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The Story of Our First 100 Years

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The Story of Our First 100 Years The First Unitarian Universalist Church of Ann Arbor The Story of Our First One Hundred Years by Marjorie Reade Published by the 1990 Committee of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Ann Arbor, Michigan, May, 1990. Second Printing, March, 1994. Reformatted and reprinted, June, 2008. i ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword ......................................................................................................................................................... i History of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Ann Arbor—1865–1965 ..................... 1 The Early Universalists ...............................................................................................................................1 The Rev. Nathaniel Stacy ....................................................................................................................1 Dr. T. C. Adam .........................................................................................................................................2 Dr. Snead .......................................................................................................................................................... 2 Dr. S. Miles ...............................................................................................................................................2 R. Thornton ..............................................................................................................................................2 Unitarianism Comes to Ann Arbor ..........................................................................................................3 The Rev. Charles Henry Brigham ......................................................................................................4 The Rev. Joseph Henry Allen ..............................................................................................................5 The Sunderland Era ............................................................................................................................................ 5 The Tiffany Stained Glass Window ................................................................................................ 10 Eliza Jane Read Sunderland ............................................................................................................ 11 The Rev. Joseph H. Crooker .................................................................................................................... 13 The Rev. Henry Wilder Foote ................................................................................................................. 14 Dr. Percy M. Dawson ................................................................................................................................. 14 Dr. Robert S. Loring .................................................................................................................................. 15 The Rev. Sidney Swain Robins ............................................................................................................... 16 The Rev. Harold P. Marley ......................................................................................... 18 “A Reflection of the University Mind” ........................................................................................... 19 “A Fellowship of Liberal Religion” .................................................................................................. 24 The Rev. Edward H. Redman ................................................................................................................... 27 The Jackson Legacy ........................................................................................................................................... 33 The Rev. Erwin A. Gaede ......................................................................................................................... 36 Footnotes .......................................................................................................................................................... 41 Appendix A—The Flaming Chalice ................................................................................................................ 43 Appendix B—The Humanist Manifesto ......................................................................................................... 44 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................................................... 46 Originally Published in 1990. Front Cover: Stained glass dove created by Milton and E. L. Kemnitz Photo by Walter Pinkus. Lettering by Milton Kemnitz Back Cover: Tiffany stained glass window Photo courtesy of Hobbs & Black Architects Additional copies of this volume are available from: First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor, Michigan 4001 Ann Arbor-Saline Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48103 iii iv FOREWORD On behalf of the First Unitarian Universalist program in the church and the philosophy which Church of Ann Arbor and myself, I wish to thank has defined the program through the years. Since the other church members who have contributed so it has always been important to the church to generously to the publication of this history: reach out to the youth of the community, and it is Shirley Daly who researched and prepared the our religious education program which brings so initial draft of the history of the first five years of many young families into the church, I believe the Erwin A. Gaede ministry, Kip Miller for such an account should be written, either to stand putting the document in the computer and for alone or to be incorporated into a revised edition of directing the publication process, Virginia Hayes the history. who edited and refined the history, and to the Reverend Kenneth Phifer who gave advice and Except for Eliza Sunderland, the church records counseling on content and sources. give little account of the contributions of the ministers’ wives to the life of the church. Since The members of the Ann Arbor church have many of us know from personal experience of the always been concerned with the social issues of the energy and commitment of recent ministers’ wives, day. A great deal of the impact of the church on the we may presume earlier wives were also active. We local and larger communities has been due, not know that Florence Kollock, the wife of Joseph only to its ministry, but also to the convictions and Crooker, was an ordained Universalist minister, active participation of individual members. but we have no knowledge of her ministerial or Unfortunately, the church records give only social activities. occasional glancing accounts of these activities and it is beyond the scope of this history to research However, in spite of the limitations of the written them adequately. The record since the 1950s is record, what does come through is the more complete but still too sketchy for historical perseverance of what was often a very small purposes. So the activists of the church remain community to liberate itself from the evils of the largely unsung, but they were there and they made past and to find new ground for better living and their contributions to the liberal traditions of the loving. UUs have this undaunted optimism about church. human worth and potential which holds them together and keeps them going. As I finished up this history, I realized that there is very little account of the religious education —M. Reade i1 The church building purchased from the Methodists in 1866. It was located on the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and Ann Streets 2 History of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Ann Arbor In researching the history of the Ann Arbor church, The Rev. Nathaniel Stacy I find that three histories have been written In Rev. Crooker’s history he writes, “Liberal previously. The latest one, written in 1965 by Mavis religion began in Ann Arbor in 1835. At that time Greene, was published and a few copies remain in there were a sufficient number of like-minded our files. The Rev. Joseph H. Crooker wrote the first people to join together to write to the Reverend history early in his ministry, probably about 1902. Nathaniel Stacy, an itinerant preacher of the It was also published, but I know of only one copy Universalist denomination, asking him to come to and that is in the church files in the Bentley Ann Arbor, stating that they felt they could support Library. The second history was written by the ‘sustained preaching.’”1 Committee on Appraisal of the Ann Arbor church in 1936, but the words are primarily those of the Rev. According to O. W. Stephenson’s history, Ann Harold P. Marley, we believe, although the Arbor—The First Hundred Years (1927), the document is unsigned and exists only in typewritten Universalists owned a building in an oak grove, form. I have drawn heavily on the two early probably near where St. Andrews Episcopal Church histories as the material is so fresh and alive, and now stands, as we know that area once contained a very often it is all the record we have. large stand of oak trees. “Mr. Stacy had spent most of his strenuous life as The Early Universalists minister to outlying settlements, first in central New York state and later in the middle west. In Professing “God’s Unity and parental love to the early spring of 1835 he received, to quote his mankind; Christ’s work of reconciliation, and memoirs: perfect obedience rather than vicarious, sacrificial atonements; man’s
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