by Mike Roberts, Church Historian

What was happening in the life of our church 25 years ago? By reviewing a few months of Board of Trustees meetings held in the spring of 1998, we might reflect on the issues that Heritage UU Church faced a quarter century ago. During that time period, Dave Spinney served as President of the board. Other members who served during that term were Jim Crocker-Lakness, Sam Gamble, Julie Kane, Barb Lyon, Pat Murray, Tom Rockenfeld, Dawson Smith and Rod Vivian.

To refresh your memory, in case you put 1998 well behind you, here are some of the leaders in pop culture that year. “ER” was the #1 television show. “Sunny Came Home” by Shawn Colvin won the Grammy for best song. Titanic won the Oscar for best movie. In May of that year, You Belong to Me, by Mary Higgins Clark, was the top selling book of fiction and Tuesdays with Morrie, by Mitch Albom, was the top-selling non-fiction book.

These may have provided diversions for our church as they looked ahead to the new millennium. The most important issue facing Heritage concerned the announcement that minister Elinor Artman wished to retire in the near future. The board saw the need for action in that regard on two fronts. First, a search committee would have to be assembled to begin the process of hiring a new minister. To that end, a retreat was scheduled for October 3rd to discuss the creation of a search committee. This effort was led by Peg Feder. Secondly, it was recommended that the church bylaws be amended regarding the search process. These amendments were to be recommended to the membership at the annual meeting in April. At that annual meeting, four changes to the ministerial search process were discussed.

(1) The first change transferred the responsibility for securing a new minister from the Board of Trustees to a separate search committee. In the church’s past, the search for a new minister had always been conducted by the Board of Trustees. It was believed that the board was involved in too many other aspects of running the church to commit to finding a new minister, a process that could take between 12 and 18 months. Instead, it was proposed that a seven-member ad hoc committee would conduct the search, five of those committee persons being chosen by the membership and two appointed by the board.

(2) A change was recommended that instead of a 75% approval of a candidate, a vote of 95% approval would be required.

(3) The third recommendation was to change language regarding the dismissal of a minister. The change would require that a 51% negative vote of the congregation had to be obtained to dismiss a minister.

(4) It was also suggested that a change be made regarding the responsibility of the minister to adhere to the church constitution and the UU Ministers Association Guidelines.

The first and fourth recommendations were approved at the Annual Meeting but items 2 and 3 were tabled for further discussion. A vote would be taken at the next annual meeting but the discussions carried far beyond that date.

In addition to these issues related to the search for a new minister, the finance committee offered its new budget projections for the 1998-99 fiscal year. It included a raise in the minister’s salary to ensure that Heritage would be competitive during the search process.

While the board was wrestling with the issue of a search for a new minister, other items were, of course, on their agenda. Jim Crocker-Lakness announced that Reverend Artman had been accorded the Anne Miller Award for Excellence in Religious Education for the Ohio Valley District.

New candidates for the board had to be nominated for the ensuing year. Those nominated were Peg Feder, Jill Frank and Jerry Howard.

It was also agreed that Sam Feder and Tim Kloth were to be the joint recipients of the Heritage Award.

Much time was spent in discussing the need to re-organize the committee structure in the church. Among the issues were: 1) attaining commitments from chairpersons and members to participation for a set length of time; 2) training sessions for committee members; 3) team building strategies for these committees.

It was also reported that the membership of the church had reached 134 with 122 of those members having voting rights.

As a postlude, the issues regarding the hiring process were finally resolved and a seven-member search committee was created. The members of that committee were: Cindy Berryman-Fink, Chairperson; John Simpson; Joan Stoffregen; Tamara Smith; Bob Booth; Kathy Nalepa; and, Jim Crocker-Lakness. The committee worked diligently and offered Reverend Bill Gupton as their first choice. He was accepted by a vote of 84 yes and 1 no and was installed as our minister in April 2002, a full four years after the Board of Trustees initiated the search process.

June 2023.

The Stories of 42 Ministers Who Have Served Our Church

Part 9

by Mike Roberts, Church Historian

Over the past eight installments of From the Archives, we have explored the stories of all of those dedicated ministers who have served our church since its inception. We began with Josiah Waldo, our first minister. It is now time to conclude the series with the final two ministers who have served our church, namely Elinor Artman and Bill Gupton. These two have served our church for over thirty years and are well known to our long-time members.

Elinor Artman

Elinor McHale was born in White Plains, New York, on January 30, 1927, the only child of Walter and Hildegarde McHale. She was the valedictorian of her high school class and went on to graduate summa cum laude from St. Lawrence University with a degree in Chemistry. She then moved to Colorado for further studies. There she met Neil Artman, a fellow Chemistry major.

They married and moved to several locations as he pursued his PhD as well as job opportunities. They finally settled in Cincinnati in 1955 when Neil took a position with Procter and Gamble. The family eventually grew to five children.

Elinor never fit into the “corporate wife” mold. One of the ways she expressed her feminist leanings was by becoming active at First Unitarian Church, bringing her children with her to the religious education program there. She quickly became a lay leader and helped create a spinoff congregation in the suburb of Wyoming—Northern Hills UU Fellowship (known as The Gathering at Northern Hills today).

She grew more active in the women’s rights movement and encouraged the women in her life to strive for gender equality. Her next step was to take course work at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, where she finally earned the credits for a Master of Divinity degree and was ordained in Cincinnati at age 52.

Reverend Artman’s first assignment was serving as Extension Minister for the UUA Ohio Valley District. After three years in that role, she accepted a UU ministry in Kokomo, Indiana, serving there until 1987. That experience was followed by her taking the pulpit at Heritage where she offered her skilled guidance and leadership from 1989 to 2001. The UU Retired Ministers and Partners Association states that “she was known for her skills in conflict resolution and often facilitated groups in need of guidance. She became a certified instructor in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and often used this tool with church boards and congregations.” Upon her retirement from Heritage she was recognized as Minister Emerita.

Elinor’s Unitarian Universalist resume beyond the congregation was impressive indeed. She contributed to the development of coursework in feminist theology entitled Cakes for the Queen of Heaven and Rise Up and Call Her Name. She twice served as a board member of the UU Women’s Federation, and worked as a facilitator for UU Right Relations, a member of the UUA task force on congregational response to clergy misconduct, and a member of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association (UUMA) Executive Committee.

After retiring from Heritage she lived in Highlands, North Carolina, and later Asheville. There, she was a consultant to the Mountain Retreat, a chaplain of the UU Musicians Network and a board member of the Women’s Heritage Society. She was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by the Southeast District of the UUA and was also granted membership into the Clara Barton Sisterhood (a special recognition of the UU Women’s Federation).

Elinor Artman died at age 87 on March 16, 2014, following a brief illness and stroke. She is survived by four of her five children, daughters Martha, Sarah and Vanessa and son Linus. Son Chris died in 1970.

After Rev. Artman left Heritage, Rev. Amy Russell served as our congregation’s Interim Minister, during the church year 2001-2002. Rev. Russell later served six years as settled minister at Miami Valley UU Fellowship in Dayton, Ohio.

Bill Gupton

We now reach the end (for now) of the nearly two-century long story of our church’s ministers. Rev. Bill Gupton began his ministry with Heritage in 2002, and continues to serve us today, as the longest-serving minister in the congregation’s history.

Bill was born in Bristol, Tennessee, in 1958, and attended the University of Tennessee, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism. He then attended the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, where he obtained a Master’s degree in English. It was in Greensboro that he began working with Unitarian Universalist youth, at the church there – a calling that would, several years and many cities later, lead him to seminary.

He began his career as a UU religious professional in the early 1990s at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Okla., as the denomination’s only full-time Youth Director. During his years in Oklahoma, he married Jennifer Sanders (herself also a Tennessee native). They moved to Berkeley, Calif., in 1994, where Bill began studies at the Pacific School of Religion. While in the Bay Area, he did his ministerial internship at the First Unitarian Church of Oakland. Two months before Bill received his Master’s of Divinity degree in 1996, Jennifer gave birth to their only child, Patrick Sanders. On Fathers Day of that year, he was ordained by the UU Congregation of Atlanta.

The family moved to Ohio later that summer, where Bill served as Interim Associate Minister at First UU Church in Columbus from 1996-1999. A three-year stint as minister of the historic Olmsted UU Congregation in North Olmsted, Ohio – itself, an old Universalist church much like Heritage – followed.

In the spring of 2001, the HUUC Ministerial Search Committee (Bob Booth, Cindy Berryman-Fink (chair), Jim Crocker-Lakness, Kathy Nalepa, John Simpson, Tamara Smith, and Joan Stoffregen) recommended that Heritage call him as our 40th minister. The vote on April 21, 2002, was 84-1 in favor, and Rev. Bill has served Heritage Universalist Unitarian church ever since.

In that time, the church has seen a 50 percent growth in membership, and the introduction of multi-platform worship experiences (live Zoom broadcasts, video recording of services available on the website, etc.). A capital campaign resulted in a new kitchen, redesigned sanctuary with new technology, and a digital electronic sign at Newtown Road.

Bill’s development of and attention to a new End-of-Life Ministry at Heritage led to the creation of Heritage Acres Memorial Sanctuary, the Tri-State’s only dedicated natural (“green”) burial ground, which opened in April of 2020 – just at the beginning of the COVID pandemic.

***

Now, as HUUC becomes fully operational once again following the pandemic, we look to the future. There will be other ministers. Other congregants. Other challenges, and successes. But always, we will honor our Heritage.

May 2023.

[Part 1] – [Part 2] – [Part 3] – [Part 4] – [Part 5] – [Part 6] – [Part 7] – [Part 8] – [Part 9]

 

The Stories of 42 Ministers Who Have Served Our Church

Part 8

by Mike Roberts, Church Historian

Our review of past ministers has reached the point of discussing pastors who served recently and are well known and remembered by our congregation.

Doak Mansfield

Doak Maddox Mansfield became the minister of our church in 1975 after the resignation of Brian Tansey. However, after Tansey’s leaving, the church brought in speakers and used members to conduct Sunday services for two years until Reverend Mansfield was hired by Salem Acres.

Mansfield was born in Fayetteville, Lincoln County Tennessee the son of John Harwell Mansfield and Margaret Jean Maddox. After graduating high school, he earned an associate’s degree from Martin Methodist College and then enrolled at Austin Peay University from which he graduated in 1970. He taught school for one year and then was appointed Dean of Administration and Housing at Martin. He next attended Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington D.C. with the intention of entering the ministry. His first assignment was to serve as pastor at Sudley United Methodist Church in Virginia. He ministered there from 1973 to 1975. At the end of his tenure in Sudley, Mansfield applied for ordination with the Unitarian Universalist Church and began his career with that organization when he accepted the pulpit at Salem Acres.

During his nearly ten years of service to our church, Mansfield preached most of his sermons in the Salem Hills house that had been purchased on land above Lunken Airport. Throughout, he felt the necessity to move into or to build a true church facility if the congregation was ever to grow. Eventually, the house was sold and the group met in the auditorium at Anderson High School and at a social service center. But, the pressing need to find a permanent home was still there. When the decision was made to construct the present church, Mansfield felt it was time to move on and he resigned his position before construction of the new church was completed. He assumed a new pastorate in Huntsville, Alabama where he remained until ill health forced a premature retirement in the year 2000.

In 1978, Mansfield received a commission as a U.S. Army reserve chaplain to become one of only four UU chaplains in the army. He served in that position for eight years. In his sermons he occasionally worked in references to the “M-A-S-H” TV program. For its final episode in 1983, he donned khaki and spoke to the message delivered weekly on the show. He stated, “The 11 years of ‘M-A-S-H’ programs have immeasurably helped America heal the wounds of Vietnam. ‘M-A-S-H’ has been a religious experience because it talked about human experience and religion in contending with life.” The service was held at the H. D. West Community Center and raised funds for a Vietnam memorial in Eden Park.

Reverend Mansfield was active in service to the general community while at Salem Acres. He volunteered at the Salem Senior Center, served in the University of Cincinnati Campus Ministry, was a chaplain at the Bethesda Hospitals as well as reaching the rank of captain while in the U. S. Army Reserve Chaplain corps. During his stay in Cincinnati and in later years, Mansfield authored at least four books, Gallery of Honored Cherokee, The Mockingbird’s Ballad, Jones of Old Lincoln, and An Irreverent Guide to Spirituality.

In tendering his resignation to the Salem Acres congregation, Reverend Mansfield stated that, “My nearly ten years with this congregation has been a time of wonder and challenge. I have real good feelings about the experience. I have real good feelings about your future. The relationships made here are gifts I shall treasure always.” After successful heart surgery, Mansfield went on to serve several churches over the past thirty years and, in February 2023, accepted the position of pastor at The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Sussex County, New Jersey.

Following Reverend Mansfield’s leave, the church used an interim minister, James Hutchinson, to conduct services and help the congregation complete its move to the new facility on Newtown Road. Elinor Artman, whose presence will play a large role in the future years of the church, also helped in the interim period.

Laine Hawxhurst

To open a new page in the history of the congregation, the church employed Reverend Laine Hawxhurst. She was installed as the 38th minister of the church and the first woman to be employed as our full-time minister. Laine Hawxhurst was born in Cincinnati and graduated from Walnut Hills High School. She matriculated to Western College for Women in Oxford and then attended Kirkland College and Union Theological Seminary in New York City. She was raised in the UU tradition, her family attending First Unitarian Church on Reading Road.

Reverend Hawxhurst was installed as the new minister on March 23, 1986. Among those speaking at the event were UU ministers Carl Whittier and Robert Clarke along with Rabbi Victor Reichert. A new start by all would be the phrase to describe Hawxhurst’s early ministry. The newly completed church was opened with its first service in December of 1985. The name of the church was changed from Salem Acres to Heritage Universalist Unitarian Church to emphasize its roots as a former Universalist congregation with a long history of service to the community. Nearly all the churches in the UU organization listed the Unitarian name first. A formal dedication for the new church facility was conducted on November 2, 1986. In order to draw new people to the church, Reverend Hawxhurst helped launch a monthly newsletter which is the predecessor of our Heirloom. She also appeared on the Channel 12 public affairs program “Dialogue.” In a report offered to the Board of Trustees, RE Director Joy Mansfield stated that new and interested worshipers were attending services each Sunday.

Reverend Hawxhurst remained with the church until she tendered her resignation on September 9th 1988. She went on to serve UU churches in Norwich, Connecticut and Allentown, Pennsylvania. She currently resides in Eastern Pennsylvania.

April 2023.

[Part 1] – [Part 2] – [Part 3] – [Part 4] – [Part 5] – [Part 6] – [Part 7] – [Part 8] – [Part 9]

 

by Rev. David E. Bumbaugh

Introduction by Russ Araujo

On February 5, 2023, Rev. Bill Gupton gave a sermon on “What Do You Believe?” The question of belief, at both the individual and the denominational level, reminded me of a talk I heard 14 years ago by Rev. David E. Bumbaugh. A search on the Internet led me to an article that was based upon that talk; I found the article fascinating and relevant to some of the denominational questions being asked today.

Here is the article from UU World magazine: The Unfulfilled Dream.

2/13/2023

 

The Stories of 42 Ministers Who Have Served Our Church

Part 7

by Mike Roberts, Church Historian

After the depression and war years, turbulent times faced the church in the 1950s. The First Society continued to struggle during the 1950s and through the hectic days of the 1960s and 1970s. Albert Perry was brought aboard and the church attempted to solve its lingering problems.

Albert Q. Perry

Albert Perry, the son of a traveling salesman, came to Cincinnati in January 1952. At age 36, he had previously served two churches in New England and one in Quebec. His family had housed a Universalist minister when Albert was a child and this likely had a strong effect on his career choice.

When Reverend Perry started his ministry here, he saw two great challenges. The merger with City Temple was still fresh and he felt that even though the two churches worshiped together, they were still separated spiritually. The second was to start a campaign to raise funds to renovate the 50-year-old church. These tasks occupied much of the first five years he served the First Society.

In addition to these stresses, there was a strong feeling within the church that a new home had to be found. Some members were worried about changing dynamics of the neighborhood and that few new members would be found amongst the new residents of Walnut Hills. Others felt the church should not sink money into renovation but should seek a new site. Also, the Hamilton County planning commission had warned the church that in all likelihood I-71 would be built through the church property. This hung over the heads of the members for nearly five years and then the freeway was built to the west of the church and the Essex facility was unaffected.

In 1960, Reverend Perry outlined a five-point plan to improve the financial health of the church. Briefly these were 1) eliminate the confusion about the state of the church’s finances; 2) work out a temporary budget to accommodate the lack of financial drive and the loss of members who were habitual givers; 3) establish a policy regarding bequests; 4) establish a policy in regard to capital gains; 5) establish a policy regarding ministerial salaries. The church wrestled with its financial worries throughout the 1950s and Perry hoped the church would adopt policies for all of these economic issues.

Finally, the merger of the Unitarian and Universalist churches took place late in Albert Perry’s stay with our church. Adjusting to this new dynamic added to an already overstressed congregation. Perry resigned his ministry in 1961 and moved back to New England. He worked in the Civil Rights Movement and unsuccessfully ran for Congress in Rhode Island. He ministered to churches in Rhode Island, New York and Maine, finally retiring in 1990. He died in 2001 in Biddleford, Maine.

(Read a prior “From the Archives” article on Rev. Perry here.)

Raymond John Baughan

Reverend Baughan came to Cincinnati in November of 1961. He arrived after serving as editor of the Universalist Leader, the national magazine for the Universalist Church of America. Previous to that, he had served as minister to a number of New England churches. During his stay in Cincinnati, Baughan made recommendations as to how to improve the church so it could prosper. Among these were 1) give full support to the national merger of Unitarianism and Universalism; 2) update the church’s bylaws, which he felt were vague and misguided; 3) develop a better system of financial management, a constant theme throughout the history of the church; 4) conduct a self-analysis of the church; 5) initiate a study of relocation and also a possible merger with the Eastern Hills UU church.

Reverend Baughan worked for two years at accomplishing these goals before leaving in January of 1964. Upon his resignation, he cited several accomplishments. He assisted in co-hosting the state Universalist convention along with Eastern Hills church. He established a new monthly newsletter, the Lamplighter, and he created a number of new committees to address the goals listed above. During his lengthy career, he provided many and various services to the national church and his communities, among them serving 54 years as a minister, writing many poems and meditations, one of which, #485, appears in our UU hymnal, serving as a hospital chaplain, directing the Universalist Publishing House and holding many positions of leadership in state and local organizations. He also marched with Dr. Martin Luther King in 1965 from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Reverend Baughan died in1993.

(Read a prior “From the Archives” article on Rev. Baughan here.)

Karl Albert Bach

When Karl Bach took the pulpit of our church in November 1964, he was 56 years old. He stayed with the church for nearly six years and it was his last full-time assignment, as he retired from the profession with his resignation. He had served a number of churches in Massachusetts, Iowa and New York prior to coming to Cincinnati. He was a Unitarian by training and experience, having come to our city from the First Unitarian Church of Bridgewater, Massachusetts.

It was during Reverend Bach’s tenure that the church finally decided to leave its home in Walnut Hills and relocate to Salem Acres in Anderson Township. This was the fourth home for the church. Bach likened the move to a pendulum which had been stuck on dead center but that the relocation would be a gain for the congregation and would begin to move it in a positive direction. Along with the move, Reverend Bach urged a well-planned membership drive to be a part of the change. Bach passed away in 1999 in Portland, Oregon.

Brian R. Tansey

After Karl Bach left the Salem Acres Church, the congregation went nearly three years without a full-time minister. On September 17, 1972, Brian Tansey preached a sermon at the church and on November 11 he was installed as the new minister. He remained with Salem Acres for less than one year, resigning on July 29, 1973. Little is known of his background or where he went after leaving Salem Acres.

March 2023

[Part 1] – [Part 2] – [Part 3] – [Part 4] – [Part 5] – [Part 6] – [Part 7] – [Part 8] – [Part 9]

 

The Stories of 42 Ministers Who Have Served Our Church

Part 6

by Mike Roberts, Church Historian

As Robert Cummins left and Carl Olsen joined the Cincinnati fold, the country was in the depths of a deep depression. War clouds were on the distant horizon and spiritual leadership was of the utmost importance.

Carl Harold Olson

Carl Olson was born in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1905. He graduated from Tufts College and came to Cincinnati in 1933 after serving as a minister in Kent, Ohio. He served for six years and was very active in the city social service community. He volunteered for the Community Chest. He was chairman of the Church and Social Work division of the Council of Social Service Agencies. He was a member of the management board for the Eastern Hills YMCA. He was also a member and officer in a number of Universalist state and national organizations.

Reverend Olson detailed a typical week in 1936 as representative of his ministry. He delivered one Sunday sermon, two radio addresses and one church school lesson. He attended four to five committee and organizational meetings, made seven pastoral calls and attended five conferences. In addition, there were an inestimable number of phone calls, letters, bulletins and incidental tasks.

While in our city, he helped organize the 110th anniversary celebration of the founding of our church. There was a full week of activities, articles were written for the local papers and the church history was much revered.

Olson left Cincinnati in 1939 to become minister of the Church of the Redeemer in Minneapolis, which later became the First Universalist Church of Minneapolis. He stayed there until retirement in 1963 and passed away two years later.

Ralph Pierre Boyd

Succeeding Carl Olsen on January 5, 1940, was Reverend Ralph Boyd. He came to our church from Alabama but his roots were in Akron, Ohio. He attended a Universalist Church there and eventually trained for the ministry with encouragement from his local minister. Boyd’s stay in Cincinnati was brief. He had a strong desire to serve as a chaplain in the U. S. Army and made application. He was accepted for duty and requested that he be given a one-year leave from our church to serve in the army. That request was denied and he left in July 1941. War intervened and he remained in the chaplain corps until the end of the war.

Attempts to discern where Boyd served have been fruitless. It is known that in 1943 it was arranged between BBC and WCPO that he do a live broadcast back to Cincinnati to report on the war. The broadcast originated in England. Boyd left the service with a rank of major. It is known that he served a Universalist Church in Nashua, New Hampshire from 1947 to 1950. He died in 1979 and is buried in St. Augustine, Florida.

Kenneth Revilo Hutchinson

Reverend Kenneth Hutchinson at age 32 took the lead of our flock on December 14, 1941. This had to be a difficult installation coming exactly one week after Pearl Harbor. He came to the church from one in Dexter, Maine. He had received a strong recommendation from Robert Cummins for whom he served as assistant minister at Throop Church in Pasadena.

Hutchinson served the Essex Street congregation for a little over two years, through the worst of the world war. A number of our congregation joined the armed services and worried families had to be at the top of his priorities.

Reverend Hutchinson moved on to a new ministry Brattleboro, Vermont in January of 1944 and eventually served three more congregations before retiring from the Universalist Church of Verduga Hills, La Crescenta, California. He died in California in 2005.

George H. Thorburn

George Thorburn came to the First Society in February 1944 from Arlington, Virginia. He was serving with the Universalist Institute for International Relations. He had experienced two ministries during his career but also had held several administrative positions with the national church. Thorburn attempted to increase participation and membership in the church by utilizing a Five-Year Plan devised by national superintendent Robert Cummins. That plan included five goals. 1) Rededication to the Moral, Ethical and Spiritual Tenets of the Faith; 2) Enlistment Through the Whole Life of the Church which included missionary work and recruitment of new members; 3) Stewardship in support of the church budget and contributions to the United Appeal; 4) Outreach which was interpreted by our church as leaving the Walnut Hills site; 5) Crusade toward understanding Universalism. As early as 1947, Thorburn was expressing dismay that the church had made so little progress in achieving these goals.

The other major undertaking of Thorburn during these years was merging the congregation of City Temple with our church. He worked closely with Reverend Harry G. Hill to bring the two congregations together, a challenging task in that City Temple was a liberal local church unaffiliated with any national church.

Unfortunately, both tasks were left somewhat unfinished as Thorburn became seriously ill and passed away on June 25, 1949. His death must have been unexpected as he had outlined all his plans for the rest of 1949 at the June Board of Trustees meeting. He is the only minister of our church to die while serving the church.

Jack T. Akin

It took 11 months to replace Reverend Thorburn with Reverend Jack Akin. The new minister had come from a far different background than his predecessors with the First Society. He was trained in Alabama as a Baptist minister and had served for six years at the First Baptist Church of Monroe, North Carolina and at a Baptist Church in Campbellsburg, Kentucky.

Akin’s biggest challenge was guiding the church through its recent merger with the City Temple. He worked with the retired minister of that church, Harry G. Hill, to create a smooth transition for both churches. However, his stay with the church was brief. After 1 1/2 years, he resigned and moved back to Alabama. He passed away in 1982 in Broward County, Florida.

February 2023.

[Part 1] – [Part 2] – [Part 3] – [Part 4] – [Part 5] – [Part 6] – [Part 7] – [Part 8] – [Part 9]

 

The Stories of 42 Ministers Who Have Served Our Church

Part 5

by Mike Roberts, Church Historian

As we continue our review of our past ministers, be reminded that near the turn of the century, led by minister Ulysses Milburn, our congregation had moved into a beautiful new facility in Walnut Hills. Milburn resigned near the completion of the church building and was quickly replaced by Reverend Harry Blackford.

Harry Blackford

Blackford was born in 1866 in the small Preble County town of Eldorado. His father was a Universalist minister and Eldorado, despite its size of only 350 residents, was a hotbed of Universalist activity. It had even hosted a state convention. After his ordination in 1892, Blackford served in Monson, Massachusetts and from there came to Cincinnati. He served only two years and while in Cincinnati enrolled in medical school. He did so to better care for his invalid wife, Lida. Upon completion of his medical studies, he took up his second career but lived only until 1908 when he died at the age 41. Ironically, his invalid wife outlived him by 30 years, passing away in 1938.

Samuel Gilbert Ayres

Samuel Ayres came to our church at age 33. He had one previous pastorate in a small town in western New York. He stayed in our pulpit for six years. During that time, the church was settling into its new Walnut Hills home. A report from Reverend Ayres in January of 1905 iterates a familiar theme—financial difficulty and lack of attendance by the membership but the congregation seemed to be settling into its new neighborhood.

Ayres left Cincinnati in 1909 to serve ten years in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. It is at this time that he took on the role for which he is most remembered. He was named Superintendent of the Universalist Mission in Yokahama, Japan. He and his wife, Minnie, ran the mission for six years, offering refuge for orphans and girls destined to service in the Geisha industry. Mrs. Ayres described their activities as more service and social relations to the Japanese population. In a monthly newsletter, Ayres described their efforts in trying to establish friendships with the people despite the closed nature of Japanese society. In 1923, Yokahama was hit with a 7.9 earthquake that did massive damage to the city and the mission. Much of the Ayres’ effort in their last two years was spent helping to rebuild both. Upon their return to the U. S., Rev. and Mrs. Ayres spent three years promoting the mission and traveling extensively to tell the story.

Samuel returned to the pulpit in 1930, serving several New England congregations. He died in 1955.

Anthony Bevis Beresford

Beresford succeeded Samuel Ayres to the pulpit. He had served the previous ten years as minister in Baltimore, Maryland. He was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1866, the son of immigrants from Bohemia. His father ran a butcher shop.

Beresford remained in our pulpit for 11 years, at the time the longest serving minister in the church’s history. His sermons were regularly reprinted in Cincinnati newspapers and are readily available at the public library website. Prior to WW I, he was a staunch supporter of President Wilson’s attempts to keep us out of war. Once we entered the war, his sermons often focused on the catastrophic loss of life and how it conflicted with our church’s view of a universal brotherhood of man. During the war, he served on the Patriotic Board of Instruction in Cincinnati. Both his sons served in the war and one was wounded in France.

After leaving Cincinnati in 1920, he returned to the Detroit area, serving the church in Farmington, Michigan. He later returned to Cincinnati as minister at the Mohawk Presbyterian Church. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage at his son’s home in 1940. He is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery.

Harold Guy Don Scott

Reverend Scott began service to our church at age 27 in 1920. He came from St. Johnsbury, Vermont. He had been ordained as a Unitarian minister in Old Town, Maine. Scott’s tenure at the Essex Street Church was brief, staying but one year in the pulpit. Evidently questioning his path, he left the ministry to work for the A. Nash Company, a clothing manufacturer in the city. Its owner, Arthur Nash, was a former minister who had left that profession, strongly protesting the hypocrisy of organized religion. Nash did, however, accept an invitation to speak at our church in support of Reverend Beresford’s concern over the loss of life in WW I. Nash went on to become a highly successful businessman while basing his management strictly on the tenets of the Golden Rule. His is a fascinating story but, unfortunately, beyond the scope of this discussion.

Reverend Scott returned to the ministry in 1926 and went on to serve 11 different churches and also served as a sociology professor at Colorado State University. He died in 1965.

John Edwin Price

John Price was ordained at age 23 and served his first church in 1917 in Winthrop, New York. He came to the Queen City in 1922 and ministered for five years. He felt his greatest accomplishment was establishing a nondenominational education program that offered course work free of charge. In reminiscing about his term in Cincinnati, he remembered when “parents were presenting their babes to be dedicated to the pursuance of Christian truth; when older ones took their stand for Christ and the larger faith; when different couples had sought the church’s blessing on the sacred union of their hearts and when we stood about a then lonely, now sacred plot of ground repeating the affirmations of faith which alone are sufficient in such an hour.”

Price left the ministry in 1927 when he was offered the opportunity to edit a new periodical being started by local business man Arthur Nash. This is the same Arthur Nash who spoke at our church during WW I and hired Price’s predecessor at the church. Nash obviously had a close relationship with our church although it is unknown if he was a member. Perhaps further research could discover the depth of that relationship. Price continued as a highly successful editor for the remainder of his work life eventually serving as editor in chief at the Maywood Syndicate Publishing House in New York. He died in Sydney Center, New York in 1973.

Robert Cummins

Robert Cummins was one of the most successful of all the ministers who have served our church. He was raised in Sidney, Ohio, graduated from Miami University in 1919 and then served several years as a missionary in Bangkok, Thailand. After returning to the U.S., he was ordained in 1926 and accepted a ministry that had him serving three churches in Milford, Newtown and Montgomery. He then took the pastorate in our church in 1928 at the age of 31. He served four years here and then moved on to Throop Universalist Church in Pasadena, California. His term here was spent mostly during the early stages of the Great Depression and financial challenges of maintaining a church occupied many of his efforts along with supporting many members who found themselves suddenly in dire need.

After five years in Pasadena, Cummins was chosen as the General Superintendent of the Universalist Church of America, a position he held for 16 years. During that period, he attempted on numerous occasions for the Universalist Church to be accepted into the Federal Council of Christian Churches. His efforts always were turned away by the council and this led him to first explore the idea of a merger with Unitarianism. His first mention of this came as early as the mid-1940s and Cummins was always one of the leaders who finally forged the merger of the two churches.

Cummins service as superintendent ended after 16 years when he accepted the challenge of working for the U.S. Department of State, heading the International Cooperation Administration during the Eisenhower administration. He finished his career in religious leadership by serving as President of the Maine Universalist Association. He passed away in 1982 in Brunswick, Maine. His son, John, became a highly respected UU minister, serving a church in Minneapolis, Minnesota for much of his adult life.

January 2023.

[Part 1] – [Part 2] – [Part 3] – [Part 4] – [Part 5] – [Part 6] – [Part 7] – [Part 8] – [Part 9]

 

The Stories of 42 Ministers Who Have Served Our Church

Part 4

by Mike Roberts, Church Historian

Through the twenty years between 1880 and 1900, the church had a series of ministers who stayed for short periods and moved on. This time period was very difficult for the members, as they faced a number of seemingly insurmountable challenges.

William Henry Ryder

William Henry Ryder took the pulpit at age 40 on September 1, 1882. He had previously served 10 years as minister in Malden, Massachusetts, and several years in Watertown, Wisconsin. He was born in Elyria, Ohio, breaking the mold of our ministers being natives of the Northeast. Ryder’s stay in Cincinnati was brief, lasting 13 months. The church was in turmoil as was the city. Cincinnati was known as one of the most corrupt cities in the nation. Also, the industrialization of the city had created an environment of air pollution where visibility was lost in a sea of smog. Those who could afford it were migrating from the central city to the surrounding hills to escape the blight. The church was in financial difficulty and talk of abandoning our Plum Street church had begun.

While Reverend Ryder’s stay in our fold was brief, there are several points that should be emphasized regarding him. First, another William Henry Ryder was a minister in the Universalist Church and was one of its most respected preachers. Our Reverend Ryder was in no way related to the former Reverend Ryder and the two should not be confused. Secondly, three of Ryder’s children went on to great fame in other fields. One son, Jack, was the second football coach for Ohio State University, compiling a .500 record over four years of coaching. After leaving Ohio State, he became a sports writer for the Cincinnati Enquirer and his bylines are frequently quoted in the early history of the Cincinnati Reds. A second son, Arthur, became well-known as the translator of the Bhagavad Gita. He was recognized at the time as the foremost expert in Sanskrit. One of his students at the University of California was J. Robert Oppenheimer, the developer of the atomic bomb. A third son, Charles, became a doctor and one of the leading experts in the treatment of tuberculosis while running a sanitarium in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

As for Reverend Ryder, after leaving Cincinnati he joined the faculty of Andover College where he taught Greek and New Testament Interpretation. He served as a teacher there until his death in 1918.

Elmer Pember

Elmer Pember was born in Illinois and graduated from Tufts College. He served two ministerial duties in Massachusetts and New York before accepting the calling in Cincinnati in June 1884. Pember stayed with the church for three years. It was a turbulent time. The congregation was looking to flee downtown for the surrounding hills. The church’s financial troubles continued. Two months before Pember’s arrival, the city witnessed one of the worst urban riots in the history of the country. Over 40 died and hundreds were wounded and injured as the populace protested the corruption at city hall and in the courts. The center of the rioting was but a few blocks from the church.

Pember was active in the national church serving at a number of state conventions and was also active in the Universalist Missionary Board. After leaving Cincinnati, he ministered in Titusville, Pennsylvania, and Bangor, Maine. He retired there and became a farmer and raised Ayrshire pure bred cattle. He died in Bangor in 1914.

Elbert Watson Whitney

Pastor Whitney was born in New Hampshire, earned his Divinity Degree from Tufts College and served in Peabody, Massachusetts, and Brattleboro, Vermont, before coming to Cincinnati in 1887. During his three-year tenure, he oversaw the move from the Plum Street facility to a rented church in Peebles Corners on McMillan near Gilbert. A search of that area shows no signs of a church so it must have been torn down long ago.

From Cincinnati, he moved on to Milford, Massachusetts and finally to Taunton, Massachusetts, where he served the longest ministerial term in that church’s history. He also became Vice President of the Universalist Historical Society. He died in Nelson, New Hampshire, in 1932.

Harry Lee Canfield

Henry Canfield was born in Ohio, the son of a Universalist minister. He was ordained in 1888 and came to Cincinnati in 1891. Little is recorded of Canfield’s term in Ohio but one of the hallmarks of his career was his teaming with his wife, Mary Grace. Henry stayed in Cincinnati for three years and then he and his wife became active in the formation of the Young People’s Christian Union. The Universalist Church had started this organization to serve members under the age of 35. Canfield became the organization’s first national secretary and Mary Grace headed its Junior Union. Henry went back to the pulpit in the early 1900’s and eventually served as a minister in a number of North Carolina towns under the auspices of the National Missionary Association.

Mary Grace went on to become a historian, writer and photographer. She wrote a book detailing Lafayette’s visit to Vermont during his 50th anniversary tour in 1826. She was active in women’s suffrage and after the passage of the women’s voting rights amendment turned her energies to the League of Women Voters. During her travels she took numerous photographs which now are in the collection of the Vermont Historical Society, the Andover/Harvard Collection and the University of North Carolina library. Reverend Canfield died in 1942 and Mary Grace in 1946.

Ulysses Sumner Milburn

Ulysses Milburn came to Cincinnati as the right man for the right time. He was born on a farm east of Columbus, earned his divinity degree at St. Lawrence College and preached at London, Ohio, and Baltimore, Maryland, from which he came to Cincinnati. While in Baltimore, he served as the assistant to Royal Pullman who was instrumental in originating the Mother’s Day ceremony.

Milburn came to Cincinnati when the First Society was contemplating building a new church. He was the driving force necessary to see the completion of that goal. He stayed four years from May 1894 to August 1898. The church building on Essex in Walnut Hills was nearing completion and Milburn felt his work in Cincinnati was done. He went on to serve churches in New York, Kansas City and Massachusetts.

Milburn also was a world traveler, often lecturing at church and community events about those experiences. In addition, he was recognized as the owner of one of the largest collections of items related to Nathaniel Hawthorne. These included books, manuscripts, letters and photos related to the author. Milburn donated these to St. Lawrence where they still are considered a primary resource for Hawthorne studies.

It is rare that we can hear the words of a man who served our church well over a hundred years ago. However, in a letter dated May 26, 1938, Milburn sent the following letter to our church when it celebrated its 111th birthday. He wrote:

If I were an old man I presume I would reminisce; of course, I am not! (Ed. He was 72 years of age) But if I were, I would recall my coming to Cincinnati from Baltimore in April, 1894; the installation and reception, the Rev. J. Frank Thompson of Akron preaching the sermon at the former and Mrs. Charles H. Stevens presiding at the latter. Our services were held in a little rented building on McMillan Street west of Gilbert Avenue. Even before the reception a committee had been appointed to find a site for a new church, consisting of George C. James, Charles H. Stephens and A. P. Henkel. D. F. Saunders was President of the Board of Trustees, John D. S. Stevens, Clerk and George L. Utter, Treasurer.

The whole tone of preaching has fortunately changed since those far-off days. Then, theology was the dominant note. I happened by some chance, to be able to have a large space in the public press nearly every Monday. The Rev. G. R. Robbins of the Lincoln Park Baptist Church preached on “The Back Door to Hell”. In two weeks, the sermon was on “Is There a Back Door to Hell?” which was published almost in full. We are grateful that today hearts are fed with something better than the dry husks of creeds, however important correct thinking may be.

Go on to greater things! With Browning “Greet the future with cheer.” Your church beseeches “that ye be not soon shaken in your mind” but that you be steadfast, unmovable in your faith in God and in his laws which govern the spiritual world with infinite wisdom. It also tells you to “keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life”—a life of service, of love, of happiness, of devotion and prayer.

God bless you, everyone. Faithfully and affectionately, your former pastor, U. S. Milburn

Reverend Milburn died in 1956 at the age of 90.

December, 2022.

[Part 1] – [Part 2] – [Part 3] – [Part 4] – [Part 5] – [Part 6] – [Part 7] – [Part 8] – [Part 9]

 

The Stories of 42 Ministers Who Have Served Our Church

Part 3

by Mike Roberts, Church Historian

The early ministers in our church were nearly all raised and trained in the East and eventually found their way to Cincinnati as prominent members of the Universalist pastorate. That pattern continued for the most part into the latter half of the 19th century.

Gerherdus Langdon Demarest

From 1861 to 1864, the church existed without a permanent minister. Visiting preachers, members of the church,, and Isaac Williamson provided sermons for Sunday services. After these three years, the membership hired Gerherdus Demarest as its minister. Demarest was born in New York City in 1816. After high school graduation he went to work with Harper’s publishing and while there was credited with settling the contract which led to the publishing of William Wadsworth Longfellow’s poems in their highly popular Harper’s Weekly. After 15 years with the firm, he relocated to Cincinnati to open his own publishing house. Already a declared Universalist, he became active in the First Universalist Church and served on its board while training for the ministry. He was hired as minister in 1864 but served only one year. Severe financial difficulties continued to plague the church and that may have caused him to lose a vote of the congregation to grant a second year. The vote was 37-28. Demarest returned to New York City assuming a pastorate of the large church there.

In 1875, he was selected to serve as Secretary to the General Assembly. This duty not only required him to organize the annual meeting but to supervise and attend all state general assemblies. This was an impossible task as many of the assemblies were held during the same time period hundreds of miles apart. Demarest did his best over the course of the next 30 years, retiring at age 88. It was estimated that he had traveled close to 250,000 miles during those thirty years. He also frequently served as a guest minister, delivering 250 sermons and also edited the “Sunday School Helper,” a national church publication. Demarest died at age 92 and is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. His son, Clarence, served as his assistant and for five years held the office of clerk of our Board of Trustees.

Everett Levi Rexford

After rejecting Demarest, the church was quick to hire a new minister, Everett Rexford. He had just graduated from St. Lawrence University and this was to be his first assignment. It was a difficult task as the church was still reeling from financial instability and many discussions were held about permanently closing the church. Rexford was born in Harmony, New York in 1842 and was the son of a Freewill Baptist minister. He served for four years in the Cincinnati pulpit, then left to serve in Columbus. He became involved with Buchtel College, a Universalist training school in Akron, first serving on their board of trustees and later as the college president. He was considered to be a leader of the liberal wing of the national church and wrote and spoke extensively. He delivered an address at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago entitled, “The Intrinsic Worth of Man.” He also served churches in San Francisco, Detroit, Akron and Roxbury, Massachusetts. He died at age 81 in Columbus.

Willard Spaulding

Willard Spaulding assumed the pulpit on January 30, 1870. He was born in Lempster, New Hampshire, a small town that produced no less than nine Universalist ministers. He had served in six New England towns before moving to Cincinnati. After two years in the Queen City, he retired at age fifty to his farm in New Hampshire. While here, he accomplished several important objectives. He increased the rate of pew rentals and at the same time convinced additional members to commit to new rentals. Within a year, the church had achieved solvency and with a small surplus purchased a new $700 organ. The church also hosted the Universalist national convention in the summer of 1870.

During his retirement, Spaulding frequently substituted for other ministers. He also ran as a candidate for the Labor Party for U.S. Congress, polling 13% of the vote. He had always been a strong abolitionist and was an outspoken proponent of temperance and labor reform. He also fought for the relief of the families of Civil War soldiers at a rally on their behalf. He opened the rally with a donation of $100 of his own money. By the end of the rally, over $5,000 had been raised. Spaulding died in West Peabody, Massachusetts, in 1892.

John Greenleaf Adams

When Adams took the pulpit of our Cincinnati church in 1873, he had already experienced forty years of Universalist ministry. He was born in New Hampshire in 1810 and was ordained in 1833. His pastorates prior to Cincinnati were spent entirely in New England.

Adams was well known as an author of biographies, hymnals and books on Universalist theology, among them The Christian’s Triumph Including Happy Death Scenes. In 1870 he participated in the installation service of Phoebe Hanaford, sharing the pulpit with the first female Universalist minister, Olympia Brown. During the early days of his tenure with us, the church discussed enlarging the Plum Street church or perhaps building a new edifice. However, difficult times befell the congregation as yet another financial panic had sent the country’s economy reeling. As a result, they often could not meet the payment of Reverend Adams’ salary. Eventually, he announced in 1876 that he was retiring and moving back to Massachusetts. However, there are records that he took a new ministry in Melrose, Massachusetts and served there until his death in 1887. After his retirement it took the church over a year to repay the past-due salaries they owed him.

James Murray Bailey

James Bailey assumed the pulpit of our Cincinnati church in January of 1877. He was 37 years old and the son of a Vermont Universalist minister. He had previously served in Troy, New York; Titusville, Pennsylvania; and Peoria, Illinois. Reverend Bailey had served in the artillery during the Civil War and was severely wounded at the Battle of Cold Harbor. His injuries caused him to permanently lose the use of his right hand.

During his term in Cincinnati, the congregation gave up on pew rentals as its major source of funding and adopted a system of member subscriptions, a plan similar to the pledge systems used today. After a year and a half serving as minister, Bailey resigned his position stating that there was no way the church could afford a full-time minister. He also complained of ill-health and the need to leave the ministry for a time in order to recoup his health. He left the church in August of 1878. Bailey never returned to the ministry, training instead as a mining engineer and pursuing that career for the remainder of his life. He died in San Francisco in 1921.

Upon his leave, Bailey’s sister Emma replaced her brother in the pulpit for the next ten Sundays. She went on to a long career as a Universalist minister and wrote a book, Happy Day, about her experiences.

James H. Hartley

James Hartley was ordained as a Universalist minister in 1877. He first served in Newburyport, Massachusetts and then began his ministry in Cincinnati in January of 1879. He stayed only slightly more than a year. Nothing is known of his life after he left Cincinnati.

Sumner Ellis

Sumner Ellis was a leading light of Universalism who had established a respected reputation in the pulpit. He had trained under Levi Ballou, the son of Hosea. He served churches in Boston, Salem, and Lynn, Massachusetts; Newark; and Milwaukee; and he came to Cincinnati from serving in Chicago. He agreed to only a six-month contract and during that time spent a great amount of it out of the city. He had also signed a contract to write a biography of Universalist minister Edwin Chapin. To add to his load, he was also grieving deeply for the recent death of his wife, Mary. It would seem that the experienced Ellis was brought to Cincinnati to help revive the church but not to commit to long term service.

Ellis stayed for his six months, then went about the task of writing the Chapin biography. He remarried to a widow, Addie Hall, and the two went on an extended tour of Europe. Unfortunately, on his return to the United States, he contracted typhoid fever and died in 1886.

November 2022.

[Part 1] – [Part 2] – [Part 3] – [Part 4] – [Part 5] – [Part 6] – [Part 7] – [Part 8] – [Part 9]