On Sunday, November 5, we celebrated All Saints. Reflecting on that Sunday’s sermon, in which the Rev. Dr. Martha Tucker prompted us to consider a holy future with sainthood as possible for all and to think about how God’s presence is revealed in history, we devote this space to some sources on the origins of colonization in New England. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Boston
2020
- March 7. 10th anniversary of our 12th rector’s installation. On its eve, we feasted with dinner, speeches, poetry, and song. Thanks to the efforts of our deacon The Rev. Robert Greiner, Mayor of Boston Martin J. Walsh proclaimed it Reverend Pamela L. Werntz Day. Pictured in the banner of this post are Pam Werntz, Amanda Grant-Rose, Rebekah Rodrigues, Joy Howard, Grace McElroy-Howard, Laura Simons, Bob Greiner, Rabbi Devon Lerner, Gennifer Sussman, The Rev. Tamra Tucker, and Jaylyn Olivo.
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The Rev. William Blaine-Wallace
June 28. Our 11th rector, the Rev. William Blaine-Wallace, read for Chapel Camp from his book When Tears Sing: The Art of Lament in Christian Community (Maryknoll NY: Orbis, 2020).
- July. Before he left to study at Virginia Theological Seminary, our Candidate for Holy Orders Joshua Padraig (Paddy) Cavanaugh compiled a liturgical customary, an illustrated manual which is used by our Altar Guild in its preparations for services throughout the year.
- Oct. 21. Parish Operations Manager Kevin Neel set up our YouTube Channel and with video equipment bought by Emmanuel Music, Brad Dumont and Matt Griffing began to livestream our services.
- Nov. 1. A Saint for All Saints, a conference about the legacy of our own saint, Pauli Murray, organized by a committee led by Jr. Warden William Margraf, was held via Zoom. The Rev. Dr. Yolanda A. Rolle, Episcopal Chaplain of Howard University, whom we sponsored for the priesthood,
The Rev. Dr. Anna Pauline Murray
moderated a panel comprised of Assoc. Dean Melissa W. Bartholomew of Harvard Divinity School; the Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge, rector of St. Aidan’s Church, San Francisco; and the Very Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, Canon Theologian of the National Cathedral and Dean of Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary. Please see our page for the program and more.
2019
29 January. We celebrated John Harbison‘s 80th birthday in our Parish Hall with some of his jazz songs, a piece composed by Michael Gandolfi with libretto of Lloyd Schwartz‘ selections from John’s recently published book What Do We Make of Bach, and a tower of cupcakes wheeled in by Pat Krol, Executive Director of Emmanuel Music.
John Harbison at the piano provided by M. Steinert & Sons with Don Berman, Lynn Torgove, Pat Krol, and singers of Emmanuel Music.
- Thanks to a generous grant from the City of Boston’s Community Preservation, Commission restoration work on our Newbury St. façade began under the direction of Vestry member Peter K. Johnson. The multi-year project involved repair and refinishing of five sets of doors with their tympana, masonry work for our central entrance and several staircases, and roof work to prevent ice dams.
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Craig Smith directing our orchestra with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson on viola; Don Wilkinson, Paul Guttry et al. in the chorus.
Pendragon Press published Bringing Bach’s Music to Life, a compilation of Craig Smith’s program notes for 24 cantatas, edited by Pamela Dellal, in its series of Monographs in Musicology.
2014
Dorothy A. Brown, 1963 (image credit: NQ, Boston Globe)
March 20. Dorothy Addams Brown died in Gloucester MA. She had been born on 29 May 1923 to parishioners Harriet Addams Young (1886-1952) and Lawrence Allyn Brown (1876-1937) and baptized here. She resided for many year at 434 Marlborough St. with her brother Lawrence, Jr.. She served on our vestry (1962-4 & 1969-74) and our Finance & Budget and Long-Range Planning committees. She was a generous benefactor until her death at the age of 90. She credited William Wolbach, President of the Boston Safe Deposit & Trust Co., for hiring her as a clerk in 1944, when she graduated from Vassar. She became the bank’s first woman trust officer and then Vice President. Mary Meier of The Boston Globe (May 16, 1963) wrote an article about her entitled, “Banks Rarely Give Women Key Role.” When Dottie retired as chair of the New England Group of the National Association of Bank Women in 1965, she was the only senior investment officer in the Association.
Last issue of Voices was published with a farewell letter from its editor Margo Risk.
2013
March. With support from the Lilly Foundation, our rector Pamela Werntz left on her sabbatical pilgrimage to Iona, Scotland, several sites in the Holy Land, and Ste. Maxime, France, where she sought inspiration from Mary Magdalene. The Rev. Susan Ackley became our Sabbatical Priest/Artist in Residence.- April 13. Faculty from Leslie University’s Expressive Arts Therapy Program spoke after the service about how their students might assist with such programs as Emmanuel Cafe and Common Art. Our Leslie interns have described their experiences since then in Musings from the Margins.
- April 15. Two bombs exploded on Boylston Street near the finish line of the annual Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring several hundred others. Leslie students joined people at Emmanuel in creating memorial flags in an event called “When Words Are Not Enough.”
The Rev. Susan Ackley, our Sabbatical Priest/Artist-in-Residence, and participants in “Words Are Not Enough” carry prayer flags down Newbury Street to the Boston Marathon bombing memorial site in Copley Square.
1996
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.
Founding of This Blog
While our rector Pamela Werntz traveled on her 2013 sabbatical, we also had opportunities to explore Spirituality and the Arts at Emmanuel (thanks to the generosity of the Lilly Foundation). A collaboration with Lesley University’s Expressive Arts Therapy program seemed like a perfect means of enriching the church’s mission for using the arts as vehicle for healing and spiritual growth. On April 7, 2013, faculty from Lesley joined us for the service and offered a stimulating presentation about their program and ideas for working with Emmanuel.
In order to build upon this exciting beginning, a group of Lesley University faculty met with representatives from Emmanuel to discuss our future collaborations. Between these two meetings, the bombings at The Boston Marathon resulted in feelings of pain, loss, fear, and anger. The group decided its first event should involve the healing power of creativity in addressing these wounds, and we called it “When Words Are Not Enough.” Over the years since then our Expressive Therapy Interns have recorded their thoughts about their experiences at Emmanuel in this blog.
The Rev. Susan Ackley, our Sabbatical Priest/Artist-in-Residence, and participants in “Words Are Not Enough” carry prayer flags down Newbury Street to the Boston Marathon bombing memorial site in Copley Square.
1945
- 8 May. Germans surrendered, leading to the end of World War II in Europe.
- 15 July. The Rev. Dr. H. Robert Smith, formerly of Grace Church, Newton MA, accepted the position of Minister-in-Charge and served until a new rector could be called.
- 6 & 9 August. US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading to Japanese surrender a week later.
- 28 November. The vestry assigned the church’s reading rights at the Boston Athenæum to rector-elect, The Rev. Robert Gifford Metters.
1914
See also World War I Memorial and Katharine Lane Weems.
The Students’ House Corporation, under the direction of Mary S. Holmes and Charlotte Upham Baylies, built at 96 The Fenway a home for our Students’ House, which had been in rented quarters since its inception in 1899. They engaged architects Kilham & Hopkins, raised a large portion of its construction cost ($124K), and secured a mortgage for the remainder. The building is now Kerr Hall, a Northeastern University dormitory.
Gardiner Martin Lane from Harvard College Class of 1881 biography of him in the papers of Katharine Lane Weems at the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe.
October 6. About a thousand people attended the funeral service for financier, philanthropist, and parishioner Gardiner Martin Lane (born 1859). The Rev. Dr. Elwood Worcester, The Rt. Rev. William Lawrence, The Rev. John W. Suter of Winchester, and The Rev. Prescott Evarts from Lane’s Harvard Class of 1881 officiated. Pallbearers included President A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard, Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, Charles Francis Adams, and several of his partners from Lee Higginson & Co.. Lynnwood Farnum played a Tchaikovsky funeral march and “Dead March” from Handel’s “Saul”. The boys choir sang “Abide with me” and “The strife is over”.
As treasurer of the New England chapter of the International Red Cross, Lane collected and distributed relief funds for the Salem fire (1914), the San Francisco earthquake (1906), and other disasters. Appointed trustee of the Museum of Fine Arts in 1906, and elected its president in 1907, he oversaw its move from Copley Square to the Evans Building on Huntington Ave., which was designed by Emmanuelite Guy Lowell. Spearheading the Museum’s fundraising effort for the new facility, Lane said, “A mere collection of beautiful objects is of little value unless seen, appreciated, and understood by many.”
His widow, Emma Louise Gildersleeve Lane, and daughter, Katharine Lane Weems, were parishioners for years after his death and generous benefactors to Emmanuel.
The Lanes’ home at 53 Marlborough is now the French Cultural Center.
The Lanes’ summer house, The Chimneys, in Manchester by the Sea, MA was designed by Emma G. Lane’s brother Raleigh C. Gildersleeve.
1897
October 28. Rector Leighton Parks set up the Emmanuel Club to give young men of the parish a venue for fellowship. Samuel Taylor was its first secretary. They met several times a year for dinner with speakers or entertainment at the newly formed University Club at 270 Beacon Street. Fitz-Henry Smith Jr. was secretary during its last year in 1911. A member of the Harvard College Class of 1896, he went on to write these works about Boston:
- The story of Boston light, with some account of the beacons in Boston harbor (1911).
- The French at Boston during the Revolution : with particular reference to the French fleets and the fortifications in the harbor (1913).
- Storms and shipwrecks in Boston and the record of the life savers of Hull (1918).
November. The Rev. Henrietta Rue Goodwin began her service as deaconess at Emmanuel, which included distributing clothing, monitoring the Mothers’ Meeting, helping to fund choir vestments, and overseeing a Bible class and the Students’ Club. Her reports in our Yearbooks (1897-1906), give her accounting of Special Funds for distribution of aid to the poor and her other activities, which included thousands of visits to the sick and needy.
Children of Anne & Benjamin Rotch (clockwise): Aimee, Edith, Arthur & Lawrence
Work of Emmanuel House in the South End was transferred to our mission there, Church of the Ascension.
Edith Rotch, the younger daughter of Anne Bigelow Lawrence & Benjamin S. Rotch died at the age of fifty. She was memorialized by her sister Aimee R. Sargent in our Rotch reredos.