Unitarian Church of Palo Alto – Page 2 – Yet Another Unitarian Universalist

Obscure Unitarians: “Mr. Wolff”

A “Mr. Wolff” served on the Committee of Ushers of the old Unitarian Church in Palo Alto in 1908. Who was this man, mentioned only once in the extant records of that long-defunct church?

A likely candidate is Franklin Fowler Wolff. The son of a Methodist minister, he was born in Pasadena in 1887, and rejected orthodox Christianity while he was in his teens. He studied mathematics, psychology, and philosophy at Stanford University, and received his A.B. in mathematics in 1911. He then did graduate study in philosophy at both Stanford and Harvard, returning to Stanford in 1914 to teach mathematics. But after only a year, he left academia to pursue his own studies, and changed his name to Franklin Merrell-Wolff. He eventually became known as a spiritual teacher, a mystic, and a writer.

This identification of “Mr. Wolff” should be considered tentative. Another possible “Mr. Wolff” is Marcus Wolff, who received his A.B. in economics from Stanford in 1906; however, he appears to have been living in San Francisco in 1908.

But if Franklin Merrell-Wolff did indeed attend a Unitarian Church while an undergraduate at Stanford, barely out of his teens, it would not surprise me — the Emersonian philosophy that underlies much of Unitarian theology could have had a distinct appeal to a developing mystic.

Notes: Ron Leonard, The Transcendental Philosophy of Franklin Merrell-Wolff (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1999).

Obscure Unitarians: Alice Locke

A writer, feminist, and pacifist, Alice Elizabeth Locke Parke was born Feb. 2, 1861, in Boston, Mass.; her father, John Locke, a lawyer, was from New Hampshire and her mother Harriet was from Nantucket.

She graduated from Rhode Island Normal School in 1879. She taught in the public schools in Cumberland, Smithfield, and North Kingstown, R.I., in 1880-1882.

She married Dean W. Park, Sept. 27, 1884, and they had two children, Carl J. (b. Oct. 13, 1885, Colo.) and Harriet (b. Feb. 7, 1887, Colo.). Dean was a mining engineer and graduate of M.I.T., and the family lived in a number of places, including Montana, Colorado, Mexico, and Texas, following his jobs. Alice moved to Palo Alto in 1906 while her children were attending Stanford Univ.; Dean died in Palo Alto May, 1909, in a bicycle accident.

In 1910, Alice gave her occupation as “writer” for “papers, etc.” She was active with the California Equal Suffrage Assoc., and participated in the successful 1911 campaign for women’s suffrage in California. Subsequently, she continued to be active in suffrage work outside of California.

She was branded as a “subversive” by the New York State Legislature, which noted that she belonged to the National Women’s Suffrage Party, and branded her a “sympathizer” of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). In 1912, she wrote a letter to the editor of Pacific Unitarian in support of the IWW.

She later said that she could not remember when she became a pacifist, and called it a family tradition. She opposed the Spanish-American War, and displayed a peace flag on her house during the First World War. She helped form the Palo Alto branch of the Women’s Peace Party (WPP); Jessie Knight Jordan, wife of David Starr Jordan, the president of Stanford University, was also involved with the WPP. In 1915, she went to Europe on the Ford Peace Mission. With the entrance of the U.S. into the war in 1917, the Palo Alto branch of the WPP disbanded; Park then joined the American Union Against Militarism, and began holding meetings of the Palo Alto branch in her house beginning April 16, 1917; and when the Palo Alto branch publicly supported conscientious objectors, she was threatened with arrest.

She went to meetings of the People’s Council in San Francisco (of which Rev. William Short, formerly minister of the Unitarian Church of Palo Alto, was an officer); she was presiding at a meeting in August, 1917, with David Starr Jordan on the speaker’s platform, when the meeting was raided by police. She continued her pacifist activities throughout the war, sometimes enduring illegal searches by the police. After the war, in 1919, she planned a meeting at the Palo Alto Community House (which Edith Maddux, another Palo Alto Unitarian, helped organize) to call for the release of all political prisoners.

She was an early member of the Women’s Alliance of the Unitarian Church of Palo Alto, joining before 1910. However, she and Marion Starr Alderton withdrew from the Palo Alto church in June, 1920, in protest against “the attitude taken” by the church in the First World War.

She described her religion thus:

My religion is humanity — humanitarianism — confident that the present time is all that we are sure of and our duty, our progress and our usefulness are all here and now — If we think earnestly of the present and try to do all we can right here and now — we are at least sure of immediate results. My religion is boundless — Nothing human is alien to me. (quoted in Eichelberger; see Notes)

She died Feb. 17, 1961, just after her hundredth birthday.

Notes:

Notes: 1900, 1910, 1920 U.S. Census; Birth, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States, town clerk office, FHL microfilm 592,869; Thomas W. Bicknell, A History of the Rhode Island Normal School, 1911; “School Officers and Teachers in Public Schools, 1880-1881,” Twelfth Annual Report of the Board of Education…of Rhode Island, Providence, R.I.: E. L. Freeman & Co., 1882, p. 9; “School Officers and Teachers in Public Schools, 1881-1882,” Thirteenth Annual Report of the Board of Education…of Rhode Island, Providence, R.I.: E. L. Freeman & Co., 1883, p. 9; Class of 1884 M.I.T.: 25th Anniversary Book, Boston, 1909, p. 114; “Dean W. Park” obituary, The Mining World, Chicago: Mining World Co., May 22, 1909, p. 991; Eunice Eichelberger, “‘Hearts Brimming with Patriotism,’” ed. Robert W. Cherny, California Women and Politics: From the Gold Rush to the Great Depression, Univ. Neb. Press, 2011, pp. 321-332; Pacific Unitarian, July, 1912, pp. 271-272; “The Ford Peace Party,” Revolutionary and Subversive Movements Abroad and at Home, Albany: N.Y. Legislature, 1920, p. 98 (for the meeting of the People’s Council that was raided, see also San Francisco Daily Call, Aug. 9, 1917); Board of Trustees minutes, archives of the Unitarian Church of Palo Alto; Nancy L. Roberts, American Peace Writers, Editors, and Periodicals: A Dictionary, Greenwood Press, 1991, p. 216.

Park deserves additional research (though such research lies outside the scope of my current research interests). Sources for further research include the Alice Park papers at the Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif. (mssPK 1-338), and the Register of the Alice Park Papers 1883-1951 at the Hoover Institution, Stanford Univ. There is a Masters thesis on her, written by Paige G. Greenfeld: Yours for Women and Peace: The Feminism of Alice Locke Park, San Diego State University, 2003.

Obscure Unitarians: Bertha Chapman Cady

An expended version of this short biography may be found here.

A writer, biologist, and sexuality educator, she was born July, 5, 1873, in California. There she knew John Muir, and went hiking with him in the Sierra Nevada mountains. She received her A.B. in English from Stanford University in 1895, and her A.M. in entomology in 1902. After graduating from Stanford, she taught high school from 1900-1907; was assistant in nature study at the Univ. of Chicago, 1907-1909; taught biology at Calif. State Teachers College in Chico in 1918; was a lecturer at Stanford 1921-1923.

She married Vernon Mosher Cady on Dec. 15, 1908, at the Abraham Lincoln Center in Chicago. The Abraham Lincoln Center was a Unitarian church and community center with permanent and transient residents; Bertha and Vernon had both lived in the Center in the summer of 1908. They were probably wed by Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones. They had two children: Carol (b. c. 1910) and Jean (b. c. 1913).

She was a graduate student at Stanford 1920-1922, and received her Ph.D. in entomology (at age 50) in 1923. Subsequently, she worked for the Girl Scouts as a naturalist from 1924-1936.

Bertha’s career encompassed biology and education. She and her husband co-wrote The Way Life Begins: An Introduction to Sex Education (New York: American Social Hygiene Assoc., 1917). As the Girl Scout National Naturalist, she wrote for, or wrote in their entirety, many Girl Scout publications.

While she was at Stanford earning her Ph.D., she was active with the Unitarian Church of Palo Alto. She taught the 4th and 5th grade Sunday school class at the Unitarian Church of Palo Alto in 1921-22.

She died Jan. 26, 1956.

Notes: “John Muir,” Guide to Nature, Feb., 1914, Sound Beach, Conn.: Agassiz Assoc., 1909, p. 312; Stanford University Alumni Directory, 1921; Unity, Chicago, Unity Publishing, Abraham Lincoln Center, Jan. 7, 1909, p. 293; Oakland Tribune, Dec. 9, 1908 (gives the name of the officiating clergy as “Lloyd Paul Jones”); Tiffany K. Wayne, American Women of Science Since 1900, vol. 1, Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2011, p. 275; 1920 U.S. Census; Stanford University Alumni Directory, 1931.

Obscure Unitarians: Isabel Dye Butler

A key figure in the history of Unitarianism in Palo Alto, and a Mexican-American (but not an immigrant), Isabel Dye was born July 9, 1840 (other sources say June, 1840), in an old adobe house in Santa Cruz, California, the child of Job Francis Dye and Ecolástica Rodriguez.

Isabel’s mother, Ecolástica Rodriguez, born in 1822, was a Mexican citizen — this was before Mexico ceded California to the U.S. — and reportedly the daughter of the Minister to Mexico from Spain. As a young beauty, Ecolástica owned a Parisian lace dress, allegedly worth $1,000 when new (roughly $24,000 in 2015 dollars).

Isabel’s father, Job Francis Dye, was born in Kentucky in 1807, and traveled over land to southern California, arriving in Jan., 1832. In 1839, he lived in Monterey, where he met and married Ecolastica; ran a distilling business in Santa Cruz in 1840, where Isabel was born. The family returned to Monterey when Isabel was barely a year old; she was carried by her father on a pillow on his saddle.

Not long thereafter, Job received a land grant from the Mexican government of 26,700 acres along the Sacramento River in what is now Tehama County. The family stayed in Monterey, but Job had 1,000 head of cattle and 200 horses on the Central Valley ranch, called “Antelope Rancho.”

When she was about five years old, Isabel’s mother drove her around in old Monterey, bringing baskets of food and clothing to poor people. She continued doing charitable and benevolent work throughout her life.

In 1848, Job went to fight with General Fremont of the U.S., and Isabel Fremont and his troops march into Monterey. She gave a loud “Hurrah!” when she saw them, only to be slapped on the face by Alvarado, an older relative on her mother’s side. She participated in the raising of the new flag in Monterey.

The Gold Rush prompted Job to move to Antelope Ranch in 1849, to take advantage of economic possibilities there. Isabel, however, went to school at Notre Dame Convent in San Jose, a part of the first class of students in that school. Her chief attainments at school were facility in a number of languages, and skill at the piano.

Within a few years of the move, Job and Ecolástica apparently divorced, for Job married a second wife in 1853. Isabel went to live with her father in Tehama County, and at this time broke with her mother’s Catholic religion.

Isabel married John Strange Butler Jan. 15, 1859, in Tehama County, Calif. John was born Nov., 1829, in Indiana; he came to California in 1852, and after mining for three years started the first newspaper in Red Bluff, Tehama County, Calif.

She and John had four children of their own: Thomas (b. c. 1860), Minnie (b. Dec., 1861), Charles E. (b. April 14, 1868, Idaho; d. Dec. 20, 1897, Palo Alto), and Isabel (b. Jul., 1872). She also took care of 28 orphans over the course of her life. The first orphan she took in was in the early years of her married life; after whites massacred local native Americans, there were several babies left alive, and Isabel took one in.

After starting the newspaper, John S. then turned to farming until in Sept., 1862, Job Dye asked him to help sell cattle to miners headed to the silver mines in Idaho. He decided to start a newspaper in Idaho with his brother Thomas, and by Sept., 1863, they began publishing the Boise News. The rest of the family joined him in Idaho, and Isabel and John’s third child, Thomas E., was born in Idaho in 1868.

Thomas and John tried to maintain political neutrality in their newspaper, but it was quickly apparent that they were die-hard Republicans, in a state dominated by Democrats who supported the Confederacy. Even though they were financially successful, they felt pressure to sell out to a Democrat. They went on to start two other newspapers elsewhere in Idaho. In 1870, John finally decided to leave Idaho and return to California. The family settled in Oakland, where John established a job and book printing business.

In Feb., 1877, Isabel came into a large amount of money. The San Francisco Call reported the story this way: “In 1877, Isabel came into a large amount of money: “Fortune has showered its gifts profusely on Mrs. I. Butler, wife of John S. Butler, a printer, of Oakland. Mrs. Maria Isabel Toomes, of Tehama county, came to San Francisco in ill-health some time ago for medical treatment. Six months heretofore she removed to Oakland and recovered rapidly, but two months ago she was seized with typhus fever and sank under it. She was accompanied to the city by her adopted daughter, an invalid, about 20 years of age, and by a housekeeper. Mrs. Butler, living next door to the sick lady, was Samaritan-like in her attentions, and, on her death-bed, Mrs. Toomes summoned her lawyer, and devised all her property, real and personal, to Mrs, Butler, merely stipulating that her adopted invalid daughter, Nellie Toomes, should be provided for and maintained during her life out of the estate.” (quoted from the Call in the Isabella County Enterprise, Mount Pleasant, Mich., Feb. 21, 1877)

The truth was less romantic. Maria Toomes was the wife of Albert G. Toomes, a partner of Isabel’s father, Job Dye, back in the Red Bluff days’ Albert and Job had received adjacent land grants from the Mexican government. Maria Toomes had grown up in Monterey, and probably knew Isabel there. in any case, Isabel inherited $141,000, equivalent to $3.1 million in 2015 dollars.

The Butlers moved to Palo Alto in the early 1890s. Rev. Eliza Tupper Wilkes, then serving part-time as the associate minister at the Unitarian Church in Oakland, and part-time helping start up new congregations throughout northern California, came to preach in Palo Alto several times in 1895. On Feb. 12, 1896, thirty people met in the Butler’s living room to form a “Unity Society,” a lay-led Unitarian fellowship; John became the Treasurer of the Committee on Executive and Finance. One wonders if the Butlers had been members of the Unitarian church in Oakland, and whether they helped bring Wilkes to preach in Palo Alto to help start up the new Unity Society.

The Unity Society did not last more than a year or two. But a core of Uitarians remained in Palo Alto, and finally in 1905, with the help of funding from the American Unitarian Association, a new Unitarian church was formed. Once again, the initial meeting was held in the Butler house.

Both Butlers were active in the new church. John once again became the Treasurer of the new organization. For her part, Isabel was one of the charter members of the Women’s Alliance. They were the largest single contributor to the fund to purchase a lot for the Unitarian Church building in 1905 ($200, about $5250 in 2015 dollars).

Isabel died June 4, 1913, after which John moved back to Oakland; he died there Oct. 30, 1916.

Notes: 1900 U.S. Census; Ewald Flügel, “Isabel Dye Butler: Memorial Address given at the Unitarian Church, Palo Alto,” Pacific Unitarian, July, 1913, pp. 264-266; Federal Writers Project, Works Progress Administration, California: A Guide to the Golden State, New York: Hastings House, 1939; “Job Francis Dye,” An Illustrated History of the State of Idaho, Chicago: Lewis Pub. Co., 1899; Ronnie R. Hayes, Idaho World: A Pioneer Chronicle of the Territory 1863-1918, dissertation, Univ. of Montana, 1982; obituary, Oakland Tribune, June 6, 1913, p. 10; Tehama County Genealogical and Historical Society, “Mexican Land Grants in Tehama County,” tcghsoc.org/MexicanLandGrantsTC.pdf, accessed Nov. 30, 2016; obituary, The Grizzly Bear, Los Angeles: Native Sons of the Golden West, July, 1913, p. 26; Harvard College Class of 1890, 1903-1909, 1909; “Active Veteran Printer Passes,” American Printer and Lithographer, New York: Oswald Publ., Nov. 20, 1916, pp. 54-55; death notice, San Francisco Call, June 6, 1913.

Obscure Unitarians: Mabel and Louise Mead

Mabel Mead lived in Palo Alto for less than a year, but her life story is interesting enough to recount in some detail. A schoolteacher for many years, she was born Dec. 30, 1870, in Ledger, New York to Louise and Alexander Mead (Greeley Daily Tribune, May 12, 1961).

She received her B.S. from Cornell in 1898 (Fifteenth Annual Register, 1905-06, Stanford University); her sister Mildred was at Cornell at the same time she was (Cornell Era, April 21, 1900, class notes, p. 257). By 1900, at the age of 29, she was a schoolteacher, living with her parents in Greeley, Colo. (1900 U.S. Census).

A short digression to tell something of her mother, Louise Mead:

Louise was born Mar., 1851, in New York. She married Alexander Mead c. 1870 in New York state. In 1880, Louise and Alexander were living in Greeley, Colo., where Alexander was an agricultural implements dealer. By 1900, Louise and Alexander were running a rooming house in Greeley, with seven children: Mabel (b. Dec., 1870, N.Y.); Edgar (b. Sept., 1872, N.Y.); Ella (Jul., 1874, N.Y.); Mildred (b. Jul., 1875, N.Y.); Worthen (b. Sept., 1880, Colo.); Alexandra (b. July, 1884, Colo.); and Wilhemina (b. Sept., 1889, Colo.) (U.S. Census, 1880, 1900; in the 1900 Census her name is misspelled Luiese). The family Moved to Greeley sometime between 1875 and 1880. Alexander Mead was a Trustee for the city of Greeley for the year 1883. A Unitarian church had formed in Greeley, Colorado, in 1880; perhaps the Meads were members. (David Boyd, A History: Greeley and the Union Colony of Colorado, Greeley Tribune Press, 1890).

The Cornell Alumni News, vol. 7, Dec. 21, 1904 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University), ran the following notice: ” ’98 B.S. The marriage of Miss Mabel Mead to R. J. Wright was celebrated at Greeley, Col., this fall. Mrs. Wright is now connected with the social settlement work in the Italian District of Denver. She has charge of the North Side neighborhood house, the centre of settlement work in the northern part of the city.” But I found no other mention of R. J. Wright, and Mabel had resumed the name Mead by 1905. Perhaps this mysterious event precipitated her removal to Stanford for a year of study?

In any case, by autumn, 1905 she was a student at Stanford, living with her mother Louise at 742 and later 750 Bryant St. (Directory of Palo Alto, Mayfield, Stanford University, Jan., 1906; Cornell Alumni News, vol. 3, no. 25, March 28, 1906). She studied Romanic Languages (Fifteenth Annual Register, 1905-06, Stanford University); however, her name does not appear in later alumni directories.

She lived in Palo Alto for less than twelve months. While living in Palo Alto, she and her mother Louise were two of the early members of the Women’s Alliance of the newly formed Unitarian church (Women’s Alliance records).

By fall, 1906, she was teaching German, Spanish, and “physical culture” at a high school in Orange, Calif. (Cornell Alumni News, Oct. 3, 1906). She married Tracy C. Marsh before 1917; they had one son, Alexander Mead Marsh who was born c. 1913 (1920 U.S. Census). After her husband died in Nevada, she moved to Sutler, Calif., where she taught school until her retirement sometime before 1935; then she moved back to Greeley, where she was “prominent in civic and club work” (Greeley Daily Tribune, May 12, 1961). Back in Greeley, she lived with Edgar, Ella, and her son (1940 U.S. Census). In 1961, at age 90, she moved to Aberdeen, Md., to live with her son (Greeley Daily Tribune, May 12, 1961). She died in Annadale, Va., Feb. 2, 1975 (Cornell Alumni News, May, 1975, p. 80).

Further research might uncover additional information about Mabel Mead Marsh. It would, for instance, be interesting to search the membership records of the Greeley Unitarian church to see if the Mead family had been members there. It might also be possible to track down records of the Denver settlement house where she worked. However, it seems unlikely that we’ll ever find out what happened with R. J. Wright, and why she decided to attend Stanford at the age of 36.

Above: Detail from a photograph in the collection of the Denver Public Library (call. no. Z-7616) showing Mabel Mead Marsh in a horse-drawn coach in Greeley, Colo., between 1890 and 1900; Mabel is at the back, right of center.

Obscure Unitarians: Mary and George Rosebrook, pioneers

Mary Frances (Greer) Rosebrook, and George H. Rosebrook, lived a pioneer life in Oregon before settling in Palo Alto in 1892. Mary Frances (known as “Fannie” at the time) traveled the Oregon Trail in 1852, when she was 6 years old, with her parents and siblings. George married Fannie in 1882, the same year he received a patent for a homestead farm in the Willamette Valley.

Here are brief biographies of Mary and George:

ROSEBROOK, MARY FRANCES GREER — Over the course of her life, she went by Frances, Fannie, and (after 1900) Mary.

She was born Jan., 1846, in Missouri; her parents, James and Margaret, were both from Ireland, where they were married in 1832. James went to the California gold fields in 1850, where he heard about Oregon; in 1852, James and Margaret took their family, including Fannie, on the Oregon Trail; a quilt that Margaret had made in 1840, and which came with them on the trail, may be seen in the book Quilts of the Oregon Trail (Mary Bywater Cross, 2007, p. 68). The family settled in Kings Valley, Ore., in Sept., 1852, and there James worked as a farmer.

“Fannie” married George H. Rosebrook on Apr. 12, 1882, in Polk, Oregon. She and George had no children together, although George had one child by a previous marriage. They moved to Palo Alto in 1892.

Mary was a member of the Palo Alto Woman’s Club. She was active in the women’s suffrage movement, and served as treasurer for the 1907 Annual Convention of the California Equal Suffrage Assoc. (Western Woman, vol. 1, no. 14, Oct. 1907 [San Francisco], p. 12).

Mary was one of the charter members of the Unity Society in 1896, a lay-led Unitarian group gathered by Rev. Eliza Tupper Wilkes, and she served on the Committee on Executive and Finance. Then in 1905, she became one of the earliest members of the Unitarian Church of Palo Alto. She joined the Women’s Alliance in about 1905. She also served in other leadership roles in the church.

She died after 1920.

ROSEBROOK, GEORGE H. — He was born Oct., 1846, in Gouldsboro, Maine. He married Margaret A. Graham, Sept. 9, 1874, and they had one son, Joseph Wilton (Benton County [Ore.] Genealogical Society, www.chateaudevin.org/bentongs); Joseph was born May, 1876, in Oregon. By 1880, George was widowed and living “in [a] Lighthouse” (1880 U.S. Census) in Newport, Oregon, with his son Joseph and his mother Mary A.

George was issued a patent for 150 acres of land for a homestead near Willamette, Ore., on Apr. 10, 1882 (Benton Cty. Gen. Soc.). He married Fannie (Mary Frances) Greer on Apr. 12, 1882. He and Fannie came to Palo Alto in 1892; once in Palo Alto, he became a carpenter who built a number of houses, including a house he built for himself and Mary F. in 1893, at 225 Emerson St. (Historic Buildings Inventory, City of Palo Alto, 1978).

George’s son, Joseph, also moved to Palo Alto. He attended Stanford briefly in 1897. He became a builder like his father, married a Presbyterian in 1900 (Palo Alto Times, June 22, 1900); Joseph appears never to have gotten involved with the Unitarian Church.

George’s wife Mary was part of the Unity Society of Palo Alto in 1895-1897; George may have been, too, but almost no records of that early Unitarian group survive. George was one of the early members of the Unitarian Church of Palo Alto, probably joining in 1905. He served on the Board of Trustees of the church.

He died before 1920.

Obscure Unitarians: the Rendtorff / Meyer family

Karl and Emma E. Rendtorff were two of the key leaders of the old Unitarian Church of Palo Alto (1905-1934). Emma’s mother and sister happened to be living in Palo Alto 1905-1908, and also got involved with the church. With baby Gertrude, there were thus three generations of Meyers/Rendtorffs involved with the founding of the church.

Palo Alto was a small town, with a population of 4,486 in 1910; 5,900 in 1920 (Sawyers, History of Santa Clara County, California, 1922). The town really wasn’t big enough to support a Unitarian church, and I suspect the church never got bigger than what Arlin Routhage calls “family-size” — that is, a small church that acts more like a family, with matriarchs and patriarchs. I further suspect that Karl and Emma E. Rendtorff were two of the matriarchs/patriarchs. Their extended family is of interest for this reason alone.

But their extended family is also of interest because of the characteristics they share with so many other members of the church. Karl and Emma both spoke German, and both were associated with Stanford; as was true of many members of the church. Karl was trained as a librarian, and there were at least half a dozen other librarians who were part of the congregation; he was a pacifist, and there were many other pacifists in the congregation. Emma was a woman with a college degree in an era when that was uncommon, and she was an experienced teacher; many other women in the congregation also had college degrees, and some were experienced and dedicated teachers (like her sister and daughter).

Without further introduction, here are brief biographies of the Rendtorff / Meyer family, three generations of five fascinating people who were part of the Unitarian Church of Palo Alto: Continue reading “Obscure Unitarians: the Rendtorff / Meyer family”

Obscure Unitarians: Melville B. Anderson

Melville Best Anderson was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1851. He studied at Cornell University in 1870-72, where he was a classmate of David Starr Jordan, who became president of Stanford University.

Melville Anderson received his A.M. from Butler University in 1877, and taught there for the next three years; he was then professor at Knox College, 1881-1886; Purdue University, 1886-1887; University of Iowa, 1887-1891; and finally, professor of English at Stanford University, from 1891 until his retirement. He was a charter member of both the Unity Society and the Unitarian Church of Palo Alto. He married Charlena Van Vleck April 27, 1877; she received her A.B. at Lawrence University in 1874. They had four children: Balfour (1878-1895); Malcolm Playfair (b. 1879, A.B. Stanford ’04); Gertrude (1883-1892); Robert (1884-1949, A.B. Stanford ’06).

Anderson was a distinguished scholar best known for his translation La Divina Commedia: The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, a Line-for-Line Translation in the Rime-form of the Original (Yonkers-on-Hudson, N.Y., World Book Co., 1921). He became friends with Ewald Flügel in 1891, while staying in Leipzig. Flugel joined the faculty of Stanford partly through the good offices of Anderson; and Flugel was another one of the early members of the Unitarian Church of Palo Alto. Unfortunately their differing viewpoints on the First World War put a damper on their friendship; Flügel was a pacifist, while as early as 1916, Anderson advocated for the entry of the United States into the First World War in a long self-published poem; one stanza will suffice to give a sense of the dreary whole:

Since men first gathered into clans
    Was peril never yet so sharp;
    Loud would I smite the chorded harp:
    Awake! awake! Americans…

The Stanford Daily, vol. 49, no. 48, Nov. 2, 1916, p. 3, said: “The poem, which is a denunciation of the apparent apathy of Americans in regard to the issues of the great war, was dedicated to David Starr Jordan, and written during Anderson’s stay in Florence, Italy, where he has been translating in triple rhyme ‘The Divine Comedy’ of Dante.”

Anderson died on June 22, 1933.

Obscure Unitarians: John Merton Aldrich

John Merton Aldrich was born Jan. 28, 1866, in Olmsted County, Minnesota, and went to school in Rochester (where there is a Unitarian church founded in 1866). He graduated from South Dakota State University in 1888, and received his M.S. there. In 1893, John founded the Department of Zoology at the University of Idaho. He married Ellen Roe of Brookings, South Dakota, and they lived in Moscow, Idaho.

After four years of marriage, his wife and infant son died, and he lost himself in his researches on insects of the order Diptera, or true flies. On June 28, 1905, he married Della Smith of Moscow, Idaho. He then took a year of sabbatical leave, went to Stanford University to study, and received his Ph.D. in May, 1906. While at Sanford, he was active in the formation of the Unitarian Church of Palo Alto.

One of the pre-eminent entomologists of his day, he became Associate Curator and Custodian of Diptera at the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C., and became a member and trustee of All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington. He died May 7, 1934, just before setting out on a collecting trip to the West Coast.

Rebirth and Decline, 1919-1934

A continuation of a documentary history of the Unitarian Church of Palo Alto.

After the departure of Rev. Bradley Gilman, the congregation managed to get back on its feet, first with no minister, then with the experienced leadership of Rev. Elmo Arnold Robinson, a Universalist minister. But the financial situation worsened through the late 1920s, the congregation began to decline, and the Great Depression made it impossible to continue.

An Experiment in Palo Alto (1920)

[In the previous post, the excerpt from Josephine Duveneck’s autobiography told how the relationship between Rev. Bradley Gilman and the congregation grew strained. It is worth noting that Palo Alto was the last congregation that Gilman served. This chapter begins with an explanation of how the Palo Alto church experimented at having an entirely lay-led congregation. Edith Mirrielees asserts that the reasons for not hiring a minister were not financial, leaving us to conclude that Bradley Gilman soured the congregation on ministers.]

The Unitarian church in Palo Alto was established in 1905. From its establishment until the autumn of 1919, the church followed the way of most Unitarian churches, retaining a resident minister and supporting him with an enthusiasm that waxed or waned according to the circumstances surrounding the individual pastorate.

In May, 1919, the Rev. Bradley Gilman, at that time the incumbent, left Palo Alto for a visit to the Eastern coast. Some months later he sent in his resignation. When the congregation came together to consider the resignation, many of its members felt unwilling to begin the search for a new minister until an experiment had been made in conducting the church in another manner. For some years there had been a growing conviction among members of the Unitarian Society in Palo Alto that the presence of a professional minister was not necessarily essential to the continuance of their church or to its welfare, and after thorough discussion in congregational meeting it was determined to do without one, the pulpit to be tilled by members of the congregation and community or by visiting Unitarians. the other duties of the pastorate to be assumed by the congregation. It is worth noting that this decision was not reached because of money difficulties. The church at this time, though by no means wealthy, was in sound financial condition, without debt and with as many contributors as it had had during the previous year when a minister had been in residence. It should be noted, too, that the essential Unitarianism of the church is in no way affected by the change; the congregation is a congregation of Unitarians, but one wherein congregational government and responsibility is now carried a step farther than it has been before.

The attempt was at first frankly experimental. After four months of trial, it seems so far to have justified itself that there is at present no probability of a return to earlier conditions. Throughout the winter months, the pulpit has been regularly filled, often by speakers with a notable message, membership in the church and attendance at services have both materially increased, money has come in in quantity sufficient to meet all obligations and to make possible the establishment for next year of a scholarship at Stanford University, which it is the hope of the congregation to continue from year to year.

Rut these things, though they are encouraging, are only the outside results of the experiment. More important than any one of them is the effect of the change upon the relation of members of the congregation to the church and to each other. A new unity of purpose, an increased sense of fellowship, has been the most promising growth of the last few months. The presentation from the pulpit of many points of view 1ms promoted that tolerance essentially dear to Unitarians. The necessary sharing of responsibility has, as it is likely to do, increased the willingness to take responsibility. It goes without saying that the work has not been equally shared; as is the case in practically every congregation, one or two members have carried the heaviest part of the burden, but in very considerable number — a number much larger than was normally found under the old condition — have taken some part, with a resultant growth in actual neighborliness and interdependence.

It is by no means the thought of the Unitarian Society in Palo Alto that other bodies of Unitarians would necessarily be wise to follow in their footsteps. For any congregation, the wisdom or unwisdom [sic] of such an attempt depends upon the nature of the community in which the church is situated. It has to be a community which provides a fair number of thoughtful speakers; it has to be a congregation blessed with at least one member ready steadfastly to put the church’s welfare before his own, and neither of these things is easy to find. For Palo Alto, however, the experiment thus far has been promising enough to justify its further trial.

— Edith R. Mirrielees, The Pacific Unitarian (San Francisco: Pacific Unitarian Conference), vol. 29, no. 5, May, 1920, p. 125.

[Note: Mirrielees was professor of creative writing at Stanford, and a teacher of John Steinbeck (Jeffrey Schulz and Luchen Li, Critical Companion to John Steinbeck [Facts of File: 2005), p. 301.]

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