Start your day with Robert J. [Lurtsema] says Priscilla Young’s T-shirt.
For more about PR Young, see: 1909, 1939, 1942, 1973, 1994 & 2000.
1971
Timeline of History at Emmanuel
1970
- Dec. 6. Founded by Craig Smith, Emmanuel Music offered its first Bach cantata, Süßer Trost, mein Jesus kömmt (BWV 151) with Jane Bryden, soprano; Mary Seo, mezzo-sopran; Mark Baker, baritone; Robert Stallman, flute; Steven Goble, oboe d’amore, and Craig Smith, conducting.
- Pauli Murray attended a conference of Episcopal women at Graymoor Monastery, Garrison NY, which led to the founding of the Episcopal Women’s Caucus. She was then appointed to the Commission on Ordained and Licensed Ministries, which determined that, according to the Church’s Constitution and Canons, the General Convention could confirm women’s eligibility for ordination. Despite the Commission’s recommendation, the Convention that year voted to only allow women’s ordination to the diaconate. See pp. 418-19 of her Autobiography (cited on Timeline 1989) and please see our page and other Timeline entries: 1951, 1973, 1974, 1977, 1985, 1987, 2012 & 2015.
1969
Thanks to Radio Corporation of America for use of this image.
- J. Barkev Kassarjian joined our vestry. His wife Mary Catherine Bateson gave birth to their daughter Savanne (Vanni) Margaret, who was baptized here.
- April 20. Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington‘s Second Concert of Sacred Music, sponsored by the Episcopal Chaplaincy at Harvard and Radcliffe, was performed for a large audience in our Sanctuary with our ninth rector, The Rev. Al Kershaw presiding. Please see Wikipedia for information about this and Ellington’s other sacred concerts.
1966
Jan. 14. The Rev. Alvin L. Kershaw served as master of ceremonies for the first Boston Globe Jazz and Blues Festival, held at the Boston War Memorial Auditorium (now the Hynes Convention Center).
April 24. More than 500 people attended a jazz service with Al Kershaw presiding. Trumpeter Herb Pomeroy and his sextet played saxophonist Edgar (Ed) Summerlin‘s “Liturgy of the Holy Spirit”, with text based on the Eucharistic Prayer of Hippolytus (c. 217 CE) and adapted by the New York poet William Robert Miller.
The Rev. Al Kershaw & Dizzie Gillespie. Thanks to MetroWest Daily News for this image.
1963
The Rev. Alvin L. Kershaw became our ninth rector. He had previously served as rector of Christ Church Episcopal Church in Bowling Green, Kentucky (1944 – 1947); Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Oxford, Ohio (1947 – 1956); and All Saints Episcopal Church in Peterborough, New Hampshire (1956 – 1963).
1960
Centennial was celebrated. Emmanuel Church, 1860-1960: The First Hundred Years, compiled by Harriet Allen Robeson, was published by the Vestry. See its introduction and appendix. For its chapters about the tenures of particular rectors, please see these years:
1959
The Business & Professional Women’s Guild (formerly Club) had 98 members. Its officers were Miss Lydia LeBaron Walker, President; Miss Caroline G. Whitney, Vice-President and Recording Secretary; Miss Margaret A. Cooke, Corresponding Secretary; Maude D. Gowen; Treasurer. Our archives has its membership directory for that church year. The Guild was active for another decade.
1957
6 Oct. The Rt. Rev. Anson P. Stokes installed The Rev. Harold Bend Sedgwick as our eighth rector.
The rectory at 10 Chestnut St. was sold and an apartment at 388 Beacon St. was bought for his residence. For more about the Sedgwick years please see the chapter on him in Emmanuel Church, 1860-1960: The First Hundred Years.
1956
The Rev. Alvin Louis Kershaw‘s album Introduction to Jazz was released by Decca Records. According to the guide to his papers donated by his widow Doris to the U. of Southern Mississippi’s McCain Library and Archives, the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) had invited him to speak in February 1956:
on the subject of jazz, an area in which he was considered something of an expert. In the meantime, [he had become] a contestant on the television quiz show The $64,000 Question, where his expertise in the field of jazz helped him to win $32,000. In an interview after the program, he alluded to the possibility of donating a portion of his winnings to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to aid in the battle against segregation. When word of this reached Mississippi, the Rev. Kershaw became the target of a firestorm of criticism, which eventually led to cancellation of his scheduled visit to Ole Miss.
Our archive has a copy of the record, which contains “Selected recordings of great jazz stylists, with historical data and musical analyses” and these tunes:
- Snag it (King Oliver’s Savannah Syncopators)
- Wild man blues (Johnny Dodds’ Black Bottom Stompers)
- I’ve found a new baby (Chicago Rhythm Kings)
- Tin roof blues (New Orleans Rhythm Kings)
- Davenport blues (Adrian Rollini’s Orchestra)
- The blues jumped a rabbit (Jimmy Noone’s New Orleans Band)
- Five point blues (Bob Crosby’s Bob Cats)
- Perdido Street blues (Louis Armstrong)
- Georgia cake walk (Art Hodes and his band)
- Impromptu ensemble no. 1 (Bobby Hackett et al.)
- Tishomingo blues (Bunk Johnson)
- Chimes blues (George Lewis and his Ragtime Band).
1955
1 July. The Rev. David Siegenthaler arrived to serve as curate under Rector Robert Metters. When Metters retired in 1956, he served for a year as priest in charge.
Renovations of the Parish House and Sanctuary, which had cost more that $115,000, were completed.
See also Timeline post: 2021