1977

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Elizabeth Richardson

January 8. Pauli Murray was ordained a priest at the Washington National Cathedral by the Rt. Rev. William F. Creighton, bishop of the (Episcopal) Diocese of Washington. She was the first African American woman, and one of the first women, to be ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church.

February 13. At the invitation of the rector of The Chapel of the Cross, Chapel Hill NC, the Rev. James Peter Lee, The Rev. Dr. Murray celebrated her first Eucharist. She read from her grandmother Cornelia Smith‘s Bible, from a lectern that had been given in memory of the woman who had owned Cornelia, Mary Ruffin Smith. This was the first time a woman celebrated the Eucharist at an Episcopal church in North Carolina. In her autobiography (1987), p. 435) Pauli described her thoughts about the service, which our Parish Historian Mary Chitty attended:

Whatever future ministry I might have as a priest, it was given to me that day to be a symbol of healing. All the strands of my life had come together. Descendant of slave and of slave owner, I had already been called poet, lawyer, teacher, and friend. Now I was empowered to minister the sacrament of One in whom there is no north or south, no black or white, no male or female – only the spirit of love and reconciliation drawing us all toward the goal of human wholeness.

1976

Posted on October 27, 2013 by Elizabeth Richardson

27 Jan. Craig Smith & Edward Simone conducted a free concert in celebration of Mozart’s 220th birthday. With standing-room only in our sanctuary, soprano Jane Bryden brought the house down with Popoli di Tasaglia (K.318), which Globe correspondent Richard Buell deemed “flabbergasting [and] insouciant”. They celebrated Mozart’s birthday with a concert for years to come. Lenny Matczynski, who later became its executive director, joined the orchestra of Emmanuel Music.
Pauli Murray received a Master of Divinity degree from General Theological Seminary. She was then ordained a deacon in The Episcopal Church by The Rt. Rev. Morris F. Arnold, Suffragan Bishop of Massachusetts.
The Episcopal Church, at its General Convention in Minneapolis, voted to ordain women as priests, beginning January 1, 1977.

1974

Posted on May 4, 2013 by Elizabeth Richardson

The Rev. Dr. Mark Harvey began his jazz ministry and founded the Jazz Coalition (later the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra), which sponsored concerts, liturgies, and festivals here over the next four decades. See also his Timeline of Jazz @ Emmanuel.
March 3. As our sponsored seminarian, Pauli Murray preached from our pulpit her inaugural sermon on a passage she had selected (Isaiah 61: 1-4), entitled ” Women Seeking Admission to Holy Orders: As Crucifers Carrying the Cross”.* Saying that Emmanuel “sent me forth as a member of your congregation with your blessings and prayers to begin my training for the Sacred Ministry”, she asked:

Why in the face of the devastating rejection at the Louisville General Convention of last October, 1973–a rejection which Bishop Paul Moore of NY has called the violation of the very core of their personhood–[have the women seeking ordination to the priesthood] only increased their determination to enter the higher levels of the clergy?

Then paraphrasing Isaiah 53:3, she prophesied:

I believe that these women are in truth the Suffering Servants of Christ, despised and rejected, women of sorrows and acquainted with grief. They are answering to a higher authority than that of the political structures of our Church, and in the fullness of time God will sweep away those barriers and free the Church to carry forward its mission of renewal as a living force and God’s witness in our society.

* Reprinted in Daughters of Thunder: Black women preachers and their sermons, 1850-1979, Bettye Collier-Thomas (NY: Jossey Bass, 1998), pp. 240-44. Please see also About Pauli Murray and our Timeline entries about her: 1951,1970, 1973, 1977, 1985, 1987, 2012 & 2015.

1973

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Elizabeth Richardson

Pauli Murray, who was a vestry member, left her tenured position at Brandeis U. and entered the General Theological Seminary. The Rev. Alvin L. Kershaw had helped her discern a call to ordination.

Once I admitted the call of total commitment to service in the church, it seemed that I had been pointed in this direction all my life and that my experiences were merely preparation for this calling. In spite of my own intellectual doubts and the opposition to women’s ordination which was widespread within the Episcopal Church at the time, I took the fateful step of applying to The Rt. Rev. John Melville Burgess, Bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts, for admission to holy orders. (Autobiography, 1989, p. 427)

Organ built by James Ludden, given by Priscilla Rawson Young in 1973

4 Nov. Priscilla Rawson Young gave a portable pipe organ, built by James Ludden, which is still used for rehearsals in our Music Room.

1959

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Elizabeth Richardson

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.

1949

Posted on March 30, 2013 by Elizabeth Richardson

13 October. After its Planning Committee led by Misses E. Louis Seymour and Elsie L. Jones had laid the groundwork, the Business & Professional Women’s Club held its first meeting. Alberta Pond and Adele Herrick became its first president and secretary, respectively. They held monthly suppers after which members worked on projects or enjoyed entertainment.

1947

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Elizabeth Richardson

Redington Mudge DeCormis (1884-1967), son of the Rev. Dr. Louis De Cormis (1846-1916), became Jr. Warden and then served as Sr. Warden from 1948-53, during the tenure of Rector Metters. His father, the Rev. Dr. Louis De Cormis, was priest of St. Stephens, Lynn, when he named his son after Enoch Redington Mudge, patron of the beautiful church, whose cornerstone was laid in 1881. E.R. Mudge had served as our Jr. Warden from 1865-72. Having been vice president of the Second National Bank since 1923, R.M. De Cormis retired in 1955, when it merged with State Street Bank and Trust. Correspondence of his second wife, Charlotte (Lotten) Augusta Lenander, a Swedish physician whom he had married in 1944, have been archived.

1945

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Elizabeth Richardson

8 May. Germans surrendered, leading to the end of World War II in Europe.
June. Rector P. E. Osgood preached his last sermon at Emmanuel.
15 July. The Rev. Dr. H. Robert Smith, formerly of Grace Church, Newton MA, accepted the position of Minister-in-Charge to serve 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.
October. After many years in charge of our Church School, Elizabeth Varney departed, and Nancy Currier took over.
28 November. The vestry assigned the church’s reading rights at the Boston Athenæum to rector-elect, The Rev. Robert Gifford Metters. For more about his tenure, please see the chapter on him in Emmanuel Church, 1860-1960: The First Hundred Years.

1937

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Elizabeth Richardson

15 Sept. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt mentioned in her diary My Day that Harriet Robeson was her guide at a convention of the American Hospital Association, which was held at Atlantic City NJ. Harriet Allen Robeson (1882-1978) compiled our centennial history in 1960. Namesake of an aunt who had died young in 1852, she was the granddaughter of our founders Andrew Robeson, Jr. (1817-1874) and Mary Allen Robeson (1819-1903).

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt & Harriet A. Robeson at Atlantic City NJ. Photo. Fred Hess

1917