Timeline of History at Emmanuel

We’re interested to learn of significant dates and events involving Emmanuelites past and present. Please email archivist@emmanuelboston.org about the details of your Emmanuel timeline.

See also

Select one of these years to jump to a decade in this chronology and then Previous or Next to move up or down by years:

1860 | 1875 | 1885 | 1895 | 1905 | 1915 | 1925 | 1935 | 1945 |

1955 | 1965 | 1975 | 1985 | 1995 | 2005 | 2015 | 2020 | History.

2004

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Ball team with The Rev. Sara Irwin (front left), The Rev. Bill Blaine Wallace (back row, orange shirt) & Emmanuelites*

June 4. Boston Globe reported that The Rev. Dr. Willliam Blaine-Wallace had performed same-sex marriages despite The Rt. Rev. Thomas Shaw‘s proscription of such in the wake of a Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling in May, which had made them legal.

June 20. Boston Globe quoted Bill Blaine-Wallace, who supported the Rev. I. Carter Heyward in her retirement from out diocese saying,  “I want the wider community to know that a straight priest and mainstream parish are participating in constructive disobedience.”

July. Our vestry endorsed our rector’s disobedience with a statement, “Support for Same-Sex Marriage”.

Summer. Emmanuel fielded a team* for an interfaith wiffle-ball match on the Boston Common with First Church (Unitarian Universalist). Behind them are Polish freedom fighters in a sculpture called The Partisans, which has since been moved to the intersection of Congress & D Streets.

Rabbi Howard A. Berman

Bill Blaine-Wallace invited the nascent congregation Boston Jewish Spirit to hold its services as guests at Emmanuel.  Rabbi Howard A. Berman became Rabbi in Residence.  The first meetings of what would later become Central Reform Temple were held in our library.

*If you know any missing members of this line-up, please advise us:  archivist@EmmanuelBoston.org.

  • Back row from the left:  Margo Risk (seated), ??, Donald Langbein, Jimmy Tirrell (straw hat), ??, Bill Blaine-Wallace, Marianne Iauco & Mary Blocher
  • Front row:  Sara Irwin, Kelly Reed, Hugh Doherty?, Victoria Blaine-Wallace & David York.

2000

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Priscilla Rawson Young in the 1990s. photo: Eric Roth

19 June.  Priscilla Rawson Young died in Needham MA and was buried in the Rawson plot at Skiff Mountain Cemetery, Kent CT.  Our angel bequeathed $100K to sustain our mission and $1M for our music program.  The Young Fund today supports Emmanuel Music‘s series of Bach cantatas, which can be heard in our services on Youtube and on Sundays in our sanctuary during the academic year. See also 1909 1939, 1942, 1971, 1973 & 1994.

Nov. 12.  A devastating fire due to faulty wiring near our sacristy was reported by women in Safe Haven. The Burnham Window, designed by the English firm of Heaton, Butler & Bayne, was broken by firefighters. Given in memory of Marian Burnham, who drowned at a young age, the window has been restored by Serpentino Studios thanks to a generous grant from the George B. Henderson Foundation.

fire damage

Photo credit: Don Kreider

burnhamWindow175

1997

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The Rev. William Blaine-Wallace met Rabbi Howard A. Berman and began working together as the struggle for marriage equality began to unfold in Massachusetts.

Stephen Babcock welcomed congregants to our sanctuary for more than twenty years.

Having arrived in our parish in the early 1970s, Stephen Babcock served on our vestry for two years under the Rev. William Blaine Wallace.  Then following The Rev. Hugh Weaver’s suggestion, he began to serve as usher and welcome congregants on Sundays.  His ministry was to last more than two decades, until the Covid pandemic put an end to it.  Standing outside what we now call the Babcock Doors in all seasons, he greeted each parishioner by name and helped newcomers find their way. His smile and kindliness will be remembered by all who have been privileged to know him.

1996

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  • Our first website was launched by Donald Kreider, who later served as vestry member, clerk, and treasurer.
  • The Rev. Dr. Deborah Little Wyman launched what became Ecclesia Ministries. She described her first efforts in a Baccalaureate address,  “After two years of hanging out on park benches, subway stations, heating grates and train tunnels in Boston, during the week before Easter 1996, I had the idea that we could actually have an outdoor worshipping church. I sensed people were waiting to be gathered. That Easter I set up a folding table on Boston Common and 10 brave souls came.”    Ecclesia today sustains common cathedral, common art (which meets at Emmanuel on Wednesdays), and Boston Warm (which meets at Emmanuel on Mondays and Fridays).
    See also: Timeline 1995.
  • Oct. 28.  The Rev. William Blaine-Wallace was installed as 11th rector.BBW253

1994

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John Harbison; photo credit: Julian Bullitt

John Harbison dedicated to our benefactor Priscilla Rawson Young his memorable setting of 1 Corinthians 11:23-5 as “Communion Words“, which we sing with his other service music in Lent.

 

 

James Primosch composed “Meditation for Candlemas”, first of several motets based on the poetry of Denise Levertov, who attended Emmanuel in the 1980s.  It was sung in our service on Feb. 1, 2015.  Here is the text of “Candlemas” from her collection Breathing the Water (NY: New Directions, 1987). Continue reading →