Lately, I have been slowly making my way through the list of reading I am required to do before meeting with the Ministerial Fellowship Committee. This week I started reading Prophetic Sisterhood: Liberal Women Ministers of the Frontier 1880-1930, by Cynthia Grant Tucker. The story of Mary Safford and Eleanor Gordon transported me to a time when it was unheard of for a woman to be a minister.  

 

Mary and Eleanor grew up on neighboring farms in Hamilton, IL. From an early age, Mary liked to stand on a stump in her front yard and preach to anyone in the family who would listen.

Mary Safford

Her mother indulged her but also worked hard to instill traditional 19th Century values in her young daughter. Mary's father, on the other hand, filled the Safford home with talk of abolition, Darwin's new theories on evolution and questions about the infallibility of the Bible. Although he died when Mary was young, she grew up working her way through her father's library and developing ideas of her own. 

 

Meanwhile, Eleanor Gordon was growing up not far away in a family filled with radical aunts and uncles who liked to discuss

Eleanor Gordon

the improbability of the trinity and anything by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker. Eleanor admired Theodore Parker for his abolitionist commitment and his religious resolve that faith was about actions that lead to justice rather than salvation alone. Mary and Eleanor became dear friends. Then, one day in the 1870s when both were in their early 20s, they made a pact to work as a team to further the cause of liberal religion. To make a long and wonderful story short, the two women were called to and ordained by the Unitarian congregation in Humboldt, IA. They also founded The Hawthorne Literary Society in their hometown of Hamilton where they organized and hosted guest speakers, plays, book discussions and ethical forums on the issues of the day. They set up a home in Humboldt where they invited promising young woman students to live and be mentored by them. A number of these women went on to join the Unitarian ministry.

Let us reflect on the brave, ambitious and persistent woman ministers who have helped to shape so much of our faith, whether we are aware of their presence in our history or not. I'll leave you with a quote from an article on Mary Safford by Celeste DeRoche: "Safford believed that 'true religion must first of all be free religion, free from irrational dogma that discouraged personal growth.' She held that the human soul would evolve, not in solitude, but through community. People would make their common tasks divine 'by doing them in the spirit of love and helpfulness.'"

In hopes for the future and with reverence for the past,
Eve 

  

Team leader Judy Gallimore, left, was recognized at services this weekend with a gift certificate to a furniture store and a sash proclaiming her "Chair Person."

Throughout this past summer, you'd have been forgiven if you mistook our Sanctuary for a furniture refinishing business - with a pretty large and dedicated staff. 

Three to four mornings a week for almost five months, volunteers of all ages and abilities took on the daunting job of refinishing and reupholstering our 300 Sanctuary chairs.
The group, led unflaggingly by Judy Gallimore, dismantled each chair in batches of about a dozen at a time. This included numbering each chair, back and seat so that the three pieces could be reunited at the end of the process. Then, while some volunteers meticulously repaired, sanded, stained and sealed the wood, others cut fabric and expertly reupholstered the seats in the new blue fabric. Once the wood dried, the chairs were reassembled.

 

Top: Betsy Bicknell, Cathy Downs and Roland Cyr working on the chairs. Above: the chair refurbishing, in transition from green to blue.

Judy says that for most of the folks who worked on the chairs, this was as much a fellowship project as a work project. "So many of our volunteers were new to the congregation and looking for a way to connect and contribute," says Judy. "This was a great way to help them do that."

In addition to the aesthetic benefits these volunteers contributed to the congregation, there are also financial benefits. "We got estimates on replacing the chairs," says Executive Director Rich Sider, "and it came in around $185 a chair. Thanks to these volunteers, we only needed to buy fabric and refinishing supplies, which saved the congregation $45,000."

 

In all, 70 volunteers worked on the project. Everyone credits Judy for her leadership and determination to get the job done by September (which they did!). Judy in turn thanks all those who came ready to work and kept at it till the job was done. In particular, she calls three volunteers "the backbones of the project:" Roland Cyr, Cathy Downs and Zeena Zeidberg. These three showed up most days and became expert mentors on different aspects of the project.  

 

More than 65 other volunteers worked on the project including: David Anker, Paul Atelsek, Donna Audritsh, Tom Barry, Betsy Bicknell, Kathy Birnbaum, Barb Brehm, Donna Brewer, Turner Bridgforth, Jean Busch, Mary Butler, Heather Chambers, Ann Marie Cunningham, Nancy Dalzell, Su Davis, Andy Dodd, Debra Eastham, Louise Evertt, Jane Fitzgerald, Hal Fuller, Anne Gabriel, Adair Gilliam, Barbara Gregory, Barbara Harding, Meg Harrelson, Lily Heagy, Jan Hettenhouser, Lynn Howell, Pamela Johnson, Nick Katsonis, Denise Kelly, Jennifer Khanna, Gayle King, Roberta Kiver, Peter Krone, Gail Kulisch, Shari MacFarlane, Tom McMillen, Ruth McWilliams, Renée McMillen, David Michael, Kristin Moyer, Ava Neff, Dick Neff, Mary Paxton, John Pence, Mary Peterson, Katherine Riddle, Paul Riddle, Liz Roddy, Marjorie Rowe, Gyneth Shires, Nancy Smith, Mary Jo Smrekar, Judy Stone, JS Sullivan, Florence Summers, Laurie Taub, Bill Thomas, Jean Thomas, Edna Trimm, Bruno Walker, Lori Weiss, Mike Wingo, Ann Wood, David Zack and Linda Zack.

So the next time you're enjoying a worship service in a beautiful blue chair, you can thank Judy and this great team of volunteers.