Colorado, with his wife and children. Her daughter Lia lives in Chicago and performs music for four congregations. After 40 years of teaching in Chicago's public schools, Polly retired five years ago.
Polly's health problems have been taking their toll recently, obliging her to cut back on her activities; but she is still full of plans for the future. <top>
Both from Milwaukee, Frank and Betty Wagner were looking for a church school for their nursery school-age son and a church for themselves. Frank had studied physics at the University of Chicago and knew Hyde Park was the place where he wanted to live. He had fallen away from Catholicism, and Betty came from a Congregational background. They found what they were looking for at First Unitarian.
Shortly after they joined, Frank signed up for the building committee (now the property committee) and soon became chair. Betty helped out with the kindergarten class. Their church activities often reflected the growth of their three sons. Frank became scoutmaster of the new Boy Scout troop. He chaired the committee that formed the Liberal Religious Youth (LRY) group. Our church became the center of youth activities in the community.
Later Frank chaired the search committee that produced Jack Mendelsohn. He worked on the Seder dinner committee. And for years and years ("it seems forever"), he headed the church canvass. In the meantime, Betty headed the membership committee and, with Leslie Pennington's help, started the twice-yearly orientation series aimed at introducing potential members to Unitarianism and First Unitarian Church. Later she chaired the landscaping committee, which succeeded in obtaining church funding to hire professionals to cut the shrubs and prune the trees. "The grounds have looked much better after that."
The culmination of their church activities was Jazz at the First. Three jazz lovers: Duke Gray, then minister; Gene Reeves, then head of Meadville/Lombard; and member Gordon McClendon, conceived of the idea of holding Friday night jazz sessions in the Garden Room. Jazz was not popular at the time and good musicians were willing to work for modest fees. Duke, Gene, and Gordon engaged the musicians. Frank attended to organizational matters, and Betty made the tablecloths and aprons for the servers, and washed them afterwards. For nine years the once-a-month sessions took place -- until jazz again became popular, there were other venues, the musicians increased their fees, and the audiences dwindled.
The Wagners were among the first Unitarians to retire to Montgomery Place. Betty is feeling fine after last year's surgery, and is having a wonderful time working in the garden. <top>
Three Andersons joined the church at the same time, Linnea, Douglas B. (now deceased), and their 16-year-old son Douglas C. Their religious odyssey had taken them from the Methodist church (Doug was an ordained minister) through Doug's growing interest in humanism and his involvement beginning during the Depression in the labor movement. It was Doug's selection as the assistant to Illinois Senator Paul Douglas that brought them to Hyde Park and First Unitarian. A long talk with Carl Wennerstrom, an active Unitarian at the time, contributed to their decision.
Soon Linnea became Polly McCoo's piano-playing assistant in the church school. She also played organ and piano for the church as needed, and was the first organist for the Chicago Children's Choir. She also chaired the crypt committee for many years. She is most known in the community as the outstanding education director for the Hyde Park Cooperative Society. <top>
Doug remembers helping music director Mack Evans tune the church organ in his teens. After college he was an advisor for the LRY, an assistant scoutmaster (under Frank Wagner), and later scoutmaster for the church's Boy Scout troop. He also accompanied early children's-choir concerts on his violin.
His active church attendance was cut short by his becoming a Sunday morning docent at Lincoln Park Zoo in 1972, which still continues. A social worker, Doug worked for 37 years as a probation officer for the Cook County Juvenile Court. Since his 1995 retirement, he has been a full-time tour guide for the Chicago Architectural Foundation.
For 25 years he has conducted bird walks at the Wooded Island. His popular Bird Walk with Birder's Breakfast has been offered through the church's talent auction for many years. <top>
Margaret was the daughter of a Congregational minister. Though his theology was liberal, she recalls a rigid upbringing: "Everything was a sin." She ended up in the Unitarian Church because she couldn't "get any further to the left."
After only eight years of marriage, Margaret was widowed by World War II machine guns. She still grieves that she never received her husband's body; but in the First Unitarian crypt there is a compartment reserved for "Wife and Clarence Walters." A psychiatric social worker, her special interest is the American Ortho-Psychiatric Association.
Heart and hip problems pretty much confine her to her apartment in Montgomery Place. <top>
Elizabeth and Robert Wissler (1951)
We regret that Betty and Bob both have been ill lately and did not feel up to being interviewed. <top>
Win and his first wife chose Unitarianism because, coming from different religious backgrounds (Methodist and Catholicism), they both found this an acceptable compromise. They tried First Unitarian and looked no further. Win found it intellectually stimulating. He liked the liturgy and Leslie Pennington's sermons, and he was attracted to the "openness of the search for truth." In 1955 he was president of the congregation.
Win worked in public housing then. The department had rented to a black family in the all-white Trumbull Park Homes, without, Win says, proper preparation, and the community was very tense. Win was reassigned to it as on-site manager. Though he speaks deprecatingly of his role, others credit him with successfully defusing the situation and achieving an orderly transition.
Through his work, Win and his wife became friends with Mr. and Mrs. David Cole, and in 1956 transferred their membership to the Universalist Church at 83rd and Ingleside, where Cole was minister.
In the 60's Win became very active in the denomination, a trustee for the new Unitarian Universalist Association, on the UU Service Committee, and on the board of Starr King Theological School. In 1967 he founded his own real estate firm, which he recently sold to spare himself the administrative duties. He and wife Margaret will continue to sell real estate.
In 1988 he rejoined First Unitarian and serves on the property committee, handling real estate transactions for the church. <top>
She was raised a Methodist, but her husband Carl, a musician, fell in love with the Unitarian church choir under Mack Evans, and so they joined First Unitarian. Mack, Eleanor recalls, used to make great broccoli omelets for the choir.
Some of her memories: Danny Pennington, Leslie Pennington's wife, felt she (Danny) couldn't sing, and so she would sit at the back of the church and whistle through the hymns. One Easter ("which is always a problem for Unitarians"), the church school children, including Eleanor's three little boys, were taken to the Museum of Science and Industry to see the chicken eggs being hatched!
Under Pennington the church was a real leader in the community's struggles for integration. In the 50's very few people in Hyde Park-Kenwood were able to obtain mortgages from existing banking institutions. Eleanor, the late Paul Berger (then also a First Unitarian member), and two others were instrumental in setting up the Hyde Park Federal Savings and Loan.
She counts George Reed and his late wife Selina as special friends from those days. <top>
Except for a few Sundays driving a cab while he was in school, Charles Staples has faithfully and continuously attended Sunday services. If he is in town, he is at our church.
Charles was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island, and sent to a Christian Scientist Church school by his mother. His father was a "nominal" Unitarian. After attending Marlboro College in Vermont (Leslie Pennington was a board member), he came to Chicago to enroll in the Art Institute and found a room in Hyde Park. He began attending First Unitarian in the fall of 1951 and joined the church in 1954. He has many fond memories of the range of talents and admirable skills that Dr. Pennington offered.
While working for the Chicago welfare department, Charles was able to avail himself of employee scholarships and trained to become a professional social worker. For 27 years he was a public school social worker, retiring in 1993. He married Joan Hobbs in 1963. The Reverend Jack Hayward performed the ceremony.
Charles can well remember how in the 50's, real estate brokers were encouraging white flight, and he credits Dr. Pennington, the local Quakers, and Rabbi Weinstein with "saving Hyde Park" as a viable neighborhood. In 1957 he made the bus trip to Washington D.C. to join 30,000 civil rights demonstrators in the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom.
Charles has participated in the annual pledge drive for most of his years in the church. He and Joan travel extensively, and he loves to share their travel adventures with friends through his excellent color photographs. <top>
Harriet comes from a long Unitarian tradition. Her grandparents were members of the first Unitarian church in Chicago in the late 1800s. It was located in the downtown vicinity and it was still customary at that time to purchase your pew. Her grandmother had a tea to which she invited both African-American and white ladies to discuss how race relations in the city could be improved.
Her parents regularly attended First Unitarian on Woodlawn and as a child she was introduced to Unitarian principles and beliefs. Von Ogden Vogt was the minister then, and as she grew older and could absorb his sermons, they are among her special memories. She especially remembers how charming Mrs. Vogt was and how cordial she was to everyone. Very important to her are the friendships she has made over the years at First Unitarian.
Born and raised in Chicago, it was during her studies at the University of Chicago that she met Fred Swanson, whom she married in 1946. They were married by the Reverend Wallace Robbins, then president of Meadville/Lombard Theological School. They raised two children: Abigail lives in Iowa and has three children; and Daniel, a writer, lives in New York.
Husband Fred, who died 14 years ago, was an enthusiastic Unitarian and rarely missed a Sunday service. Harriet taught church school for five years during Jack Kent's ministry. Over the years she has been a church member known to be a willing helper where needed on parties, luncheons, bazaars and flea markets, and providing transportation to and from church. She currently assists the membership committee at the welcoming table once a month.
Harriet was a library teacher in the Chicago public schools for 20 years. At this point in life her interests are going to plays and concerts, travel, and attending university lectures on a variety of subjects. <top>
Roberta grew up near Brookfield Zoo hearing "the elephants trumpet and the lions roar." A member of the Hinsdale Unitarian Church, she worked for the League of Women Voters for some time. Then she and a girlfriend quit their jobs and traveled all around Europe for three months. When she got back, Carol Saphir of our church, whom she knew through the League, called to tell her that First Unitarian was looking for a church manager. Pennington and the board hired her and she moved to Hyde Park.
Jack Kent fired her in 1963 -- "probably he didn't want ties to the past." Rather understandably, Roberta disappeared from the church. She came back in Duke Gray's time. In the meantime she helped an anthropological association prepare high school curricula; then assisted U of C anthropologist Sol Tax organize the International Anthropological Ethnological Conference in Chicago. Until her fairly recent retirement, she was an administrative assistant in the university's social science collegiate division. <top>
Wallace had his first experience at First Unitarian as a 1934 visitor to the Chicago World's Fair. He walked into the famous new Unitarian "cathedral" and was astoundedby the odor of incense, which Von Ogden Vogt, a "high church" Unitarian, incorporated into his services. Had he walked into an Episcopal church by mistake?
A native of Erie, Pennsylvania, Wallace grew up in the Presbyterian church, but in 1933 -- now "an unreconstructed humanist and logical positivist" -- he became a Unitarian.
His second visit, which has lasted to the present, was in l955, when he came to Hyde Park to pursue a library science degree at the University of Chicago. He and his late wife found people very friendly, and Ella Mae Jones ("Mrs. Unitarian") "latched onto us right away." The Rusterholtzes soon signed the membership book.
Mainly an adult education teacher of social studies at a Chicago City College, Wallace has spoken from many UU pulpits, including our own, and in 1996 published My Not So Gay Life -- a fascinating account that includes his career struggles during the Depression, his World War II experiences in (then) Persia, his life as a bisexual, and how he lives out his humanist rationalist principles in the real world.
He also has written a history of First Unitarian, and has served on the board and on the search committees that brought us Duke Gray and Tom Chulak. For years he has spent his summers at the Chautauqua Institute in western New York, where he helped organize the UU Fellowship. <top>
The daughter of a Presbyterian minister, Bette was born in the Shenandoah Valley in rural Virginia, where she spent the years of her early childhood. Later she lived in Louisville, Kentucky.
How did she come to Chicago? She laughs. Two of her college friends had moved here and they invited her to join them, with the promise to find her a place to live. She did; and (more laughter) soon they all found boyfriends!
Bette joined the Channing Club and started attending church; she found herself preaching one of the sermons for the Youth Day service. A young adult's group developed from the Channing Club (Charles Staples was also a member), and there she met George Sikes. Leslie Pennington married them in June l956; her father also officiated.
Bette and George were caught up in the civil rights struggles of the 60's and 70's. During the summer of l966, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Chicago, various church members participated in some of the marches King led. Betty and George went on every single weekend march. In l969, just before he came to First Unitarian, Jack Mendelsohn led a walkout at the UU General Assembly, in support of black empowerment. Soon George became actively involved. Bette gave him her support. She sees her role as one of making it possible for others to do things. Being treasurer of the church falls into that category, she says. She was treasurer from 1970-77, and again from 1991 on.
She also has chaired the program council twice, taught in the religious education program, sung in the choir, and preached from time to time. Since the 60's she also has been active in denominational affairs and currently is treasurer of the UU Central Midwest District. She is self-employed in the production and editing of scholarly journals. <top>
Timuel Black came to First Unitarian in 1953 to help answer his young daughter's question: "Where's God?" Because there was no church school at the nearby church of his parents, Timuel and his two children, Ermetra born in 1947, and the late Timuel Kerrigan born in 1953, became members of First Unitarian in 1956. His daughter was probably the first child of color to join the Chicago Children's Choir, an activity in which his son continued. Both children attended our church throughout high school, along with their father, who taught in the Gary, Indiana, and Chicago public schools while studying in the University of Chicago doctoral program.
Of particular significance to Timuel are Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Chicago visit during Leslie Pennington's tenure, and the Kenwood-Oakland community organizing, which probably led to the first use of the phrase"plantation politics."
Although he was born in Birmingham, Alabama, Chicago has been Timuel's home since he was a few months old. The Burke Elementary School across from Washington Park, along with Englewood, Phillips, and DuSable high schools, have produced this"so-called retired" consultant to education and community development. Currently, Timuel is writing a book using the working title, Bridges of Memory: Three Generations of African Americans in Chicago. <top>
When John returned to the United States, with his new wife Greta, he was turning more and more to Unitarianism. He was raised a Methodist, but she said no to that. They tried out the First Unitarian Church. Greta thought it was"very, very nice."
The two met in Casablanca in Morocco. John was part of a civilian construction company building a United States air base; Greta was working for a French dry cleaning firm. Greta grew up on a plantation in Indonesia. During World War II the Dutch, including Greta's whole family, were interned in Java under Japanese occupation. When she returned to Holland after the war, she found it"too narrow, too Dutch Reform Christian." She tried England, then France. Wanting to learn French, she answered an ad for an au pair girl for a family (who spoke impeccable French) who were going to Morocco.
John and Greta married in 1954; in August 1955 they came to the United States, specifically to Hyde Park where John had enrolled at the University of Chicago Divinity School for a Ph.D. in church history. He also planned to get a Unitarian ministerial degree in case he couldn't get a teaching position; he was hired by Meadville/Lombard Theological School as soon as he received his degree.
John has served on the board and the nominating committee; he has conducted weddings and memorial services, led adult education classes, and preached sermons. Greta has taught various church school classes, been on the board twice, on the nominating committee and other committees. She sang in the choir from 1974 until recently, "when her throat gave out." A high school and college math teacher, she recently retired.
John is a member of the International Association for Religious Freedom and has made a special study of liberal churches in Eastern Europe. Together they have participated in fundraising affairs for the UU Central Midwest District. Greta has written several plays performed in church sanctuaries, and is famous for her Indonesian Rijstaffel dinners, offered through the church talent auction. <top>
Margaret grew up in Indianapolis "more or less a Unitarian." She and her late husband Gerald came to Chicago when he took an economist position at the Illinois Institute of Technology. They lived in Woodlawn and Hyde Park for four years before they joined First Unitarian, motivated by the desire to give their children, Andrew and Susan, a Unitarian education. Both children grew up to be active Unitarians.
Hyde Park-Kenwood was a ferment of activity in those years and our church played a leading role. It was a new idea to create an interracial community, Margaret points out, and she reveres Leslie Pennington for his work in the community. "He really brought his beliefs to life." In the hour before church began, when the children were in church school, a group of us used to sit in the church office and talk, Margaret recalls. She particularly remembers Selina and George Reed.
Margaret retired as a Lab School teacher a few years ago, but she remains an active church and community participant. <top>
Harold Moody had a religious awakening after college; traditional religion no longer satisfied him. He wanted the freedom to form his own beliefs. While he was a Ray School teacher, the quality of the music and Pennington's sermons attracted him to First Unitarian.
He is proudest of his daughter Michelle who attended Hyde Park schools, our church school, Wellesley College, and Oxford and Harvard universities. Now retired, Harold was principal of Dineen Grade School for 19 years, served on Tom Chulak's search committee, and is a passionate motorcyclist and amateur photographer. <top>
Norma and Alex Poinsett (1958)
When the Poinsetts visited our church for the first time, Leslie Pennington was preaching on Alfred North Whitehead. This was almost too much for Alex; Whitehead is one of his favorite philosophers!
Alex had been attracted to Unitarianism as a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Illinois at Champaign. He and Norma, also a graduate student, had attended the Unitarian church there a few times and found it much more thoughtful than the "holy roller" approach to spirituality of Alex's Baptist background.
He and Norma joined First Unitarian a few weeks later. Alex served on the board in the 60's and Norma in the 70's. Norma also taught in the church school. Their two children attended the church school and sang in the Chicago Children's Choir. Daughter Pierette, a California pediatrician, is now a Buddhist, but son Pierre is a member of our church. Both parents became seriously involved in the struggles for racial justice.
Norma vividly remembers the church's all-day workshop in the early 70's organized by Jack Mendelsohn, and led by university psychologist Eugene Gendlin. Most black members of the church wanted to form a Black Caucus and most white members were dismayed by their wish to draw apart -- until then an integrated church had been seen as the common goal. Ella May Jones, the oldest member of the church and a greatly respected retired school teacher, had come in opposition. All day long people explored and expressed their feelings and concerns about racial issues. At the end of the day, right about when the sun was setting, Ella May stood up and announced, as Norma recalls it, "I came this morning against the idea of a Black Caucus meeting in our church, because I thought it was wrong and not necessary. Now I realize I was wrong and I want it to be here." With that bestowal of her blessing, the whole tone of the meeting changed, and the vote was in favor.
Alex tells how, about 1973, the Chicago chapter of the Black Caucus pressed the UUA board for funding to help black programs grow. The board promised one million dollars, to be paid in four installments; but only the first $250,000 was paid. The board said they did not have the money; but the Black Caucus regarded them as reneging on their promise. In anger, many blacks dropped out of their churches. Alex was one of them. He says he will always be grateful for Jack Mendelsohn's support of the Black Caucus, and believes that support cost Mendelsohn the election as president of the UUA.
Norma stayed. She transferred her efforts primarily to the denominational level, serving from the 70's on in various capacities: work on the racial justice curriculum for church schools, as a UUA board member, as a liaison with the UU Service Committee, and on the UUA committee on committees. Most importantly she helped originate the UU black concerns committee, now the Jubilee World, which conducts racial justice workshops in UU churches around the country. These workshops, Norma says, are what feeds her.
Alex came back to First Unitarian about 1990. He chaired the Decisions for Growth workshop and drafted a three-year program for future church development. He was president of the congregation in 1996-97.
A writer, Alex has contributed to Ebony magazine for 30 years and written five books. The most recent came out last year and is entitled Walking with the Presidents: Louis Martin and the Rise of Political Power. <top>
Mary's husband had just received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago when he died suddenly from a heart ailment. Married only nine years, with a five-month-old daughter, and knowing only her husband's colleagues, Mary had to make a beginning somewhere. A non-practicing Jew (she was an atheist), her husband had remarked that the Unitarian church would be good for their daughter, and so she came to First Unitarian.
She was "scooped up" by J. B. Allin, and the Dorlaques and Eisendraths. Jim Stevens invited her to join the adult discussion group and a local book club. Soon her whole social life opened up.
Mary liked Jack Kent very much; he was "a very personable, warm, thoughtful man." At a time when she was hospitalized for pneumonia and very nearly broke, he quietly paid some of her hospital expenses from his discretionary fund.
Some years of "backsliding" followed. She returned in earnest when Tom Chulak asked her to edit the church newsletter.
A University of Illinois English instructor for 33 years, Mary is now retired, a bird watcher and a bookworm. She remembers with nostalgia the all-church weekends in Michigan and Wisconsin and her week spent at the Mountain UU camp in North Carolina. <top>