Caroline
Veatch left a Unitarian legacy of greatness, a rare resource
for the advancement of Unitarian Universalist faith in
action: the Veatch Program of the Unitarian Universalist
Congregation of Shelter Rock in Manhasset, NY. That Long
Island congregation grants several million dollars every
year not only to strengthen activities of the Unitarian
Universalist Association of Congregations, but also to
foster worldwide aid by means of the Unitarian Universalist
Service Committee, and to provide grants to both UU and
non-UU organizations. They provide:
1. Grants
to strengthen UU institutions and community life.
2. Grants to projects that increase UU involvement in
social responsibility.
3. Grants to strengthen Unitarian/Universalist or indigenous
religions institutions worldwide.
4. Grants to nonprofit organizations addressing issues
of social and economic justice.
A UNITARIAN
UNIVERSALIST ASSOCIATION CITATION
THE ASSOCIATION
PRESENTS A CONGREGATION ANNUAL AWARD
FOR DISTINGUISHED SERVICE TO THE CAUSE OF UNITARIAN
UNIVERSALISM
TO THE CONGREGATION OF THE NORTH SHORE UNITARIAN
UNIVERSALIST SOCIETY OF PLANDOME, NEW YORK
June 21, 1985
This
award is presented to the Congregation of the
North Shore Unitarian Universalist Society for
their outstanding and unique contribution to
liberal religion and specifically to the Unitarian
Universalist movement.
For the past two and one-half decades, since
receiving the generous bequest from Caroline
E. Veatch, you have planned effectively to use
that trust to advance intelligently and responsibility
the values we share.
You have done this by strengthening the institutions
of our denomination: the Unitarian Universalist
Association, our theological schools, the Unitarian
Universalist Service Committee, and untold numbers
of individual congregations of our religious
fellowship. Indeed, it is difficult to think
of any aspect of our work that has not benefited
from the benign influence of your support.
You have advanced the values of liberal religion
by giving support to secular movements and organizations
which stand for equality, justice and peace.
Many programs working to improve the human condition
and to alleviate suffering would not have seen
the light of day without your tangible support.
You have done this with an impressive degree
of modesty.
We, your colleagues of the Unitarian Universalist
Association, salute you:
- for your example of wise philanthropy
- for your disciplined effort to aid in the
search for religious truth
- for your social conscience
It is no exaggeration to state that the original
bequest of Caroline E. Veatch and your subsequent
contribution to our movement has been one of
the major events in our history.
CAROLINE VEATCH: A MINISTER'S APPRECIATION
by Gerald F. Weary
For this World Wide Web project celebrating Notable
American Unitarians, the Rev. Gerald F. Weary has been
invited to speak about his role in the strengthening of
liberal religious thought and action via Caroline E. Veatch.
Weary,
right, at the cornerstone laying ceremony of The
North Shore Unitarian Society in Plandome.
When Carrie
Veatch was suffering from spinal arthritis and confined
to a wheelchair, I called on her regularly from 1945 to
the year of her death in 1953. It is well that people
know the story of her growing interest in The North Shore
Unitarian Society, including the story of Carrie's life
and that of her husband, Dr. Arthur C. Veatch, the noted
geologist who left a legacy of royalty rights by which
the Shelter Rock Society receives a percentage of the
proceeds from the production of oil and natural gas in
the North German Plain. I had asked Carrie Veatch whether
she should be willing to leave her royalty rights to the
church upon her death, and on receiving her agreement,
got her notarized signature to a legal instrument that
embodied the agreement.
In thinking about Carrie Veatch's life, I am reminded
of a passage from George Santayana's introduction to Spinoza's
Ethics: "A man who understands himself under the
form of eternity knows the quality that eternally belongs
to him, and knows that he cannot wholly die, even if he
would; for when the movement of his life is over, the
truth of his life remains. The fact of him is a part forever
of the infinite context of facts."
After I had been calling on Carrie for nearly three years,
she told me she was in need of a lawyer, and she asked
me whether I knew one I could recommend to her. I recommended
a member of my congregation, James E. Nickerson, a trial
and appellant court attorney who was a member of a prestigious
Wall Street law firm. Carrie wanted a lawyer to rewrite
her will and to sort out and evaluate her estate papers
and those of her deceased husband. In performing these
legal services for Carrie, Mr. Nickerson had many conversations
with her, and so came to know her as a person.
Caroline
Veatch, background, with her sister Della Evans
On one of my
visits in the seventh year of my calling on her, she told
me royalties had begun to accumulate in Germany from the
start of production of oil on a concession her husband
had acquired, and if I were willing to try and get them
out of Germany, and I succeeded, she would give one half
of them to the church. She fulfilled her promise, and
on the second remittance of royalties from Germany, she
again gave one half of them to the church.
Since I knew Carrie owned the overriding royalty rights
of the OEG Concession in Germany, the thought occurred
to me that I should ask her whether she would be willing
to continue sharing her remittances of royalties with
the church while she lived, and leave her royalty rights
to the church upon her death. I called on Mr. Nickerson
and asked him what he thought of my idea. He replied that
I was the only person who could put the question to Mrs.
Veatch. He said he knew Mrs. Veatch respected and trusted
me.
I acted, and Carrie agreed. When I told Mr. Nickerson
this, he at once prepared a legal instrument, a trust,
that embodied Carrie's agreement, and gave it to me. I
got Carrie's notarized signature to it, and then Mr. Nickerson
put his notarized signature to it. As trustee, Mr. Nickerson
was of course obliged to turn over the royalty rights
to the church upon Mrs. Veatch's death.
Over the next twenty years, the church had been receiving
millions and millions of dollars in royalties. The church
had granted millions of dollars to the Unitarian Universalist
Association.
It occurred to me that we feel gratitude only to persons
we know personally, never to a mere name, and that I may
have been remiss in failing to share with others what
I knew about Carrie Veatch as a person. Realizing this,
I began to write a memorial to her, and also to write
about the life of her husband Dr. Arthur C. Veatch and
his career as an oil geologist. I completed a book in
1983: A Memorial to Caroline E. Veatch and the History
of the Veatch Royalties of the North Shore Unitarian Society,
Plandome, NY, by Gerald F. Weary, printed by Pen-Mor
Printers, Inc, Lewiston, Maine.
Late in the summer of 1993, the Shelter Rock church in
Manhasset dedicated a building on its property to Caroline
E. Veatch, and asked an artist to paint a portrait of
Caroline Veatch.
A
CONGREGATIONAL SALUTE TO CAROLINE VEATCH
by Robert P. Adelman
Speaking
for the North Shore congregation is the attorney with
years of first-hand acquaintance with the Veatch Program
while serving as the Consultant to the Church.
Eleanor
Vendig, the original Veatch Program administrator,
with the Rev. Harold Hadley
My family and I first came to the North Shore Unitarian
Society Inc. in Plandome, NY (NSUS) in the early fall
of 1959, some fifteen months after the resignation of
Gerald F. Weary as minister to that church. We found a
beautiful church structure for worship and fellowship;
a quaint, large, old house that served as the church school
and focus for youth activities; a very new minister named
J. Harold Hadley and his wife, Shirley; and a congregation
that exuded vitality, intelligence, warmth and a large
degree of cohesiveness and unity.
However, my wife, Renee, and I soon learned that the cohesiveness
of the NSUS congregation was largely due to a major congregational
rift which occurred under Mr. Weary's ministry and led
to his resignation, as well as the withdrawal of several
of his staunch supporters from the congregation. (NSUS
later moved to Manhasset NY and changed its name to the
Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock).
We quickly learned of Caroline Veatch and the gift she
made to the church (mineral royalty interests in northwest
Germany) in 1953 shortly before her death. The annual
royalty proceeds in the late 1950's were in the neighborhood
of $25,000 annually, increasing to $50,000 by the early
1960's as natural gas was being discovered in Germany
in addition to oil.
We came to know and become close friends with many members
of the church who had befriended "Aunt Carrie"
as Caroline Veatch was known to most. In addition to Jim
Nickerson, other lawyers in the congregation who aided
her, as well as other members of her family, included
James Regan and Philip T. Dalsimer.
Caroline Veatch was an invalid with serious back problems
from an early horseback riding accident. She was aided
by a member of the NSUS Congregation named Julia Wagner
who was a physical therapist and the NSUS's first Secretary.
It was Julia Wagner who discovered that Caroline Veatch
was a Unitarian and got her involved in what was then
a very new church. Julia Wagner introduced Mrs. Veatch
to Philip Dalsimer who, in turn, introduced her to Jim
Nickerson.
Others who should be remembered include several of the
founding members of the original North Shore Unitarian
Fellowship: Jean and Harlowe Lincoln, Eleanor and Malcolm
Vendig, Helen and Carl Ostergren and Betty and James Wilson.
Indeed, I believe that the many kindnesses extended to
Aunt Carrie by the NSUS community were large, powerful
factors in helping her to decide to make the gift of her
royalty interests to the church.
By the late 1950's it became clear that the German royalties
provided the NSUS church with an income stream that many
in the congregation believed should be shared. A small
volunteer committee was formed whose members included
the Rev. Harold Hadley, the church's founding members,
and several early presidents of the congregation including
Alan Doran and Bernard ('Ben') Slater.
A few months before Harold Hadley became our minister,
and with his help, Malcolm Vendig and Alan Doran presented
a resolution to the congregation to create the Caroline
Veatch Assistance and Extension program. It was approved
on June 5, 1959. Its preamble contains the basic philosophy
of the Veatch program and begins:
WHEREAS,
the North Shore Unitarian Society of Plandome, New York
has been and continues to be the recipient of substantial
sums of money through the benevolent and unconditional
gift and bequest of the late Caroline Veatch of Port Washington,
New York; and
WHEREAS, it is the desire of the Congregation to make
public acknowledgment of its veneration and esteem for
Caroline Veatch and of its appreciation and gratitude
for her generosity, and to make that acknowledgment substantial
and enduring by adopting a worthy continuing program as
a memorial to her; and
WHEREAS, it is thought that the establishment of a program
for assisting Unitarian Fellowships and Churches and other
Unitarian programs through loans and/or gifts which are
designed to foster and promote Unitarianism will be a
worthy program in its own right and one which will suitably
and appropriately honor Caroline Veatch.
The resolution
provided for a Veatch Committee, which at that time consisted
of four volunteers. The Committee started the task of
establishing criteria for loans and gifts to other Unitarian
churches and fellowships. These originally went to other
Unitarian churches on Long Island and then in the greater
New York City metropolitan area. They were for steeple
bells, folding chairs, crockery for coffee hour, rebuilding
an organ, financing a new addition, buying land for a
new church—the list was endless.
By the middle 1960's the royalty income was well over
six figures after the imposition of a West Germany income
tax of approximately fifty percent. It was my good fortune
to be able to enhance Caroline Veatch's gift by persuading
the United States Treasury Department to get the West
German government to agree to change their Treaty on Taxation
so as to exempt the church's royalty income from the onerous
German tax scheme. When this was accomplished in the late
1960's, the royalty income began to exceed seven figures
and eventually reach eight figures annually.
When I became President of the NSUS Church in 1968 the
royalty income level was large enough to allow me to persuade
the Congregation to do three very important things:
1.
Give the UUA the money it needed to fund the Black Affairs
Council ($250,000 annually for four years beginning in
1968), thereby averting a major division within the UUA
regarding the solution of racial issues.
2. Hire Eleanor Vendig as the first paid church employee
devoted to the Veatch Committee's disposition program.
She became the program's administrative officer, a position
she filled until shortly before her death in 1995.
3 . Persuade Dr. Edward Lawrence to become the Veatch
Program’s first full-time executive director, a position
he held until his retirement in 1987.
The later history
of the Veatch program is a story for others to tell. Suffice
it to say that its positive role in the growth of the
Unitarian Universalist denomination is beyond question,
as is the similar role played by many succeeding members
of the NSUS and Shelter Rock Congregations.
A
HISTORY OF THE UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST VEATCH PROGRAM
by Ruth M. Reeves
Member, Veatch Board of Governors
Early
in the history of this congregation, which began as a
church school in 1941, several members became acquainted
with Caroline Evans Veatch, a resident of Port Washington.
The first was believed to have been Julia Wagner, who
was giving Mrs. Veatch physical therapy treatments. At
her suggestion, two other members, Carl Ostergren and
Harlow Lincoln, called on her to ask for a donation, which
they received. In the fall of 1945 Reverend Gerald Weary,
soon after being called as minister to the then North
Shore Unitarian Society, began visiting Mrs. Veatch—visits
which would continue for the remaining years of her life.
Caroline Veatch's husband, Arthur Clifford Veatch, had
been a geologist engaged in the exploration and business
of oil from the turn of the century almost until his death.
In 1926 he discovered oil potentialities in the North
German Plain, the most promising of which were in the
State of Oldenburg. After a series of negotiations, he
acquired overriding royalty rights in 1929. These royalties
were then passed on to Caroline Veatch at her husband's
death in 1938.
In the years following 1945, no doubt as a result of her
contacts with members and the minister of NSUS, Caroline
Veatch grew interested in the small, struggling congregation.
She made a number of contributions, received the newsletter,
The Quest, regularly and in 1948 signed the membership
book. Aware that royalties were accumulating in Germany,
she proposed to Gerald Weary that if he could arrange
to get the money due her out of Germany, she would share
it with the Society. Weary sought the help of James Nickerson,
a trustee of the North Shore Unitarian Society (NSUS)
and a partner in a New York law firm. Jim succeeded in
moving the flow of royalties, primarily for the production
of natural gas. The first payment of $7,168 arrived in
1952, which Caroline Veatch did indeed share. She continued
to share her royalty income with NSUS and established
a trust which transferred her royalty rights to the Society
upon her death in 1953.
Later
in the 1950's, a committee, which included Harold Hadley,
the minister who followed Weary, was formed to decide
how to use the growing income from Germany. The congregation
established the Caroline Veatch Assistance and Extension
Program.
No one could have foretold in 1953 the impact that Caroline
Veatch's bequest, modest at that time, was to have for
this congregation, the Unitarian Universalist Association,
and for social justice causes throughout the United States.
During the first ten years following the initial Veatch
Resolution, funds allocated by the congregation—25
percent of royalties—were used primarily for low
interest building loans and small grants to Unitarian
fellowships and churches. Records show that over these
ten years, 92 different congregations were given funds
totaling just under $700,000.
Unitarian Church Plandome, New York Architect Charles
H. Warner Jr.
By
1969 funds flowing annually from royalties reached $400,000.
The congregation increased its allocation to 75 percent
of royalties and income on investments, after costs, to
the Veatch Program and expanded its charitable program
to include nondenominational organizations and causes
in response to the social concerns of the times. Dr. Edward
Lawrence became chair of the then Veatch Committee and
Eleanor Vendig, a founding member of the Society, began
her career of some 25 years with the Program. Catherina
Wriedt joined the staff in 1972 and continued until his
death in 1999.
In the mid 1960's, Robert Adelman, an attorney and member
of the congregation, was responsible for a United States-German
tax treaty amendment which eliminated the tax burden to
the congregation of approximately 50% on royalty payments.
Until 1973-74, decisions made by the Veatch Committee
were reviewed and approved by the Board of Trustees—thereby
doubling the work required for each action. In response
to the apparent need to shorten the review process, the
congregation established a Veatch Board of Governors,
consisting of eight members, elected for four-year terms,
plus the Society's president. The Veatch Board was authorized
to make funding decisions up to $50,000, above which a
congregational vote was required. (This amount was later
increased to $75,000, which stands today.)
During the 1970's, income continued to grow. Substantial
grants were made to not-for-profit organizations outside
the denomination, and some 250 UU congregations were assisted
by the Veatch fund. Remembering the denominational support
received during the early days of the struggling church
school and Society, the Veatch Program made major grants
to the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) and its
associate and affiliate organizations at a time of the
UUA's own critical financial need.
In 1971, Beacon Press, a book publishing house owned by
the UUA, received a copy of the Pentagon Papers
from Senator Mike Gravel, a Unitarian Universalist. Portions
of the Papers had been printed by The New York Times,
but, until that time, no publisher had been found willing
to produce the entire document. Beacon Press, along with
the UUA president and board of trustees, agreed to publish
the Papers. Since the UUA lacked the funds, Veatch
was asked for help. $100,000 was approved, and Beacon
Press, with the assistance of this congregation, published
the complete Pentagon Papers—an act of courage
for all involved given the political climate of the day.
It was the practice, at this time, for the UUA to submit
lists of projects for Veatch's funding decisions. As a
result, our congregation felt it was exerting inappropriate
power and influence over the denomination. Thus in 1979,
the congregation voted to create a $20,000,000 endowment
for the UUA. In order to assure the funding to build this
endowment, the Society voted a fixed sum of $5M, rather
than a percentage of royalty income, to be allocated to
the Veatch Program. (This sum did not include matching
grants to the UU Service Committee.)
In 1983 the congregation gave an endowment of $9M to the
UUA for theological education. At the same time, it provided
a subsidy program of $2M for retired ministers and spouses
and $2M divided among Harvard Divinity School and the
two UU theological schools, Meadville/Lombard Theological
School and Starr King School for the Ministry. In 1988
the congregation gave an additional $500,000 to Harvard
and established endowments of $2M to Starr King and $1.5M
to Meadville/Lombard.
During the 1980's, the royalty income, which had begun
in 1952 at slightly over $7,000, grew to a peak of over
$15M in 1985. The congregation increased the Veatch allocation
to $6M in 1983. In spite of a decline in royalty income
following 1985, the growing strength of investments added
to the royalties enabled the purchase of the Shelter Rock
property and construction of a new church. The congregation
also added to the allocation of $6M to reach a total of
$9M for the fiscal year 1996. The Veatch Program has continued
its dual funding directions: the denomination and organizations
outside the denomination carrying out Unitarian Universalist
values and principles.
The Veatch staff, always a valuable component of the Program,
has grown from one to a current total of seven—an
executive director, three program officers and three administrative
staff members. Ed Lawrence, after almost 20 years as executive
director, resigned in 1987. He was followed by Josh Reichert
in 1987 and Barbara Dudley from 1988-1992. Corinne Rafferty
became acting director until Marjorie Fine took the position
in 1993.
From the time of the bequest to today—over 40 years—members
of this congregation have given uncounted hours of their
time in the responsible management and disbursement of
the fortune made through Caroline Veatch's gift. Our situation
is unique; there have been no precedents to guide us.
The specific grantees funded by Veatch have changed over
the years, but the essential goals—the preservation
and extension of human rights and justice, goals central
to our Unitarian Universalist values—remain the same.
To that end the Veatch Program has funded citizen initiatives
and organizations, particularly organizations building
broad grass roots coalitions, promoting knowledge of the
issues of concern and the tools with which to achieve
social change. In the words of the principles of this
denomination, the Veatch Program strives through its grant
making to achieve "a free and responsible search
for truth and meaning; justice, equity and compassion
in human relations; and the use of the democratic process."
In
addition to our honoring of the congregation for its distinguished
service, let us also honor its first two ministers whose
contributions were vital to the birth and growth of the
Veatch Program; first, the Rev. Gerald Weary and next,
the Rev. Harold Hadley.
MY MINISTRY
by Gerald F. Weary (1910 - 2002)
During
my college years I attended the services at the Unitarian
Church in Lincoln, Nebraska. Admiring its minister, Dr.
Arthur L. Weatherly, I decided I, too, should like to
become a Unitarian minister, and upon my graduation from
college I applied for admission toThe Meadville Theological
School. At my graduation in 1936 I was awarded the Cruft
Fellowship for Study Abroad, which I used to study for
three terms at the London School of Economics and for
three terms at University College.
Upon my return from England, I got in touch with Lon Ray
Call, Secretary of the Western Unitarian Conference, and
asked him whether there were any vacant pulpits in the
Conference. He replied there was one, in Wichita, Kansas.
He recommended me to the church, and it called me. Before
taking up my ministry with the church, I went to Lincoln
to marry Alma Feldman, who was a recent Phi Beta Kappa
graduate of The University of Nebraska. After our marriage
we left for Wichita, and upon our arrival I began my ministry.
In June 1940 I received an invitation to candidate in
The Unitarian Church of Bloomington, Illinois, and although
I was sorry to leave Wichita, I accepted the invitation,
and the congregation voted to call me.
In the winter months the church sponsored a public forum
at which noted persons of different walks of life were
the speakers, including Robert Frost and John Haynes Holmes
of Community Church, NYC.
I aspired to deliver sermons of elevated thought and of
literary quality, but many others were of the kind that
often resulted in social action.
One of these I delivered was entitled "Democracy's
Case Against Religious Education on School Time."
The sermon induced members of the congregation to action.
One of them, the editor of Bloomington's newspaper, The
Daily Pantagraph, printed one half of the sermon in
the next Sunday issue of the newspaper, and wrote an editorial
opposing the proposal. Others organized a committee that
requested a School Board hearing on the proposal. The
School Board granted the request. Following the hearing,
it voted unanimously to reject the proposal of the Inter-Church
Council for religious education on released time.
Beacon Press published my sermon in an attractively designed
booklet of twenty-two pages. The Director of the Press
told me he sold 5,000 copies of it, largely to libraries
throughout the United States.
I received a letter from Dale DeWitt, Regional Director
of the Middle Atlantic States Council, in which he said
someone had given him my name as one who might be interested
in becoming the minister of a little fellowship on the
North Shore of Long Island. He said a minister must be
found who can work vigorously with the fellowship, someone
with "a lot of organizing ability and initiative."
He asked me to let him know if the fellowship interested
me. I was interested. On my visit I found an enthusiastic
little group, with an unbounded faith that a flourishing
Unitarian society could be established on the North Shore.
The fellowship was then facing a crisis in housing. For
one thing, the independent Manhasset Bay School, at which
the church school had been meeting, informed the fellowship
that at the end of the school year it would no longer
be able to rent space for the church school. After searching
for another place for the church school, the fellowship
found none. Moreover, if I agreed to become its minister,
the fellowship would have to find a place for services.
The fellowship decided it should buy a house big enough
to house all of its activities. For sale was a big house
on spacious grounds overlooking Manhasset Bay. Following
my candidating, at a special meeting held, and the fellowship
voted to raise money to purchase the house. At this special
meeting, the fellowship voted to call me as its minister.
During the summer it raised from its members and elsewhere,
from some members of the New York churches, the amount
necessary for the purchase of the house. They secured
a loan of $4500 from the American Unitarian Association
for its remodeling.
Since the fellowship had no bylaws, Harlow Lincoln, the
president, was unable to tell me whether my tenure as
minister would be for one year or one of indefinite duration,
and he was also unable to inform me concerning several
other matters a minister would want to know before accepting
a call. I decided to go ahead and accept the call, and
trust that the fellowship, when it got around to writing
bylaws, would write a section on the minister satisfactory
to both of us.
In 1945 I knew of no colleague who had left an established
church to become the minister of a small fellowship. The
adventure of becoming the minister of the little fellowship
in Port Washington, and seeing whether it would succeed
in growing into a church appealed to me regardless of
the risk of failure. My wife was willing to share the
personal sacrifices we should be making, although she
did, of course, hope my salary would be sufficient to
meet our physical needs.
In 1945 when the fellowship became incorporated as The
North Shore Unitarian Society, it was still a very small
group, and with limited resources. I began at once to
use my manual typewriter and my used mimeograph to publish
a weekly newsletter named The Quest. I also began,
once a month, to make copies of one of my sermons and
mail them with an issue of The Quest. Wishing to
interest new people in the church, I kept adding new names
to my mailing list. Since the population of Port Washington
was too small to support the growth of the church, I faced
a formidable task: that of informing people in the adjoining
villages of Plandome, Manhasset, Roslyn, Glen Cove, Great
Neck about the church and its program, for each of these
villages was a self-contained community, and had its own
newspaper. Taking on the task, I mailed each week church
notices to five village newspapers. I also, each year,
instituted a series of three to five special Sunday services
on some theme, at which noted persons were the speakers,
and at which I gave the concluding talk. Each winter we
instituted a series of weekday evening lectures and discussions
on various themes led by noted university professors.
Although all these programs interested the members of
the church, the editors of newspapers in the adjoining
villages—and as well, the editor of the newspaper
in Port Washington—regarded them as newsworthy and
wrote articles about them.
We also instituted each month a new exhibit of paintings
in the parlor of the church. The members of the church
enjoyed the paintings, but the exhibits also interested
newspaper editors, who wrote articles about them.
Many other things interested people in the church. Early
in 1946 the church prepared and adopted a set of bylaws,
which called for the institution of new committees. One
of them was a Service Committee. Its meetings and actions
on ethical, social, and economic issues got much publicity.
This was true also of the growing church school. and the
Sunday worship services.
When I began my ministry with the church, my first sermon
was entitled "A Modern Religion for Free Minds."
Melvin Arnold, Director, Division of Publications, American
Unitarian Association, made a pamphlet of it. By letter,
he told me he first printed 10,000 copies; he then printed
20,000 more copies, which soon were gone; and so he did
a third printing.
By 1953 we had outgrown the facilities not only because
of the increasing attendance at worship services, but
also because of the increasing enrollment of children
in the church school. The church bought a beautiful two-acre
site in Plandome for the construction of new church facilities.
Mr.
and Mrs. Gerald Weary, 1999
Construction
was begun in 1954. The church and all its facilities were
completed by September 1955, the tenth anniversary of
my ministry with the church. Attendance at services in
the new church increased dramatically. As an issue of
The Quest reported, 300 people were in attendance
at our first Easter service in the new church. At that
service people were seated not only in the lounge at the
rear of the worship room but also in the social hall,
as far back as the kitchen. The membership of the Society
also increased dramatically. Despite the loss of members
through the founding of the South Nassau Unitarian Church
in Freeport, the Unitarian Church of Central Nassau in
Garden City, and the Muttontown Unitarian Fellowship in
East Norwich, the number of active members reached 357
by April 30, 1958. Besides the 357 active members, at
least 200 friends of the Society were attending the Sunday
services, many of whom had enrolled their children in
the church school.
I resigned as minister of the church on June 6, 1958.
After my resignation from The North Shore Unitarian Society,
I served as the minister of The First Unitarian Society
of Ithaca and as a chaplain at Cornell University. Wishing
to return to England again, I next accepted an invitation
to become the minister of the noted Rosslyn Hill Chapel
in Hampstead, London.
In my retirement, I wrote my Memorial to Caroline E. Veatch.
I also served as an interim minister in two churches.
During the years of my retirement, I have been enjoying
working in my woods and improving them. Twice, first in
1980, and again in 1999, I have been named the Outstanding
Tree Farmer of the Year for the State of Maine.
THE
MINISTRY OF HAROLD HADLEY
by Robert Sunley
Chair of the Archives and History Committee
of the
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Shelter Rock, Manhasset,
NY
Harold
Hadley, an outstanding Unitarian minister, prominent in
denominational affairs, was involved in the development
of the Veatch Program at the Plandome Church where he
was the senior minister from 1959 to 1977.
Harold was born in 1912 in Alaska, where he lived among
the Eskimos until he was 12. His father, a Quaker missionary,
then took the family back to North Branch, Kansas. Harold
graduated from the local Friends Academy and then went
to the Friends College in Wichita, Kansas. Following some
years of teaching and work for the Friends, he obtained
a divinity degree from Boston University School of Theology.
Following further work with the Friends and then a position
as Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Simmons College,
he accepted an offer from the Unitarian Church in Framingham,
Massachusetts where he served as minister for six years.
He then moved to Long Island to accept the position of
minister of the Plandome Church. One of the important
factors in the congregation’s choosing him was the
feeling he could help the members recover from a bitterly
divisive conflict over the former minister, Gerald Weary.
Harold’s personality seemed ideal for the situation
for he was warm, generous, skilled in working with people,
and versed in helping others cope with conflict.
His tenure of 17 years at Plandome (North Shore Unitarian
Universalist Society) was marked by a number of important
events and trends, as well as by his carrying out the
many facets of his ministerial position. Just before he
started the congregation had passed the Veatch Resolution
which formalized and expanded the scope of the giving
program carried out by a committee which Harold shortly
began attending as an ex officio member.
Throughout
his tenure he attended most of the meetings of this committee
and the later Veatch Board meetings. He contributed much
from his experience and knowledge of the denomination,
an especially important factor in the extensive loan program
for UU churches and in advising on grants to the UUA and
affiliated groups.
His first several years were largely spent in getting
to know the congregation and its components, and the local
community. By 1963 he was involved in the early struggles
over integration. He preached a prophetic sermon, “Manhasset:
Valley of Segregation” referring to the isolated
portion of Manhasset, adjacent to Plandome, occupied by
African-Americans and separated from the whites by a deep
valley, geographically as well as socially. He took a
leadership role in the local struggle and made a crucial
contribution to interracial efforts.
In 1966 he quickly rallied several other Long Island UU
ministers to accompany him to Selma, where they took part
in the march following the killing of the Rev. James Reeb
and others. His action on returning played an important
role in awakening a slumbering suburban population to
the crisis in race relations.
The.
Rev. Harold Hadley in the pulpit
One
of Harold’s duties at Plandome was to attend all
meetings of the governing Board of Trustees as well as
the Veatch Committee meetings, both of which often lasted
until midnight. In his oral history, Harold comments on
his first impressions. “I remember being overjoyed
and thinking to myself how refreshing this wonderfully
creative democratic process was as exhibited at the first
two Board meetings at Plandome that I attended. The fact
that they lasted ‘til midnight was inconsequential,
as they assured me this was exceptional. But midnight
work was to be more the rule than the exception!”
(And there were usually two meetings a month.)
Another feature of Harold’s ministry was his sermons,
especially those in which he drew upon his study and love
of philosophy. The congregation came to value these sermons,
which at times focused upon such figures as Albert Schweitzer
(whom he had met in 1949), Jefferson, Buddha, Servetus,
Emerson, and Thoreau.
In 1971 he helped a group in the congregation who were
dissatisfied with the traditional Sunday service format
establish once a month “Sundays with a Difference,”
and he supported them in the face of some harsh objections
from others in the congregation. Some such services were
led by church members, and others featured performances,
plays and other relevant programs. For example, one such
service on death and dying focused on a short film followed
by small discussion groups to enable members to bring
out their concerns.
Harold eagerly led one such group, and they became so
engrossed it was hard to get him to stop for lunch, and
at the end of the service. He helped people to develop
an emphasis on what it is that we live for, rather than
on fears of death.
Along with these activities, Harold was always involved
in denominational affairs, and in 1967 he was elected
president of the Continental UU Ministers Association,
which involved considerable traveling to meet with ministers
around the continent. His success in this position led
him to decide to be a candidate for the UUA presidency
the following year. He took a six month leave from the
church to carry out his campaign, which coincided with
the black-white controversy within the denomination. At
the very last minute, on the eve of voting, Harold decided
to withdraw and urged support of Robert West, who was
then elected. West succeeded to the presidency at a time
of dire financial constraints as well as racial controversy,
neither of which issues could readily be solved. Harold
and the Plandome church played an important role with
respect to both problems, giving large sums both to the
developing black group and to the UUA.
In 1970, Harold was awarded an honorary doctorate by Starr
King School, and in the same year he continued his participation
in broad social problems by accepting a Unitarian Universalist
Service Committee assignment to go to Saigon to evaluate
their social work program struggling in the midst of the
Vietnam War. In 1971 he was appointed a UUA delegate to
the International Association for Religious Freedom in
Heidelburg and in 1975 to the IARF in Montreal.
Harold retired in 1976 but continued to be active. He
first served as Executive Director of the Fellowship of
Religious Humanists in Yellow Springs, Ohio and editor
of its journal. Four years later he and his wife Shirley
moved to Amherst, Massachusetts. While there he founded
and was the first president of the UU Retired Ministers
Association. He was commended by a later president for
his "dedication to organizing, guiding, and celebrating
our ministry in these retirement years." Probably
due in part to his influence, the Plandome church made
significant contributions to the welfare of retired UU
ministers.
In 1994 Harold and Shirley moved to Hadley House in Port
Washington, NY, a retirement facility erected by the Plandome
Church (now the UU Congregation at Shelter Rock). Years
earlier Harold had attended a conference on housing for
the elderly and returned to the church to spark a ten
year effort by the congregation to find and build the
home. By congregational vote it was named after Harold.
Unfortunately, he died only months after returning to
live there. Shirley continues to live there. A moving
memorial service celebrating his wonderful life was held
in November 1994.
ABOUT
THE UU VEATCH PROGRAM
From
the website
of the Shelter Rock congregation.
What
the UU Veatch Program Supports:
The UU Veatch Program supports Unitarian Universalist
organizations that foster the growth and development of
the denomination and that increase the involvement of
Unitarian Universalists in social action.
The UU Veatch Program also supports nondenominational
organizations whose goals reflect the principles of Unitarian
Universalism:
-
A belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every person;
- Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
- Acceptance of one another and encouragement of spiritual
growth;
- A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
- The right of conscience and the use of the democratic
process within our congregations and in society at large;
- The goal of world community with peace, liberty and
justice for all;
- Respect for the interdependent web of all existence
of which we are a part.
The
Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock
supports Unitarian Universalist organizations that
foster the growth and development of the denomination
and that increase the involvement of Unitarian Universalists
in social action.
There
is a great deal that is very wrong in the world as we
find it in the first decade of the 21st century.
Tremendous wealth and greed exist alongside unbearable
poverty; we find little compassion and almost no greatness
among our national leaders. We believe that fundamental
changes are needed, changes in values, in priorities,
in analysis and in governance.
We also believe that those changes will occur only if
the people of this country themselves provide the leadership
that is so sorely lacking. The UU Veatch Program
funds grassroots organizations of people, not of "experts,"
because we believe that it is only by rebuilding democracy
in this country from the bottom up that truly new policies
will be envisioned, demanded and implemented.
The UU Veatch Program funds community initiatives and
organizations working on a wide variety of issues in many
different parts of the country. We look for organizations
that are developing new public policy, and new ways of
organizing at the grassroots level.
Funding Examples:
Community organizing efforts that build power by and for
disenfranchised communities, and that seek to hold decision-makers
accountable to the needs of low-income people and others
traditionally excluded from making the policies that affect
their lives.
Environmental justice groups that are demanding the reduction
of toxic production and dumping in communities of color
and poor communities.
Organizations that are building broad coalitions to inject
the interests and needs of ordinary people into international
trade negotiations and other global economic forums;
Civic organizations fighting to preserve and extend civil
and constitutional rights, including racial and sexual
equality, reproductive freedom, and freedom from all forms
of invidious discrimination;
Organizations that challenge the control of corporate
money over our political process, and that seek to return
our democracy to its rightful owners.
Movement
Building:
The
UU Veatch Program also supports non-denominational
organizations whose goals reflect the principles of
Unitarian Universalism.
We
see the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program as helping
to build a movement for social change. We focus
not only on particular issues but also on the methods
being used to address them. Does an organization
involve its members in decision making? Does the
pursuit of justice dictate the organizational practice
as well as the organizational goals? Does the organization
trust the grassroots and understand that political power
does not come from polls or from ignorance but from a
politically literate population that clearly understands
the alternatives being presented? Does the organization
work cooperatively with other organizations seeking to
build a broader "civil society?"
As an essential part of rebuilding our democracy, the
Veatch Program supports organizations that teach people
the skills that have been lost as we have been systematically
excluded from the political process: the skills of analysis,
public speaking, conducting meetings, raising money, challenging
bureaucrats and "experts," and holding political
representatives accountable. To return to the principles
of Unitarian Universalism, we strive through our grantmaking
to encourage "a free and responsible search for truth
and meaning; justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
and the use of the democratic process."
Harold
Hadley, an outstanding Unitarian minister, prominent in
denominational affairs, was involved in the development
of the Veatch Program at the Plandome Church where he
was the senior minister from 1959 to 1977.
