UUFF History

Part I

In 1973 Monroe Husbands was given the first Eliot-Scott Award for distinguished service in the extension of liberal religion in the western half of the United states. He was engaged by the Unitarian Association specifically to extend the cause of Unitarianism across the western half of the United States, including Alaska. Between the years of 1948 and 1973 he criss-crossed the continent, meeting with small groups of liberals, inspiring them to organization and action in the name of the Unitarian Universalist movement. Over 700 Unitarian Universalist Fellowships and churches owe their existence to the guidance of Monroe Husbands. The dynamic modes of organization, the pioneering in new procedures and methods of service, and the preparation of creative new worship program resources are all attributed to Monroe Husbands. Many of the new Fellowships are now large flourishing member churches of the Unitarian Universalist Association.

Art Bruhn is the only one of the founding members who still belongs to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Fairbanks. He and a few other long time members recall a man who came to Fairbanks in 1956, after placing an ad in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, calling for people of a liberal religious persuasion to meet with him. The ad asked “Are You A Unitarian Without Knowing It?”

The very first signatures in the old membership book are dated April 29, 1956:  George Thomson, William W. Mendenhall Jr., Mrs. Jessie E. Pease, Nancy H. Mendenhall, Norma T. Thomson, Ian H. Pickens, Geo. W. Parker, Jesse D. Landru, Vera H. Wright. Art Bruhn was absent on the day the original members signed the book, otherwise his name would be among the founders. On April 29, 1956 the following people signed the membership book: Ione Couch, Jim Couch, Myrtle R. Wright, Florence A. Small.

In November of 1956 Millicent A. Reynolds joined, and in December, Jane Solkorf, (name is illegible) and Herman Slotnick, bringing the total membership up to seventeen.

At first the group met once or twice a month in members’ homes, and later in such rented or donated spaces as the Masonic Temple, the Carpenters Hall, several buildings on the Fairgrounds, and the University of Alaska Home Economics classroom. For twenty-one years the Fellowship alternated meeting in members’ homes and available space in public buildings. Members took turns hosting and planning the meetings. 

Part II

Thanks to the good offices of Nancy and Bill Mendenhall, who succeeded in tracking down George (Hank)Thomson and Norma Thomson, two of the founders of the Fairbanks fellowship, I was able to have a long telephone conversation with them. They remember seeing Monroe Husbands’  ad in the News-Miner in 1956, and inasmuch as they were very active in organizing the new Fellowship, they think they were probably responsible for arranging the first meeting, in the basement of the old  Nordale Hotel,  which burned down long ago. The group elected officers at their first meeting,  and made plans to meet twice monthly in the YMCA. Hank Thomson remembers being president, and may well have been the first president, but he wouldn’t swear to it.

Monroe Husbands supplied the group with materials to help them plan their first meetings, both for the adults and their small group of children.

During 1957 such familiar names as Celia Hunter, Morton Wood, and Lee Gardner entered the book. Del Eberhardt signed the book in 1958. A junior high school teacher, he had been a minister, or had a ministerial background. He immediately became a paid part-time minister to the group. He was still present when this writer first attended the Fellowship on Easter Sunday in 1962. His sermon, “Fertility Rites Throughout The Ages,” made an instant Unitarian of her. That meeting was held in the Masonic Temple, which boasted an old upright piano. Member Lesley Salisbury, a violinist, had recruited Peggy Swartz, cellist, and  Susan (Bullwinkle) Johnson, pianist, to provide special music.

Part III

Del Eberhardt left Alaska in 1962 (according to the membership book). As his junior high school teaching load grew, he’d found it necessary to cut back on his ministerial duties, so John and Helen Tryon, who signed the book in 1958, became mainstays of the Fellowship until their departure from Alaska.  In those early days, there were often children present at the meetings, and Nancy Mendenhall and Norma Thomson provided  religious education.

We have no records except the membership book for this next period in  our history, beginning in 1962,  so I shall skip over to 1982, where we have some good sources, and come back to this earlier segment later. 

The 1982 annual meeting was held at Lois Bruhn’s house on Ski Boot Hill. I, (SHJ), was elected president. The members voted to resume meeting  in a public space and selected the little  Alaskaland Chapel.   They had never met there before, but hoped that with  the exposure of its location, and the presence of an old upright piano, they might enrich their services and attract a few  more members. Also, for the first time,  they’d meet every Sunday.                         

Soon after our first announcement hit the News-Miner, we received a phone call from a chaplain  on Fort Wainwright, a Captain Thomas Schreck, who offered his services, twice a month, for $25 per Sunday. We arranged to meet him, and heard all about his fundamentalist background, and how he had evolved into a genuine liberal, and aspired to be a real Unitarian minister some day.

We engaged him,  and his sermons were very good. He was intelligent, well read, and he held our attention. We had no complaints. However, the Reverend  Mr. Schreck felt a need to demonstrate his liberalism to the world, and there were plenty of opportunities for him to do so. Those were days of  frequent, large ,and very public pro- and anti-abortion demonstrations, and Mr. Schreck always marched in the forefront of the pro-abortion troops, in his full military chaplain uniform, proudly topped off with a huge, very conspicuous silver chalice on his chest. Many other military people marched in the ranks of the pro-life/anti-abortion demonstrators. I soon had a phone call from Mr. Schreck, who sounded very upset. He’d been  reprimanded by his superior officer, who commanded him to cease marching with the pro-abortion demonstrators. He asked me to write a letter to his commanding officer in his defense. 

Part IV

Writing the letter to the Reverend Mr. Schreck’s commanding officer was not easy, and I have no memory of what I wrote, or of several others he asked me to write before the year was out (and for his wife, too!).  A talented pianist, Mrs. Schreck liked to perform in the Officer’s Club. The beautiful platinum blonde was upsetting the officer’s wives. The Schrecks asked me to write still another letter when Mrs. Schreck’s children’s choir executed a military flag routine at Christmas, instead of singing Christmas carols.  During the following summer,  the Schrecks were transferred out of the state.

That same year (‘82-’83), KUAC announced a new program called “A Month of Sundays.” A production crew would be visiting local churches on Sunday mornings to photograph segments of their services. The programs, as they appeared on television, were well done; and we waited expectantly for the KUAC crew to appear at one of our services, but they never did.  So I telephoned KUAC, who were surprised by my call. No one else  had called to volunteer their church, and none of the churches appeared to welcome the crew when they showed up. However, the KUAC crew  would be glad to visit our service.

A few weeks later, they did. Mary McDonald, a talented actress, was presenting a program on Robert Ingersoll, the Great Agnostic. Ingersoll had been not only a popular speaker, he was also a very witty man. As the crew walked into the chapel and quietly set up their equipment, the small congregation all laughed heartily. 

“Yours was the only church that laughed,” said Steve Smith, the leader of the crew. He was leaving the state for a year to do graduate work, but he said he’d come back and he did. The little blond woman you may have seen serving coffee many Sundays is Jane Smith.

During that first summer in the Alaskaland Chapel, we held, at the request of some college students,  a memorial service for a student from Connecticut who was killed when the tractor he was operating rolled over.

I think the next president of the Fellowship was Robert Thorsen. Robert also presided over a memorial service, for a young son of the Drydens who had died tragically in his early twenties. The film Life of Brian was released during Thorsen’s tenure. We had a potluck supper at the Thorsen home, and then we all went to the theatre together. At the time, many churches were very noisily opposing the release of the film.

Our following president was delighted with the prospect of performing weddings. Instead of waiting for Unitarian weddings, she submitted her name to the License Bureau, where she received many calls and was even flown to several villages.  She performed so many weddings that she had time for little else, and the business of the Fellowship came to a halt. Laurel McLaughlin and I called a meeting to ask what the members wanted to do about the state of affairs. I accepted the presidency for the remainder of the year. Jane Williams, who was in Oklahoma at the time, was elected vice-president. (Does anyone remember what happened to the previous vice president? )

I believe we met in the Alaskaland chapel for three years. During the third year some young parents with babies joined, so we removed the mops and brooms from a closet on the second floor—maybe 6’ x 6’—I shall revisit the chapel and check this fact.  We  put blankets and pillows on the floor and hired a babysitter. We were always careful to replace the mops and brooms just as we found them. However, all that moving around of cleaning equipment must have been detrimental to its health. We received a letter from the park commission saying that if we didn’t stop moving the mops and brooms around, we would not be allowed to use the little chapel anymore. We decided to look for another meeting place. 

That  setback proved to be a blessing. Our next meeting place was wonderful. 

Part V

The new meeting place was the Jack and Jill Preschool, one block off University Avenue behind College Utilities. The owner was a liberal non-Unitarian (does anyone remember her name?) who generously let us use her facilities on Sunday mornings. Her only request was that we leave the place as neat as we found it. We often left it better than we found it, and we made a generous donation to the preschool each year that we met in the building.

The school was in a house that had been altered to meet the needs of a preschool. It was so artfully laid out and furnished to appeal to children that our children all loved it. The smaller rooms contained all sorts of child-sized chairs and couches and pillows.

There were shelves loaded with beautiful and appropriate toys and books. The children came to love their Sunday mornings, so much that some actually dragged their parents to the Fellowship on Sunday mornings, instead of vice versa.

The adults met in the former living room, which held the tables and benches where the children ate their lunch. The Fellowship bought the blue stacking chairs, the remnants of which can still be seen in the new building. They had to be carried up from the basement before every service, and carried back down to the basement afterward. Also in that big room was a wonderful wooden cage, rather like a circus wagon, which ran almost the length of the room. It was tall enough for the children to stand, and the slats were far enough apart that the children could poke their noses through, but too narrow for any wild animals to escape. There was a short ladder at each end of the cage, and all through coffee time, little creatures were climbing in and out, peeking through the rungs at the adults. The little people often had to be extracted, kicking and screaming, when parents’ endurance had run out and they wanted to return home.

The building had a nice kitchen that enabled the Fellowship to have morning coffee and potlucks. The atmosphere was pleasant and fresh after all the years we had met in old, musty buildings. There was no piano, so our pianist made do with an electric keyboard.

Unfortunately, our generous patron decided to move to Seattle, so she sold the building to her second in command, who didn’t appreciate our liberal ways. After three happy years, we had to look for another place to meet. But our luck held, and we entered another interesting, and even more challenging, chapter of our history.

Part VI

The members of the Fellowship were naturally disappointed when the new owner of the Jack and Jill preschool announced that we couldn’t meet there anymore. We dreaded going back to musty old buildings and having to abandon our religious education classes for children. Everyone started looking around for a new place to meet, trying to avoid places that we’d inhabited in the past, like the Masonic Temple, the Home Economics room at the university, Carpenters Hall, the Alaskaland Chapel and various buildings at the Fairgrounds. A building that I owned became available about this time when the Frere Jacques French restaurant moved to a new location. It was a log building on Noble Street with a wide open main floor and a finished basement. It seemed to have everything we were looking for; the location was good, and parking in the downtown area wouldn’t be a problem on Sunday mornings.

I offered the building to the Fellowship—rent-free, but with a few strings attached. The Fellowship would have to pay for the utilities the first year, add insurance the second year, and taxes the third year. This would mean more of a financial commitment for the group, but it would also mean that we would finally have a stable meeting place. The Fellowship decided to take the plunge, and we had our first services in the log building that fall.

Ed McLaughlan immediately made a wooden sign to hang on the front of the building. He also built the lecturn, which we are still using today. We bought a few more of the blue chairs—each chair paid for by someone in the Fellowship. Other donations poured in; I remember a large black enameled cabinet Steve and Jane Smith delivered, and people brought chairs, tables, and kitchen supplies so we could continue our newly- acquired coffee habit. We ordered new hymn books - some still have the name of the donor in them - and Jane Williams made a generous gift to start a piano fund. In a matter of weeks we were able to buy the almost new Yamaha piano which is still downstairs in the old meeting room.

The members began to demonstrate the business acumen that they have shown ever since. Before long they had rented meeting space to several groups: the Anglicans, the Jewish community, the World-Wide Church of God, a Native church and a yoga class. At $25 a week each, the proceeds more than paid the utility bill, and excess funds were applied to other needs.

Our growth, which actually began while we were in the Jack and Jill building, was not spectacular, but steady. The stability of having our own place seemed to inspire members to become more involved with Fellowship programs and activities.

Parade weekends were fun. We had our own parade viewing-stand: the front porch of the log building, and if a big crowd of UU’s showed up, we appropriated the curb in front of the building.

Around this time Jane and Red Williams started inviting all of us up to their farm at Central in the spring, usually over Memorial Day weekend. Someone correct me if I’m wrong. We slept in their bunkhouses; overflow slept in tents, campers, motor homes, whatever we had. Jane always took us (the able and willing) for a hike in the hills, and Red always seemed to be towing a trailerful of kids behind his tractor. Then there was a wild game of cops and robbers, or whatever it was, with all the able-bodied grown ups and kids running around and hiding in the woods. They played the same game at the Boy Scout camp several years ago. What was it? Red built a campfire every evening, and we grilled and shared our dinners. The kids, big and little, toasted marshmallows. We told stories.

We had an outdoor service on Sunday morning, with impromptu readings, and hymns sung to guitar accompaniment by Tom Hassler. And we went swimming in the pool at the hotsprings. We finished off the weekend with a mighty pancake breakfast cooked by Jane in the farmhouse. And at least one weekend, we had to drive through a blizzard on the way home.

Part VII

After three years of renting the building, the Fellowship decided they would like to buy the log cabin downtown. The group’s growth had been steady, and members felt ready to take on more responsibility. We hadn’t yet started a pledging program because our resident curmudgeon insisted we not raise money if we didn’t have an immediate need for it. But we had managed to accumulate $2,000. When the Fellowship asked me if I wanted to sell the cabin, I said I would sell it to them for what I had paid for it about five years before, $125,000, less $12,000. With their $2000 down payment, the Fairbanks Fellowship became the proud owners of their first building. At the time, Steve Smith was president and Laurel McLaughlin was treasurer. Ed McLaughlin and Brian Rogers were also active in arranging the purchase.

Immediately after taking title, the Fellowship made some changes to the log building. By then we had acquired member and builder Larry Fogelson, who installed another window and a kitchen counter and cabinet in the basement. Members underwrote the various improvements.

As I look back, I remember many excellent programs that we had during those eight years in the cabin. One Sunday a couple who was strongly opposed to abortion spoke to us. When someone asked if the couple had adopted or found homes for any unwanted babies, they said that was not part of their agenda. They were only interested in preventing abortions.

We had a program on national health insurance, which at that time actually seemed to be a possibility. We had a program on Lying, which engendered so much discussion that the coffee and snacks had to be carried upstairs. No would leave the discussion long enough to go downstairs for a cup of coffee.

We had a memorable talk on Thomas Paine.

Going back a little: I have heard that the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Fairbanks once disbanded for a period of time in the late 1960s or early 1970s. The breakup may have been over the Vietnam War. I was living in Anchorage at the time and was not in contact with the Fairbanks group.

While reminiscing with Laurel McLaughlin this past week she mentioned that when she and Ed arrived in Fairbanks, in the late summer of 1972, they couldn’t find a listing for a Unitarian Fellowship. In September there was a notice in the News-Miner of a Unitarian meeting at the home of Paul and Nancy Frith. Ed and Laurel attended, and were not made aware of any breakup that might have occurred. Some kind of reconciliation must have taken place because the Fellowship was having monthly meetings again by that fall of 1972. I would appreciate any further information on this episode in the history of the Fellowship.

Part VIII

By 1992, the UUFF had been occupying the log cabin on Noble Street for five years. Growth had been steady, and we were under pressure to expand into a larger meeting space. Some UUs felt that we should add a second story to the log building rather than move to a less convenient location. An architect was consulted, but the results were not inspiring. Members started looking for a church to buy. Over the next year and a half, various members looked at four or five churches in or around Fairbanks. Mostly they were very old buildings with many add-ons, and probably very difficult to maintain.

For the next two years there were few church buildings on the market, but some of us continued to watch the want ads. I checked out a few pieces of land, but they were too far out of town and not worth considering.

Then one Saturday morning, toward the end of May 1995, there was an ad in the News-Miner describing an unfinished, five-star rated house on two and a half acres across from the Princess Hotel. The price was $113,000. I telephoned Brian Rogers, our incoming president, and asked him if he wanted to look at the property with me. We were at the site within an hour. The property was the estate of a recently deceased airplane mechanic and pilot who had been building the house as his retirement home. He hadn’t quite finished it when he died.

There was an old trailer and wannigan attached to one side of the house; a large, ramshackle, military-type shop building in the corner of the lot facing the Princess Hotel; and on the same side, closer to the house, a great pile of gravel. The house was oddly laid out inside: a lot of small rooms and no apparent living room. But it was very well insulated and the kitchen was quite good—the old gentleman must have enjoyed cooking. The basement was large and unfinished. There was an attached double garage.

The house had some drawbacks, but nothing we couldn’t fix. The grounds were magnificent, with dense spruce and birch trees that could be seen from windows on all four sides of the house. And the river was nearby.

Brian and I both knew immediately that this property could serve the Fellowship well. The price was within reach, the house could be adapted for our use, and someday the group could build a real church on the site.

The following day was the very last spring service, and the Fellowship wouldn’t get together again until September. We had to discuss the property with the members that morning and persuade as many as possible to drive out and look at the property. At $113,000 it would probably sell fast. We had no time to lose.