Merl Schiffman, Memoirs: Part III
Leaving Eden I owed them $125 plus the Masonic loan. I paid the Masons
$10 a quarter the first year, 20 the second, 30 the third and 40 a
quarter the fourth year. It was tough to pay. Never got Eden paid until
1936. I also owed Mathilda $50 which I have repaid many times over. In
fact, everytime she reminds me of the loan, I pay her again.
Had correspondence with Pastor Goebel about my ordination, set for
July 9, 1933, Got busy when I got home gathering furniture (aid from
everyone's attic). Grandpa Albaugh, now living with us half the year,
loaned me $200 and gave me $50 to buy a used Model A Ford. George Fitzer
drove me to Boston the first Sunday I was home to look the place over. I
called the President of the Congregation but he was not interested in
seeing me that day. Met Linus, Martha and Kathryn Wurtz for the first
time and they were very helpful.
Mother and Dad arranged a buffet dinner after the Ordination
Service. It was nicely done. Domst Bakery (old friends of the family)
sent a huge cake. In fact, they sent one a week early and had to take it
up to the Orphan's Home. At the Service Rodney Heckman, Pastor
Meuhlinghaus, Dr. Carl Locher, Carl Haass and Goebel officiated. (See
file). The church was packed. All the Joys were there, Margaret, Jim
and Ruth. I received the "plate" offering as a gift (a strange custom
common in churches) about $86.
The next day a local furniture store where I had bought some items
trucked my goods to Boston. Grandpa Albaugh drove over with me to help
me "get settled". The Church president came by the first evening and,
for the first time, I learned that I was to receive $75 a month salary
with no "extras". ("Extras" usually were utilities). He also told me
that they were having a bazaar the next evening (probably to get it in
before I could object to "selling chances"). They had it but not before
I rescued the "Klingebeutel", an old velvet offering bag on a long pole
with a bell in a tassel---they were using it for a pole for the "fish
pond".
After a few days I took Grandpa to Dunkirk. I arranged to have one
hot meal a day at Dye's---he the local storekeeper, she the postmistress
and town gossip. I paid her 50 cents a dinner, five days a week.
I had a hard time finding a membership list and a harder time
finding member's houses in this rural community. The congregation
numbered 40-50 members, half of them farmers and the depression was
hurting. Potatoes were 40 cents a bushel, eggs 12 cents a dozen, and
strawberries 5 cents a quart. One farmer picked up our garbage weekly
for his pigs and in turn left four or five quarts of strawberries at our
door during the season. We got milk from a nearby dairyman who was
stopped from delivering because he bottled only raw milk. We bought
cheese at the local cheese factory and got whey cream which we mixed with
milk for heavy cream---until we lost our taste for whipping cream.
Ambitiously started a garden but it failed for lack of water.
The older farmers and townspeople were quite conservative. They had
the same church president for years, he having succeeded his father and
his grandfather. But there was a nice group of young people and I got
along well with them. We met often for rallies in Buffalo, meetings in
homes, sleigh rides and maple sugar parties.
I hit it off real well with the Wurtz's. We became close friends
and have stayed in touch all these years. As time went on I helped
Linus with funerals and even went out with Linus' uncle Louie on New
Year's eve of our first year of marriage to "hold" a funeral while he and
other help took care of two other funerals that day. We washed and
shaved the deceased and stalled until Linus came. (That was the first
house funeral where I saw the old world custom of covering the mirror and
stopping the clock at the hour of death). Linus called me to help on
ambulance calls and several times Martha phoned to have me drive the
ambulance into Buffalo hospitals with her (she was a nurse) because Linus
wasn't home.
Once I took a woman who was hemorrhaging, the doctor said I have
only forty-five minutes to make it or she wouldn't live. He called the
Buffalo police who picked me up at the foot of Main Street and with
motorcycle and ambulance sirens shrieking we rolled up through Lafayette
Square and Delaware Avenue and were met by interns at the Emergency door.
Some weeks later I met Pastor Lohans, now a Buffalo churchman and he said
he must be mistaken but he thought he saw me driving an ambulance at full
speed through the Square one Saturday. I admitted it.
I assembled a First Aid kit in a shoe box and always seemed to be
stopping along the road to help out in accidents. Linus gave me a
professional kit and my occasions for giving help seemed to diminish
though the kit still stays in the car. Linus also gave me my first
electric shaver---the first on the market---a Packard.
The parsonage had been two small buildings which were connected,
having a "low bridge" in the doorway upstairs where I banged my head
often before I got used to it. There was an old fashioned nickel trimmed
stove in the dining room, dingy gray wainscoting about chair rail high
around the dining room and kitchen. Water came from a shallow well
across the street, later found to be polluted. We drilled a well next to
the house but no luck. The Council stubbornly refused to run a line up
the valley three lots to a flowing well at Dr. Jehle's. We had water
problems all the years we were there, often hauling it in the Summer and
buying water for the babies when they came.
The first Labor Day weekend that I was there, Mathilda came with her
Mother and Grandma Weis to visit, measure windows and check rooms. We
spent a few days at Dunkirk and also she and I each took a light plane
ride with a congregation friend over Niagara Falls and Boston Valley. He
hauled the little plane behind his car, the wings folded against the body
of the plane.
I took off two Sundays in January, going to St. Louis. Our plan was
that I would go down again in June of '34 for our marriage. But after
some discussion when I arrived in January (Mathilda not working, save
money by not making another trip, etc.) with Minnie taking part in the
discussion, we decided to be married January 8. (I don't recall Phil.
having a part in the plans, or why not).
So with a hustle and a hurry on the part of Mathilda and her Mother,
her pastor Lohans married us at 2 PM January 8. Gus Weis loaned us his
Packard sedan and we drive to Grandma Weis' where she fixed supper and
then on to the Forest Park Hotel. (We had gone to Alpha Xi dances
there). We saw the movie "Dinner at Eight" that night. The next day was
packing with a nice family reception that evening. The following evening
we were off on the train to Buffalo where we taxied to Heckman's and
begged a ride to Boston.
What a cold reception! No heat and all water lines frozen. (Tho
shut off). I took Mathilda over to Wurtz's until I could get the house
in shape. We faced the coldest winter in years---one time getting down
to 42 below zero. Left the car in gear one night and couldn't get it out
until noon the next day.
I kept busy fixing the house, keeping the youth group going and
directing a play for the Grange. In June we went to St. Louis, driving
the Model A over brick paved, tree-lined roads from Ashtabula to
Richmond. We had to struggle to make ends meet on my salary. Lots of
vegetables were given to us. Mathilda had wedding money and she bought
fine furniture (she always made excellent selections). Linus Wurtz was
very generous, giving us all items at cost, plus carrying us on monthly
payments for a long time.
An old man named Emmet Davis lived across the street in a hundred
year old house his father, a doctor had built. Davis was in his 90s,
short, stooped, weathered, wearing slippers only, going to the woods in
nice weather to gather ginseng to sell to a salve manufacturer in
Buffalo. He lived alone, his wife having died many years earlier. It
was said that her cloak laid over a chair and violets were in a vase
where she put them before she went upstairs and died. It took me several
years to get next to him and sit and talk in his living room. He told me
of the days when the road was a toll road, each four mile section of it
maintained by some man who collected toll to use it. It was a plank
road, logs rolled next to each other and dirt spread on them. Logs were
plentiful for Davis told me that the area was once all forest and when he
was a boy the sky was lit up all night from burning fires---farmers were
felling the trees, clearing the land and burning the trees.
All my visits to Davis were "too late". He had many old books but
by the time I could ask to see them, he had burned them. He had bushels
of letters, some mailed before postage stamps existed. He burned them.
There were many pieces of fine furniture and one day I saw a lady with a
station wagon loading everything into it. He was a quiet, shy, yet
triggerish old fellow who bridled at some questions I asked. He had a
diary and I coaxed a long time before he let me see it. It went back to
the mid 1850s. But there wasn't anything in it. Only the weather,
references to a cow dying, a horse breaking a leg. He wrote that he went
to Salamanca, New York to join the Union forces but the War ended at that
time. But he wrote nothing of the turbulent days before or during the
Civil War. Davis had a Model T Ford, 1912 on blocks in his barn. He
would not let me see it nor listen when I suggested buying it. After we
left the Valley, he sold house, land and contents to a local auto dealer.
At this time, I developed a pattern of sermon preparation which I
followed the rest of my life. My first year I tried to set up two sermon
schedules. One for the present time and one for the following year.
After getting through that tough period, I had a schedule of Sunday
sermons to be preached from September to June and went about gathering
material for the following year. I felt some security about this a well
as certain of a broad range of subjects. And I found in time that I was
at least one year ahead in ideas, and often much more than that.
In weekly preparation I started on Tuesday morning to "rough out"
the subject and assemble in some order the ideas I had gathered.
Wednesday morning I cut and sorted until I had a general outline. And
Thursday I wrote a two page outline of the material and typed it---the
typing important to me as it seemed to imprint it on my mind. I filed
away the excess material and let the sermon rest until early Sunday
morning when I went over it once more---and had it. Gathering material
in files, I also assembled over two thousand 3X5 cards with quotes and
poems.
In the Fall of '34 I attended a Minister's meeting and met the
Director of the County Welfare Department. Having little to do, I asked
her if I could ride with the local welfare worker to see what he did and
to learn? She called me in a few days to suggest that, if I had that
much time, why not take a full time job with the department?
Talking it over with the local Church Council and agreeing to take
a salary cut from $900 annually to $700 a year (!) I accepted the
appointment. Then I had to wait for several months, going through the
political process, being sponsored by the township supervisor, interviews
and even a nasty letter from the Buffalo chairman of the Socialist Party.
(I learned that the Party had a rule that no member could accept a job
with a political entity without permission of the party leaders! My
first taste of authority in a democratic group).
Finally I was assigned in February, 1935 to the North Collins
office, 15 miles over the hills from Boston at a salary of $1,200 a year
plus $30 a month car allowance. North Collins was the southern branch of
the County Aid Department. Funding came from local, State and Federal
budgets and we had piles of paper work to contend with. When people did
not like the decisions we made regarding their aid, they wrote to Mrs.
Roosevelt or the Governor and we had to answer every complaint.
I had training classes during the morning of the first week and
afternoon trips with one of the staff. We had an office of 19, including
clerks, stenos, and field workers under a supervisor. Seven Visitors
covered seven townships along the southern tier of the Erie County.
The second week I was given a "caseload" of eighty families in Eden,
New York and worked that territory for over two years. Eden was a
retirement community surrounded by lush farms---where two and three crops
of truck vegetables were grown annually for the Buffalo market. I called
on storekeepers, doctors, ministers and town officials and every
afternoon visited new applicants plus monthly calls on all recipients.
It was fascinating and serious work. I had never been in touch with such
a wide variety of people. Oldsters, young married and men out of work
who were down to their last dollar. We were supposed to "see" every
person receiving aid and on one occasion I threatened to cut off a
daughter of an old lady because I didn't believe she existed. And just
as I went to the door to leave, the daughter burst from behind a drape
over a doorway. She looked frantic, wild-eyed, babbling, a woman about
forty. I made further inquiries and found that this daughter had not
been out of the house for almost twenty-five years. She was obviously
mentally ill but her Mother did not want her taken to a hospital.
Another time the storekeeper told me a Sam Fricano was buying only
eggs with his welfare check. Dozens and dozens of eggs. I checked with
Sam and he told me he believed eggs were good for him and that's all he
ate, morning, noon and night. I suggested he had to share his check
allowance with his wife and son with better meals---as we stood talking
across a round dining room table. Sam reached behind him and took a
shotgun standing in the corner of the room and held it up towards me. I
would let him buy eggs or . . . . I told him we would talk about it some
more and left. Checking with relatives, they said his wife was fearful
of living with him so I had the Deputy Sheriff pick him up and got the
doctor to send him to Gowanda State Hospital for an examination. They
kept him for about six months.
The work was fascinating and serious. I learned patience,
diplomacy, did detective work , and tried to stay objective and not
indifferent to persons. Telling one old minister what I did, he said I
was packing years of experience into months. When we got our first
monthly check of $100, we wondered what we would do with all that money.
I went around the village paying every bill we owed.
Boston was a pleasant village nestled in a valley among hills -
actually foothills of the Alleghenies which stretched down into
Pennsylvania. The area was pleasant in the summer and a battle with
snow in the winter. We were eighteen miles south of Buffalo and eighteen
miles northeast of Dunkirk. In the course of my four and a half years of
welfare work, I think I traveled every highway and road in the southern
half of Erie County.
Mathilda was expecting in June and the extra income put us in good
shape. I don't know how we would have made it without the extra job.
Gordon Merl was born June 20, 1935 in the Millard Fillmore Hospital in
Buffalo with Dr. Gettman as obstetrician. Our local Dr. Jehle referred
us to him and told me he would charge $35. He did. The first grandchild
of the Keller's and the Schiffman's was a beautiful baby from the first
moment. The congregation was very generous and the nursery was well
equipped when he arrived. Those were the days when babies were raised
"by the book". It was an unfortunate professional view because when I
look back on it, it was sometimes cruel. Feeding by the clock, not his
hunger, letting him cry, little unloving styles which the professionals
said was the way to do it---and as new parents we followed the book.
Yet Mathilda all the time because she was home, and I when I was there,
giving him loving care and I'm sure not much harm was done. The next
three boys were raised as infants according to their needs and not by the
book. Taking care of the baby was no small chore for we were short of
water. We had no washing machine, no refrigerator. Mathilda had to wash
diapers with a hand operated container which she swished back and forth.
And our ice box was just that---ice was brought to it twice a week---and
we often forgot to empty the pan underneath, causing a flood on the
floor.
I'd come home from work, have dinner and walk the floor with Gordon,
singing Irish songs while Mathilda did the dishes and made the next day's
formula. My father had walked us with the same songs and our boys got
walking and singing from me. We had added a wood stove in the kitchen
plus a better stove in the dining room. (I had become sick from leaking
coal gas from the old one the previous Spring). But we had no heat
upstairs except in the bathroom. So in Winter, I'd get up first in the
morning, start the wood stove, heat water to thaw the water pipes and,
while doing that, start the breakfast. I've been up first, making
breakfast every since.
My two jobs continued until I resigned from the Boston Church in
late '39. In late 1936 I was appointed Supervisor of the North Collins
office but only for six months, then some layoffs, and I was back on the
road. I covered Gowanda-Collins for a year and then two years in
Springville-Concord.
Roosevelt was elected in '36 in a slam-bang campaign which we
thought would be close from our Republican-slanted newspapers, but it was
a landslide. He never lifted a finger about the Civil War in Spain -
Catholic pressure---my first furious dislike of that kind of foreign
policy. World War II was obviously down the road, the Spanish War having
encourage Hitler and Mussolini.
We liberals used to get up at our annual Church District meeting and
give impassioned speeches against capitalism and War and private
enterprise. It was always a real row and we looked forward to a rousing
battle. Whether it did any good was hard to tell but we had an
articulate time and often hit the newspapers. That was also a time when
New York State had a law prohibiting giving birth control information or
selling contraceptives. We ministers violated the law by encouraging
young people to plan their families and we got into conflicts with our
legislative representatives who followed the Catholic directives on this.
Margaret Sangster, leader of the movement was often in jail. I wrote
strong letters to Assemblymen and got strong letters in reply.
With all the experiences occurring from my work, I decided to write
a book about them. I chose the title, "Tomorrow Is Not Too Soon" for the
outline I put together and began to write the first chapter. That was in
early 1937 and that Spring a book was published by a welfare worker in
Michigan along the very lines of the story I planned to tell. That was
the end of The Book.
The Boston Church, St. Paul's Evangelical, was one hundred years old
in 1934. In celebrating that occasion, I learned that the congregation
had been founded in 1811 by a Presbyterian circuit rider, John Spencer
and had existed as a Community Church until 1834 when the German settlers
predominated and the Presbyterians diminished. The Germans took over in
1834.
I also learned that Harry Emerson Fosdick, the famous preacher at
Rockefeller's Riverside Church in New York City had early roots in Boston
Valley. I found the log cabin which the original Solomon Fosdick built
in 1821. He was a carpenter and my tracing proved he built the Church
building in 1837. His son, John Spencer Fosdick (remember, John Spencer
the circuit rider above?) taught school at age 15 in the rear basement of
the church building.
I wrote Fosdick and he referred my inquiry to his brother Raymond,
President of the Rockefeller Foundation. We carried on a lively
correspondence until finally I asked them if they would pick a date in
1937 convenient to their schedules and we would commemorate 100 years of
the building. They chose May 27,1937 and I went to New York City to make
the arrangements. Met with Harry Fosdick in his apartment and completed
the details and went to the Rockefiller Center and was ushered through
myriad secretaries until I met Raymond Fosdick. We had a good visit
because I was filling him in on Boston Fosdick lore and he was thrilled.
Also had lunch with Reinhold Niebuhr at Union Seminary who said getting
the Fosdicks for that occasion was the "damndest thing he ever heard of".
Mathilda and I went to New York City a few weeks later as guests of the
Harry Fosdick's at their apartment for the weekend.
It was a glorious event---May 27, not believed by my pastor-friends
until they saw the publicity (see file). Mathilda had dinner for Dr. and
Mrs. Harry Fosdick, Dr. and Mrs. Raymond Fosdick, Mrs. Fosdick Sr., and
daughter. Hundreds of people attended the Service, admission was by
ticket only, newspaper reporters, State Troopers, photographers and 20
firemen extras under Linus Wurtz directing traffic.
Raymond Fosdick and I continued correspondence for about six years.
He and Mrs. Fosdick came to Boston about a year later to check on some
findings and I kept working on the Boston Fosdicks until the early 40s.
In his book, "Annals of the Fosdick Family" (Harold has it), he credits
me in the preface for assistance with the Boston chapter.
Harold was born February 19, 1938 at the Millard Fillmore Hospital
in Buffalo. Dr. Gettman's former assistant, now in private practice
attended. Harold was a bright one from the start. We named him after
Dr. Harold Jehle and Harry Fosdick. (Had I known the spoilage of the
name Fosdick later by that sick cartoonist Al Capp, I would not have
pressed Mathilda to accept Fosdick). But, at that time, we were proud of
the acquaintance. Not long after the commemoration Service, the State
put an historical marker in front of the church.
Had a chance to go to a Seminar sponsored by Sherwood Eddy in New
York City and Washington. It was a terrific experience meeting national
leaders Thomas Dewey, Mayor LaGuardia, Earl Browder, Communist leader,
tea at the Chinese Embassy, snacks at the Russian Embassy, visiting Mrs.
Roosevelt in the Blue room of the White House, John L. Lewis, Harry
Hopkins, Justices Hugo Black and Charles Evans Hughes, Senators Norris,
Borah, and many others. (I repeated this trip two years later from
Taylor to Washington only but it was less exciting). We also, at this
time, attended a meeting in Buffalo and met the famous Japanese Christian
leader Toyohiko Kagawa.
The merger of the Evangelical Synod and the Reformed Church in 1934
had broadened my contacts and I continued searching for a full time
parish. I was getting tired of two jobs and we were not comfortable in
the parsonage with poor water facilities and washing problems. In mid
'39 I met Louis Miller, president of the Atlantic District and he asked
me to come down and look at Taylor, PA. In October we did, were invited
and before I left Taylor , I accepted.
That was a mistake for several reasons. A candidate should always
return home, ponder the offer (or pretend to) and send his word.
Secondly, when we got home a committee from Grace Church, a fine
congregation in Buffalo called to ask to talk with me. I had to say no
because I had given my word to Taylor. I have often wondered---if I had
taken Grace Church instead of Taylor, not gone to Gowanda, not done
mission work at the Hospital, not been offered Bethel, Elmhurst, where
would we have ended? Maybe Taylor was the price to pay for many pleasant
years in Gowanda and the best of ministries in Elmhurst.
Taylor was the "first anthracite coal mine" outside of Scranton,
Pennsylvania. We enjoyed the friendliness of the people. Made some
lasting friendships with the George Leber's (Glenn's godfather), with Dr.
Helen Houser, and the Merwyn Howell's. There was a lovely Colonial
parsonage with 8 rooms, central heat, full basement and modern facilities
which we lacked in Boston.
But it was not easy. I had agreed to preach German twice a month
which I did, poorly (you can see how desperate I was to move!). They had
a Council of 17 members who fine-tooth combed every detail of my monthly
report, the finances to a penny and were reluctant to change.
The community depended on one coal mine run by an operator Bob
Moffat who bossed the town and the miners' lives. The congregation still
had many members who had come over from Switzerland to work on farms to
provide feed for the mules in the mine. When the mine work was
electrified, they became miners. The members were mostly Swiss of a
religious orientation of about 1906 but strongly influenced by the
dominant community life style which was Welsh. In fact, some even spoke
with a Welsh accent.
My brother Jack was now with Hygrade Seed Company in Fredonia, New
York. Jim was with ALCO, later to go in the Navy, then to return as
Inspector at ALCO. Helen was at Fredonia State Teacher's College and
Frank was with ALCO.
I remember Pearl Harbor on a Sunday afternoon, December 7. We were
sitting in a room at the Church waiting for the finance canvassers to
return from calling and we had a radio on. Everyone agreed that a war
would not last very long and that our forces would be on the scene and
settle everything quickly. Little did we know how involved and how
deeply it would affect all of us. The war affected the miners who now
earned better than the $1,300 annually which they had been receiving.
But young people had no work and I was encouraging them to leave town -
permanently. Contrary to other U.S. communities, by 1944 Taylor had one
third of its houses empty and for rent.
I tried to register as a Conscientious Objector but couldn't because
the registrar said my Clergy status took priority as an exemption. I
believe he did not want the CO status to show on his records. Early in
1941 I had gone to New York City one day to a meeting at Fosdick's Church
with him, John Haynes Holmes, Paul Schiere, Al Muste, Kirby Page,
Sherwood Eddy, and a few others to discuss our role as pacifists in that
time. We saw some ominous days ahead.
The war affected us with some shortages though I had no gas
rationing problems as a clergyman. In fact, once the ration board gave
me a "B" book, much more generous in coupons than a "C" book. And when
they recalled it as a mistake, they told me to tear out all the coupons
and return the empty book. Taylor had less rationing pressure and I even
got retreaded tires for my Dad and shipped them to him. We saw the Black
Market surge with coffee, butter, and sugar being hoarded with
whisperings of its availability "under the counter". Our family had
plenty of sugar with five ration books and we shared with relatives where
we could.
The Leber's allowed us to rent a second cottage on their land at
nearby Lake Winola. Our Summers were a delight to all of us. We had
good friends in the Herb Rieder's and Howard Stump's (who got us the last
Lionel train in Scranton, (Joel has it) and Zaffiro's who loaned us a
movie camera when we couldn't buy one.
I became good friends with Harold Case, a Methodist minister in
Scranton because we both were loners in the Valley; he later became
President of Boston University. Also kept in touch with Raymond Fosdick.
We visited the World's Fair in 1940, its second year in New York City.
Also went to Union Seminary in New York several summers for one week
lectures and trips around the city. At a summer camp near Allentown
where I did some leadership training for youth leaders and church school
teachers, on a one week basis, I met a Black minister, James (Jim)
Robinson, who had a church in Harlem. We became good friends, and Jim
came to Taylor once a year to preach and I went to Harlem once a year to
preach in his church.
About 1942, Jack, who was manager of Hygrade Seed Co. of Fredonia,
New York asked me to work for them in north-eastern Pennsylvania. He was
short of salesmen because of the War, and wanted to keep some accounts
alive. After taking me on a teaching field trip for two days, I went out
to old customers (schools) and opened a new 19 school account the first
day. The job continued several years, my working one or two days a week
in the Fall, and a few trips in the Spring. I covered six or seven
counties and earned good money. We could use the money because Taylor
was not in good shape financially, and had a near crisis when I asked for
the only raise in five years. ( I note here that I had a "moonlighting"
job in each of my four parishes).
Frank Schiffman was killed (electrocuted in an auto accident) on
February 28, 1942, a tragic thing, (see file), especially as he was
Stella's only son and a good home boy to her. Glenn Joy Schiffman was
born on Monday, February 15, 1943 with Dr. Helen Houser attending at St.
Mary's Hospital, Scranton. We went there on Thursday but he wasn't born
until Monday, on a very stormy night. He was a handsome baby as the
pictures Mathilda saves indicate. Gordon, our first and so proud we
were, Harold so sharp and bright and later Joel after a difficult
pregnancy and so good to have him with us long after the other boys had
finished school and left home.
My attempts to leave Boston were nothing compared with my
desperation to get out of Taylor. Within six months of arriving there I
began to think of how I could leave.
I wrote to everyone, I even considered War relief work (UNNRA) but
was turned down. Finally in late '44 Carl Haass suggested that Trinity,
Gowanda, New York was open and I heard, also, that Grace, Buffalo (again)
was open. I went to be interviewed by both committees though only one at
a time could vote on me.
Gowanda was not in my eager consideration for I had worked there
earlier as a welfare worker. It was a two factory, State Hospital town,
very conservative, I thought.
Gowanda voted and invited me the night I was there. Then I went to
Buffalo the next night to talk with the Grace Church committee. They
were looking at several candidates. Back in Taylor, Mathilda and I
talked it over and decided on Gowanda---we could be sure of it. Along
with that church I was to preach at Cattaraugus, New York on alternate
Sundays $1,800 + $300. In the future was a part time chaplaincy at the
State Hospital.
Taylor saw us go with mixed feelings for while we had some support,
there were many who wanted a more conservative, non-pacifist minister. A
blizzard had struck Western New York so I sent Mathilda, and the boys to
Dunkirk by train and waited for the moving van---a shortage problem but
they would do the job because they had moved us to Taylor. After a week
he showed up, hired local help, with a crippled arm bet me he could load
the grand piano on the dolly himself and did it---winning a pound of
butter. Drove to Dunkirk in one of the worst blizzards in Southern New
York I have ever encountered---and I saw many storms while in Boston
Valley, and later in Gowanda.
Bill Thoen (Joel's godfather) was President of the Congregation, and
as a contractor he had remodeled the parsonage amidst great material
shortages. It was reasonably livable compared to when I had seen it
months earlier. Lots of rooms---and a big verandah---bigger than my
boyhood home at 733 Lion Street.
Gowanda turned out to be a wonderful ten years. It was a small
village (3,000), 26 miles south of Buffalo and 18 miles from Dunkirk.
Surrounded by dairy and fruit county and the Seneca Indian reservation
nearby, it was set in the midst of a pleasant area and an easy place to
get acquainted.
The parish, about 150 members, started at once to have a post-war
boom. Fred Weyand, an attorney friend and parishioner, wanted me to be
in Kiwanis. Before long I was program chairman (getting some labor
leaders and civil liberty advocates out from Buffalo to the distress of
some conservative Kiwanians). Fred paid my dues as I went through the
Masons, Royal Arch, and 32nd degree Consistory. Later as a reward for a
job I did as a special fund raiser for the new local hospital, Mayor
Elmer Gayvert paid me through the Shrine. I took a demit (release) from
all the Masonic orders later.
Mathilda did some substitute teaching on occasion at the local high
school and once the principal was so desperate he even had me come in and
teach in Algebra and Spanish.
I remember Hiroshima with a sense of horror and shame, and the
almost abrupt casualness in the way President Truman treated it and
continued to justify it through the years. The end of World War II came
in April with little celebration. On a committee to consider what would
happen when the Day came, I drove to the business district and saw one
lonely Indian leaning against a lamp post waiting for excitement which
never got started. At the time of the Armistice in Japan in August, we
had scheduled an overnight boat trip on Lake Erie to Detroit---a short
vacation, leaving the children in Gowanda. We found everything in
Detroit closed except Hudson's Department store and we toured it all day
from top to bottom.
There were many postwar shortages. We wanted to do some remodeling
at the church and add some delayed fixtures at the parsonage. But
nothing was available in hardware or appliances. Still, J.N. Adam built
a huge new store in Buffalo and got supplies. And Ford, GM, and Chrysler
prevented production of appliances (we had a used $15 refrigerator) until
they got steel for new autos.
We became friends with the Ernest Rose's through the Cattaraugus
Church. Visited them often and had huge strawberry shortcake suppers and
giant dinners at haying and silo filling time. The boys and I helped
gather maple sap from a sugar bush and haul it to a big, outdoor vat
where it was boiled off. Then more boiling in a large kettle on the
kitchen woodstove. We got tree seedlings from the County Agent and the
boys planted an acre plot next to the cemetery on Rose's land, which
planting should now be a woods of 30 years growth. Once I stayed
overnight and Ernie called me at 2 AM to help deliver a calf, my first
and only experience in that interesting procedure of pulling with all my
strength on a rope around the calf's feet and finally dropping it out on
the straw on the barn floor.
In 1946 Ernie Rose told us that the school house adjacent to his
property was to be auctioned due to the consolidation of schools. He
encouraged us to bid and when it went over our top of $500, Ernie bid it
in at $705. He loaned us $500 at no interest and gave $205 to us "for
the boys". He said he wanted to be sure who his neighbor was.
That was the beginning of a pleasant and exciting family time.
First we remodeled the sound, strong building in a Spring and Summer of
hard work and moved in old furniture (everyone's attic). The boys and
Mathilda were a great help. The we built an eight foot high stone
fireplace across the corner of the room which took two Summers to
complete. Another Summer we built an outdoor fireplace. We planted
trees, kept a garden and helped Rose's. Mathilda and the boys lived
there every Summer and I drove the seven miles several times a week and
Sundays after Services. We even kept a goat for two Summers.
Gowanda was a fine place for the boys to grow and learn. Gordon and
Harold had paper routes. Gordon, 16, worked at Witt's garage and the
Summer of his senior high school year worked at the Tannery. We gathered
around the radio nights with Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen, Fred Allen, and
Fibber McGee. Got our first small, black and white television set in
1949. There were good playmates for the boys, including some Indian
schoolmates. Woods and ponds were nearby and a small school where we
knew everybody. I was active in Kiwanis, helped establish a Community
Fund, managed a Sewer Improvement campaign with Dr. Lahvis and, with him,
directed Phase II of a drive for funds for a new Hospital.
Thought Gordon might like a time at Camp so took him to a Y camp at
age 10 which was a mistake. It was a time of manpower shortage and the
counselors were untrained high school kids, the Leader was a Biblebanger
who had revivals to convert the campers. I should have checked it more
closely.
Within six months of arriving in Gowanda, I was appointed one of
four part time Protestant chaplains at the Gowada State Homeopathic
Hospital for Mental Hygiene, an institution of 3,600 beds. I conducted
an afternoon Service every fourth Sunday and received $36.30 for it---and
that's about all any of the four of us did. Mathilda went along to play
piano for the hymns and once Gordon played for the Service.
Our friend Rev. H. H. Lohans, now in Buffalo, was chairman of the
Synod Mission committee and had some discussions before I arrived about a
clinically trained man at the hospital. Lohans had me look into it. With
Clinical Director Dr. Bohn's encouragement, I went to Rochester, New York
State Hospital for Clinical Training one Summer, by train each Sunday
night and returning Friday night. At the Hospital I worked on the wards
each morning, ten different ones in ten weeks, classes every afternoon
and research every evening. It was a strenuous schedule with Gowanda,
Cattaraugus and hospital Services.
The Mission Board paid my expenses, and, when I returned from Summer
study and began work at the hospital, I was paid $50 a month by the
Board. Dr. Bohn welcomed me back, invited me to sit in on the diagnostic
staff semi-weekly meetings and gave me a master key to the wards. I did
part time visiting on the wards, some counseling, accepting calls from
patient's pastors and was elected President of the New York State
Protestant Chaplain's Association at a meeting at Central Islip, Long
Island. We worked to get Governor Dewey and the legislature to approve
full time clinically trained persons in all hospitals and prisons. (I
was the only trained man in upstate New York). In 1953 Governor Dewey
suddenly announced a plan to carry out this proposal but he offered only
$4,200 salary with no extras. (I had thought of applying but not at that
low salary. I was soon to be out of my "moonlighting" job).
Joel Keller Schiffman was born September 15, 1951 after a difficult
pregnancy. In fact, we were not sure he would make it, but everything
turned out fine. Dr. Lahvis attended at the Memorial Hospital in Gowanda
and Mathilda stayed the full nine days. The boys were pleased with their
new brother who entertained them in style. Though he was a restless
fellow, especially nights, and Mathilda spent many midnight hours
quieting his fretting.
Having voted for Norman Thomas through 1948, it was a pleasure in
'52 to support Adlai Stevenson, an intelligent and wise man. I was
already anti-Nixon for his vicious campaign against Voorhis in California
in 1948. And Eisenhower was one who stood for nothing with a flourish,
plus a miserable fumbling with words. We all went to Dunkirk to see
Adlai when he made a whistle stop and we took pictures. His defeat was a
great disappointment. The antics and witch-hunting of Senator McCarthy
was threatening and Nixon's "tricky" character and "Checkers-Cloth Coat"
speech were disgusting. He later told a group of TV Execs how he had
staged the whole show. It was a time of fear and accusations.
In June, 1953 I was a WNY delegate to the General Synod at
Heidelberg College, Tiffin, Ohio. On the second day there, Herbert
Bloesch, then President of the No. Illinois Synod and Robert Stanger,
Chairman of its Mission committee stopped and asked me if I would like to
come to Elmhurst, Illinois and start a new congregation. I got some
details and went home over the weekend to Gordon's high school graduation
and to talk with Mathilda. Went back to Tiffin and talked with Bill
Halfter, an ex-schoolmate, now a professor at Elmhurst College and a
member of the group starting the new church. I was scared of the idea of
preaching to those who were my former professors, former school mates, to
college students and the educational level of the membership. Bill said
that I would "grow" on the job.
We started correspondence with the Pulpit committee and agreed to
visit when we took Gordon to enroll at Elmhurst College in September.
Henry Damm, National Missions Secretary urged me to consider Elmhurst or
an opening in Omaha, Nebraska. (Omaha turned out to be a dud in five
years).
Got along well in Elmhurst at several meetings and agreed to return
November 7, to resign Gowanda after that date and move February 1, 1954.
They had 43 members, met in an auditorium at Field Elementary School for
Services, had put a $500 option on a site which they later gave up to the
Presbyterians. They were a highly enthusiastic group and attracted
denomination-wide attention especially among ministers who had attended
Elmhurst College. It was to be controversial for a long time and I know
many wondered why I took it and how I could possibly handle it.
Leaving Gordon at College, we went home to keep our secret, to begin
closing the cottage and Gowanda work. Gowanda had an 80th anniversary
that Fall and the following Sunday I went to Elmhurst, preached to
satisfy the procedures of "trial sermon and Call", was elected and
negotiated - $4,800 plus utilities and parsonage or housing. Returned to
Gowanda to resign and pack. Closed the cottage and put it in the hands
of a real estate dealer who did nothing for six months.
Moving was hardest on Harold who was a Junior at Gowanda High and
certain to be valedictorian at graduation. We had explored the
possibility of his entering the University of Chicago as an exceptional
student because he was completing his credits for graduation in three
years. He was accepted at Chicago but we decided against it. Getting to
York High, Elmhurst was most competitive, but he made high grades,
National Honor Society and earned scholarships.
Mathilda went ahead with Glenn and Joel while Harold and I drove to
Elmhurst. On my first day there I met with a Chicago Church Federation
committee to discuss Bethel's and a Presbyterian group's application for
site approval. Our St. Peter's Church leaders did not want us and
Congregationalists did not want the Presbyterians. After much wrangling
and political trickery by those opposed, we withdrew our site option on
condition that we could secure a site in a new development next to the
Junior High School. There was much bitterness by some lay people and
ministers which lasted for years.
Bethel rented a house in a lovely area at 376 Arlington Avenue for
two years. It was an old but comfortable place and we knew we had to
move when the owner returned in two years. I went right to work calling
on prospects and having many meetings with church leaders. We were
"blessed" with many Chiefs and few Indians!
We went back to the Gowanda cottage the first Summer to sell it.
Had no luck with real estate dealers so we did our own advertising. Had
no luck with that either. Grandpa and Grandma Keller came to visit, he
wrote a very descriptive ad: "gateway to Zoar Valley, deer crossing,
panoramic view, etc." and we had forty-two callers the next Sunday. We
sold it to the first couple on a "deed of contract", and sold the
mortgage two years later to the Gowanda Loan. We later used part of the
income to go to Europe in 1959 as a twenty-fifth wedding anniversary
trip.
McCarthyism was rampant until he accused the Army of being "soft on
communism" and even Eisenhower who had been very quiet about McCarthy,
joined in criticizing him. There were Senate hearings which we watched
daily on TV and it was satisfying to see McCarthy demolished publicly by
Attorney Welch. But Nixon was hinting that President Truman and his
Secretary of State Dean Acheson had "coddled communists". It was a
suspicious and devisive time.
Gordon had a job at the post office. He worked hard, I even
cautioned him once when he was on a 4AM to 6 AM shift and trying to keep
up his studies. I was out every afternoon calling on prospects and
drinking too much coffee in each new house that had a "move-in". Joined
the Kiwanis which was a fortunate occurrence for I made friends with a
number of local men who later were of help to us in a number of ways -
lawyers, the Mayor, suppliers, contractors, school-men. Through our
church member on the City Council we concluded a deal for five lots next
to the Junior High School as the subdivision opened nearby. And through
my good friendship with Superintendent Maurice Turner, we were able to
shift our Sunday Services to the auditorium of the Junior High School.
We erected a huge billboard on the site, sent out 60 doorbell
ringers on Sunday afternoon, made two area mailings and gained members
steadily. Grandpa and Grandma Keller came up, arriving late one night in
a rain storm. In fact, very late in the evening, Mathilda sent Harold up
to the corner to watch for them, a move I thought was futile. Lo,
Grandpa drives by and calls out to Harold for directions!
Grandpa looked at lots and finally proposed building a house at cost
for the church. The Council dragged its feet for a long time and finally
turned him down---without a word of thanks for the offer. They thought a
house debt would slow the financing of a church building. In January of
1956, we had a notice to move from 376 Arlington by June 30. The Buik
Foundation offered us $5,000 if we would match it as a $10,000 down
payment on a house. We chose the house, 449 Webster Avenue and then
hustled to raise the money. I wrote to everyone I knew, begging for
gifts. We made it. But it was with deep personal regret that we could
not take Grandpa Keller's offer and later have 15 years equity in a
house. We moved to Webster Avenue late in June, 1956.
The building committee for the church had a slow time of it---chiefs
and prima donnas again---trying to make their own plans, exploring
useless avenues and unhappy with my pressure. Along with that was a
flood of new people who wanted a piece of the action. And the founders
who did not want to give up their leadership. It all turned over in
January of 1957, when a new group was elected, formed new committees and
moved ahead. But not before the old group had tried to get me to resign.
Harold had been accepted in 1955 at Washington University,
University of Chicago, Harvard, and Antioch College. He chose Antioch
and we drove to Yellow Springs, Ohio with him, then went on to Berea,
west to Memphis and to Dixie Lodge to pick up Glenn and Joel. In the
Winter of '56 we made the first of a number of trips to Florida to Carl
Witt's. Pris. Molnar stayed at our house with Harold and Glenn, and
Joel was at Irma's in St. Louis.
Construction started on the Church in the Fall of '57 and dedication
was the following November, 1958. Financing was tough. We had been
promised a loan by a local banker who then learned he had bank board
members from a rival church who did not want us to have the money. We
quietly followed every lead without result until spring when a Hungarian
Insurance company in Washington, DC agreed to the loan. One of our
members, Gus Molnar had sought it out. Construction was going on and
finally ended after a long struggle with plans, money and some founders.
On an earlier page I mention the Elmhurst-Eden plan of my college
days when I ended up with no degree. I enrolled at Elmhurst College in
'55, took 8 AM classes and in two years completed the requirements. I
was graduated in Gordon's class in '57 but did not take part in the
ceremonies so as not to diminish his honors. Gordon had lived at home in
his last year at college, made good money at the post office and paid all
his bills plus buying a new car. He and Lois Bruggeman were married in
our Oak Park Church on June 8, 1957 and he went to work at Wilson
Sporting Goods Company.
I was President of Kiwanis in 1957 and Mathilda and I got a trip to
the Convention at Atlantic City in June. Harold had a summer job at
Roscoe (Buik) Laundry, we took Glenn and Joel to Dunkirk and while at
Atlantic City, they flew to Boston where we drove to pick them up. That
Fall Harold went to University of Freiburg, Germany for a year and
Mathilda went to New York City to see him depart. He was on the high
seas when "Sputnik" was launched and when he got to Europe he did not
know what they were talking about.
While Harold was in Germany, he wrote some articles for the Elmhurst
PRESS. He also spent a Summer in Russia in 1963. We went with Glenn to
his graduation in Antioch in '61. Harold then went to Paris for two
years with the American Friends Service Committee for his alternate
military service as a C. O., then back to the University of Chicago.
While at Chicago, he lived at the nearby Quaker House. Glenn stayed
there also one Summer while working at a Southside steel mill. Harold
got a year's study grant in India and then a year teaching at the
University of California, Davis Campus. In 1967, he moved to Seattle to
teach at the University of Washington. One day he called to say his
thesis had been accepted at the University of Chicago. (They really
gave him a rough, almost mean time of it). We threw a party to
celebrate. He received his Ph.D. at Chicago in June, '69.
Inez Tarbell, a trained Director of Christian Education took over
the whole Church School program for me as a Bethel member, a tremendous
help (and relief). She was followed by the Saldanas, Polaks, and
Veatchs, all able people. Polaks also had youth meetings in their
basement rec. room and Glenn was part of that beginning group. We moved
along until '61 when we had to go to three church school sessions as well
as two Services of Worship.
About this time, I heard of a Women's Club Speaker's Bureau at the
Chicago Art Institute. I asked for a hearing, spoke before 600 State
program chairwomen and by the end of the week had 42 engagements for the
next year ("moonlighting" again). The same speech, "If I had Three
Wishes" was eventually given abut 150 times in Northern Illinois,
Wisconsin, and Indiana.
In early '59, we decided to take part of the money we gained from
the cottage sale and go to Europe as a wedding anniversary trip. In
applying for a birth certificate at Albany, New York, I learned for the
first time that, though my baptism certificate at St. Mary's read "George
Merl Schiffman", I was not George at all. But to this day some of my
relatives write to me as G. Merl.
In late July, we went to Killorglin, County Kerry, Ireland to visit
David Sullivan, my mother's cousin. Spent an interesting day with him
visiting the Moroney homestead, looking in the old cemetery for
gravestones with no luck and learning of David's brother Timothy who I
did not know about until then. Timothy's wife Mary of Reen and her son
and daughter are still there.
To London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris and Geneva each two days of
sightseeing. In the latter four we were guided by Church World Service
people. On Lake Geneva by boat to Montreaux where Harold had spent a
Summer as a Junior abroad. Then to Zermatt, Grindlewald, Murren,
Interlaken and Berne. Then to Frieburg, Germany to visit Harold's
friends. Rented a car and drove through the Schwarzwald to Heidelberg,
visited Hassloch (Keller's birthplace) and to Trier where we found
Mathilda's relatives (the Denzers) on the Weis side. Arrived in Trier
when the pilgrimage to the "Holy Robe" was the year's event. Sailed up
the Rhine to fly from Frankfurt to Berlin, (then isolated) to visit Dr.
Lahvis' sister-in-law and on to Bremerhaven where we taxied a few miles
to Bramel. There we stayed overnight with Schroeder's, she being my
grandmother Schiffmann's first cousin. Home by ship Berlin, an old boat
that took ten days for the trip. It was an exciting journey in
sightseeing, visiting people, moving at a pre-planned pace that was
exhausting but memorable.
Glenn was a great baseball fan. At the cottage he batted stones
until he wore out the bat. At Elmhurst, watching a TV game, he would
dash out and pitch to the side wall of the house to a lineup for hours.
His early favorite was Al Rosen. Glenn went all out for John F. Kennedy
as a high school student, as we did.
Elizabeth Anne was born July 2, 1960. Before that Gordon had been
drafted into the Army after a vigorous medical protest about his asthma.
He was sent to Fort Riley, Kansas and was medically discharged in about
three months. The medic there said he should never have been passed by
the Chicago examiners as every inductee cost about $10,000 to process
into the Service.
I landed in the hospital in September, 1960 with a "coronary
insufficiency" under Dr. Martin Stoker's care. It gave me a pause for a
while but it turned out O.K.
Glenn was admitted to Knox College in the Fall of '61 with a partial
scholarship. He worked at Elmhurst College on Summer maintenance and two
Summers at a South Side steel mill where he had an arm injury and at
another time a sprained ankle. We drove to Galesburg, Illinois regularly
to transport him, and to attend Parent's day. Glenn did very well in
school and was graduated in '65. He took off for California at once -
and we were very sad at his immediate departure. He did his CO work at
San Francisco State, got in his class work and was graduated Master of
Fine Arts in '68.
In 1961 we began surveys for church expansion. The boom was still
on, so we did not see the impact of Vietnam, the declining birth rate,
the increasing high cost of living in Elmhurst (for young couples), the
sit-ins, Selma, and a Christian Athlete, "positive thinking" guy at St.
Peter's across town. We peaked at about 550 members and 280 in the
Church School in 1962 and then it was downhill to about 375 and 120 in
1967. I thought about leaving because a change might be indicated but
was reassured by those in charge not to. And we had a stronger response
from those remaining---and better programs.
While purchasing items for the new building, I remember the Friday
afternoon in November when we were in the lobby of the Furniture Mart in
Chicago and the word was passed around that President Kennedy had been
shot. In fact, the stories were that Vice-President Johnson had also
been shot. It was a grim and stunning experience affecting almost
everyone, especially young people. The church was filled on Sunday
morning with people obviously looking for something to be said. Whatever
one said was not enough.
President Johnson was not high on my favorite list. He was
arrogant, pompous, sometimes simpering, had brassy daughters, yet he put
through some of the boldest civil rights legislation ever written.
Caught up in the Vietnam war, however, he lost his perspective and ended
up isolated in the White House and withdrawing when he knew he could not
win in '68. But he still ran the '68 convention in Chicago and brought
disaster to Hubert Humphrey who was afraid to oppose him.
I was elected first Moderator of the new Chicago Association (370
Ministers and 200 Churches) and for seven years was on the Committee on
Church and Ministry---being chairman twice. I attended the General Synod
at the Palmer House in Chicago in '65, Mathilda going along and staying a
few days. I taped five three and a half minute meditations for CBS-TV to
be used as early morning openers or late night closers for affiliated
stations and got letters and cards from around the country for the next
two years. I also did the same for local WGN-TV and they used them over
and over again as well as the voice on WGN radio.
We went to Chautauqua one Summer vacation. Met Karl Menninger, the
famous psychiatrist and Nel Ferre' a well known theologian. Marched with
Martin Luther King, Andrew Young, Dick Gregory up State Street in Chicago
in '66 to post civil rights demands on the City Hall door. Also marched
several times in Elmhurst with College students and faculty at the time
of Selma, Vietnam and the Cambodian invasion. On one of the marches
Mathilda and Lois, Jon and Elizabeth walked, though I carried Jonnie most
of the way. Raised money to help college students get to Selma and when
I couldn't get money for the bus fare, I persuaded people to give me
funds for food for the marchers. Jon Gordon Schiffman was born July 12,
1964.
I had a feeling I was suspect as many protesters were and believe we
had an agent in one Sunday morning Service. If I ever checked right-wing
Edgar Bundy's Wheaton list (he of the claim that Girl Scouts were
communist directed) or the Christian Conservatives in Cincinnati, I am
sure I was on their list. Feelings were strong, I had a
sermon-discussion one Sunday on the Moral Issues of Vietnam and made a
few families mad enough to leave the church.
Protesters were sitting in buildings, holding faculty members or
administrators hostage, marching in Washington ( and scaring Nixon into
hiding). It was a restless and revolutionary time and the church had a
hard time being relevant. But I believe it was more relevant in the '60s
than it had been before---or even now.
I heard from Marge Veatch about a program for retarded children and
teenagers at nearby George Williams College. It included painful
kicking, slapping and whacking with a stick when the blindfolded youths
missed a word or failed to immediately respond to instructions. I went
out to see the instruction and told Mathilda about it. One morning she
was listening to a Studs Terkel radio interview and afterward called him
and told him of the school program. He cussed and referred her to
special feature writer Lois Wille of the Chicago Daily News. Mathilda
called her and Wille wrote a series of articles on the techniques which
shut down the program and brought the State's Attorney in to examine it.
Fred Beyerman and his wife Lelia were our very good friends from the
first days at Bethel. Fred was with the Daily News and eventually
assistant managing editor. I always thought his high churchmanship was
reflected in the handling of the news---especially the first five pages
which were his daily responsibility. Lelia was a local reporter and gave
us full publicity. They had a charming family but as the years passed
Lelia's drinking became increasingly a problem and when Fred retired he
found the isolation and her condition intolerable. He shot her and
killed himself one morning, ending two lives that were among the finest
we had known.
Glenn was married to Betsy Stuelke on June 21, 1967. With Joel we
flew out to California and made it our vacation trip with a tour of
Northern California including the Mr. Lassen area and the Northern coast.
Mathilda had a family party for Glenn and Betsy, her parents and our
relatives at 449 Webster the previous Labor Day.
Late in the Fall of '67 Jacquie Peters asked me why I was not
considered for an honorary degree at Elmhurst College. I told her how it
worked and after New Year's Day, she organized a campaign of letters and
recommendations to the President and Faculty. Mathilda and I knew all
the details as they progressed but had to keep very quiet. By April via
leaks, the day arrived when the Board considered the recommendations of
the faculty. Somehow I had forgotten all about the event that afternoon.
When I arrived home Mathilda said the President wanted me to call. He
told me I was nominated for the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Along with
Senator Adlai Stevenson III, Congressman John Erlenborn and two others,
the event took place on June 1, 1968. My friend Dr. John Jump nominated
me. Mathilda did a grand job of bringing in the family to celebrate.
Glenn and Harold drove the VW from Seattle. There was lunch at the
President's home, a lawn party afterward at 449 Webster arranged by the
church folk and special altar flowers in the morning Service. (See red
book). She also arranged to give Biblical plaques and a Jerusalem Bible
to the Elmhurst College Library in my honor. Three weeks later the
congregation had an after-church social to honor me on my 35th ordination
anniversary and gave us the Sony TV set.
The Democratic Convention that Summer was literally a riot and we
listened to the continuous news coverage of Grant Park and Michigan
Avenue police violence against the demonstrators. Joel and I went in the
night after the Conrad Hilton Battle and saw the barricades, wall to wall
police and the shambles in Eugene McCarthy headquarters. When the score
was added up in the 60's, Mayor Daley was a major factor in precipitating
protest and brutal attacks. I toured the West Side after Martin Luther
King was shot and saw the acres of burning buildings and remembered
Daly's "shoot-to-kill" order.
In the Fall of '68, hurrying to conduct a College communion Service
one Sunday evening, I had another coronary attack. Light and home from
the hospital in eight days. But Mathilda began to press for early
retirement.
In the Fall Joel went to Illinois College, Jacksonville. He said he
wanted to go to a small school after the huge size of York High. Joel
had been the lad of the house since Glenn left in '65. He had worked at
Mel Crum's Printing Shop (as Glenn and Harold did), had been a custodian
at the Church and worked on the summer cleaning staff of the Elmhurst
schools. In June of '69 we went to Boston, Mass. for I was an Illinois
Conference delegate to the General Synod. Mathilda stayed at the Hall's
in Hamilton while I was at the Statler. At that time I asked Harold
Wilke if I might be considered for the pastor's delegation to Germany
some year. He said yes.
In April, '70 we took a trip to Seattle to Harold's and to L.A. to
Jim Schiffman's. On the day we got home Gordon called, came and asked if
he could stay with us awhile. Soon it was obvious that his stay was more
permanent. Both children came each weekend and our role was tip-toe.
They were confused and hurting. Fortunately Gordon traveled a lot so his
mind was on that also. But he had troubled days and we were glad we were
able to have a place for him during a trying time. He was divorced in
1971.
In mid-'70 I applied to the National Committee on Ministry for one
of ten places on the Pastor's tour of Germany in '71. In alternate years
ten pastors went to Germany and ten came to USA, as guests of the National
Church. On December 24, 1970 two great things happened---I got word that
I was accepted for the Pastor's Tour. And I read an advertisement in our
National Church paper asking for retired ministers to supply small
churches in Arizona.
In February of '71, our member Kent Smith of WKBW-TV, Chicago called
to say they wanted a news story on what was happening to the Churches -
decline of members, criticism of their social action, etc. I referred
him to several sources but the next week John Drury, the newscaster
called and said they wanted an interview in a Church with a Minister.
Would I? He and his staff came out and we taped for three hours in the
Sanctuary and the Study. He used two minutes of it on the five o'clock
news! (See file for original tape and overset).
We drove to Michigan for a Keller family gathering at Kreichelt's
farm as farewell to Mathilda and me. And two weeks later we left for
Ireland (late August), visited Killorglin (both Timothy and David have
since died), drove the Ring of Kerry, had a jaunty cart ride and back to
Shannon for a medieval meal at Bunratty Castle next to the Shannon Motel.
In London we had a foul-up in our travel arrangements so that our luggage
went to Frankfurt though we didn't make the plane. I was sent ahead on a
first class flight to capture the luggage and Mathilda followed three
hours later. But then we could not get to Koblenz that night so stayed
in a hotel near the Bahnhof. The next morning on our way to the train we
heard someone shout "Hey, Merl" from across the Platz. It was Bob Moss,
President of the United Church of Christ on his way to a World Council
committee meeting.
We spent several days with Mathilda's cousins, the Burgomeister
Heinrich Denzer, whom we had met in Trier in '59. We took a one day trip
to Koln from there. Mathilda spent a month there, visiting Hassloch and
touring Rotenburg and keeping house while the Denzer parents visited
Paris.
I left Mathilda, returned to Frankfurt to meet 10 UCC pastors and 5
Canadian pastors who were to be the group of National Church guests for
30 days. We all made a boat trip down the Rhine to Bonn and had dinner
at the Bundeshaus. We split in 3's, Olsen of Iowa, Forsythe of Canada
and I went to Westphalia Provinz. The church office of the provinz had
not previously had a program of pastor's visits. They treated us royally
and exhaustively. We made five or six visits in four or five different
towns each of the twenty days, being turned over to another host the next
day. We ate prune-kuchen morning, noon, and night. Once, in a rush
between towns, our chauffeur driving a big Mercedes drove 200 kilometers
an hour (130 miles an hour), turned to ask if he was going too fast for
me! I got a chance to make a quick trip to Diepholz, Westphalia and get
a copy of my father's and Aunt Jennie's birth certificates and a picture
of St. Nicolai Kirche where they were baptized (see file).
On the 20th day in Westphalia we were driven from Munster to
Bielefeld with the vice-president of the Deutsches Bundesrag, Frau
Lisalotte Funke. From there we drove to Hamburg, flew to Berlin, got our
instructions, repacked and crossed the border into East Germany. There
our hotel accommodations were not available; we walked to the Police
Station, spent six hours with one officer making out papers, found a meal
at midnight in the Bahnhof and back to the hotel where our rooms were
open. We were up at five AM to eat and catch a train for Halle an der
Saale, then to Merceburg, Dessau and Wittenberg. In Merceburg the
discharge from 5 smoke stacks at a butane plant got to my throat and head
and I coughed for three days plus a headache. I noticed the local people
were pale and listless. In Dessau where they had not talked with an
English speaking person in nine years, we had a police guard outside our
hotel each night, "To keep us from being disturbed". And the man who
started following us in Halle was still with us and did so until we got
back to East Berlin. (See full story "A Fabulous Journey" in file).
Mathilda meanwhile had been busy at Denzers and her side trips.
After ten days in East Germany, I came back through the "Wall", bought a
Herald Tribune and an orange at the Freidrichstrasse Bahnhof, checked
into a hotel, repacked, called Mathilda and was fog-bound the next
morning at Templehof Airport. Got to Frankfurt on time, repacked again
with Mathilda's things and Denzer's wine and flew home on September 30.
Our flight was North over the English channel, England, Scotland and over
beautiful Greenland and the Hudson Bay. Our view was most unusual as the
area is often cloud-covered.
Before leaving for Europe we had been corresponding with the Arizona
Conference Minister. In May of 1971 the Senior Minister of our big
church in Sun City, AZ called and invited me to come down and look
around. He had two vacancies on a staff of five. Mathilda and I had
checked our pension, Social Security and other income so the time had
come to decide. We flew to Phoenix in June, stayed at K. K. LIlien's,
checked in at Sun City and after a visit with the Conference Minister,
also checked other openings. Chino Valley looked more like the place
where we wanted to permanently live. Chino was a part time supply, good
climate and had a parsonage. We gave them a list of terms on which we
would come, went home and told the family and congregation what we had
been up to---and we would let them know. Attendance went up every Sunday
at Bethel until I resigned in July, effective November 15, having had an
O.K. on all terms from Chino Valley.
October 1 we started packing, being entertained and closing down
Elmhurst life. Joel was home, having lost his job at the TV station in
Jacksonville after dropping out of school for a semester. He went to
work for the Elmhurst Street Department. Gordon was also with us, though
traveling most of the time. Dates stacked up fast for lunches and
dinners. Even the Chicago Association had me to a luncheon and gave me a
plaque---never having done that before. We had a big garage sale and
sold a lot of things we later needed. On every move, I've made some dumb
mistakes!.
We packed and ate until November 6 when a huge crowd came to a
farewell dinner. I wish I had taped the remarks of the various
presidents. The following Sunday was another farewell after the Service.
They gave us the Oldsmobile, "Minister Emeritus" status and a framed
picture to be hung in "Schiffman Hall".
IV
We drove to St. Louis and on to Chino to confront a stopped up
kitchen sink and drain line in the parsonage for over a month. I was
homesick for Joel and Elmhurst plus some retirement trauma. Joel had
lost his job with the city so, with his consent, we enrolled him at
Arizona State University for February 1, 1972. After much communication
he started out, got the flu, and finally arrived on Friday, January 29.
We were glad to see him! On Monday we drove down to ASU in Tempe. He
got settled, coming up every Friday night and returning Sunday afternoon.
He went to Summer School and also stayed with us part of the Summer.
Heidi arrived in the Fall of '72 at ASU.
In the Spring of '72 we looked around a bit, liked Prescott's
Antelope Hills and the golf course area and bought a lot at 16 Perkins
Drive for $4,250. One year later we were offered $10,000 for it. We
checked our finances, had the benefit of Mathilda's inheritance from her
Uncle Gus Weis and her Father's estates, checked some contractors and
finally started plans. Mathilda laid it out, and though it was my first
experience with a scale ruler, we drew plan after plan until we had what
she wanted. We said we could afford it if it did not exceed $23,000.
Our builder said he could do it for $19,000. With price controls off and
costs skyrocketing, we finished at $37,000 (not including the lot and my
labor).
In June we drove to Chicago and St. Louis. I flew to Gowanda for
the Church's 80th anniversary and in St. Louis we attended the 80th
birthday party of Mathilda's godmother, Aunt Emma Keller. Late in June
of '72, we drove to Arcadia, California for Gordon and Dorinne Johnson
Garside's marriage.
It was interesting to us that we were living much more simply, and
putting half our income into savings. This enabled us to get what we
wanted in the house without using too much capital. Our three year
savings above living costs made quite a difference in paying for
construction. We risked building with a builder who was somewhat
unreliable, drank weekends---but was capable in layout, cement, masonry,
carpentry, plumbing, rough electric and roofing, all for $7 an hour. We
debated---and decided that if we did not have him, we could not afford to
build on these plans.
First we ran into design problems with the City Engineer. He
obviously did not like to deal with an owner-builder. Then we stirred up
the neighbors with our story-and-a-half structure. It was perfectly
legal in the area covenant but several neighbors couldn't read. Then the
builder stalled. Finally in June we trenched, poured concrete and then
stalled again. Meanwhile Joel and I cleaned up the yard, bough 1,400
used brick from Prescott's old Junior High School and cleaned them for
later use as sidewalks. And we got the septic tank and drain field in.
We started framing lumber August 13, 1973 and moved along, the only
problem was getting laborers until September 15 when the economy slumped
and we had laborers at the job looking for work every day. We made
steady progress in a certain routine. I worked everyday, returning on
Saturday and Sunday afternoon with Mathilda. I looked down the road
every morning to see if the builder was coming to work. He usually did
but when he didn't come, he never told me. And I could be sure he would
leave every Tuesday noon for lunch, tell me what he would do after lunch,
leave all his tools out and never come back in the afternoon. Yet,
having started with him, we had to go with him. We did, taking off in
October to go to Bethel, Elmhurst , driving to Phoenix, leaving the car
with Joel and airlining to Chicago.
We moved right along through Winter and Spring, concluding our
builder's work in March. Mathilda and I then worked everyday painting
the interior, laying floors, finishing trim. We took off for Joel and
Heidi's wedding on June 1, 1974 in Jacksonville, Illinois.
Since Spring, I had been moving items every day in the car.
Mathilda would pack boxes and I hauled them to the upper floor. We also
got another good carpenter who moonlighted from his cabinet-installing
job. Finally we moved in on July 21, 1974. After that it took a year of
finishing and trimming until about July, 1975 when we could say that the
construction items on our work list were about completed, twenty-five
months after we started. It would be several more years before we would
get many little things done.
While working on the house, the major event of the time was
"Watergate". Having strong feelings about Nixon for over 25 years, we
felt he was in the action up to his neck. We watched and read as the
story unfolded and the explanations unraveled. The House Committee
considering his impeachment acted with surprising dignity and
seriousness. Prosecutors were of a first rate caliber. It was
frightening to see a crisis develop, satisfying to see some of the most
arrogant persons ever in White House positions crumble as their lies came
apart. Nixon, Mitchell, Haldeman and Ehrlichman were the major ones,
though some like Kleindienst and Mardain escaped with a slap on the
wrist. One particular rascal Colson even got himself converted and now
goes about telling about being "born again".
It was a shabby time. Vice-President Agnew had resigned in
disgrace. Gerald Ford was appointed Vice-President and defended Nixon
though he later admitted being aware of Nixon's guilt. Then, after Nixon
resigned, Ford as President pardoned Nixon! Nelson Rockefeller was named
Vice-President, a wealthy show-off, a glib "ham" from New York State
Governorship days.
It has recently been a time of general deterioration of character,
truth is at premium and citizen apathy results from not knowing who to
trust. I call it the legacy of 25 years of Tricky Dicky.
Since settling in the house we have made two more trips East, one in
early April of '76 for Mathilda's Confirmation class 50th reunion. And
in the Fall I went to Dunkirk church's 120th anniversary, while Mathilda
stopped in St. Louis for the Ed. Hall visit including Barbara and her new
husband Horst from Germany.
Glenn wrote early in '76 that he and Betsy were separated (divorced
in August). Such things are of sad moments to us. Joel and Heidi are
living in their own home in Tempe. Harold returned from a sabbatical in
India in early '76 and spent a month in St. Louis on a research project.
And Gordon and Dorinne bought their apartment in Indian Head Park,
Illinois.
As I read over these many lines, I notice a great emphasis on
"work". Perhaps I have mentioned it too much. Yet work was what enabled
my brothers and me to help our folks when we were boys. Work put me
through school which I could not otherwise have done. And work kept me
running fast to provide for our family when the boys were young. They
helped me immensely when they were old enough and had jobs. I have
always lived with the fear that I would not have enough to provide for
family needs. And sometimes in early days, I didn't. I remember in
about mid-'65 that I began to feel secure, that my work provided
sufficient family income and something to save.
If at times it seemed to the family that I was always off to work,
it was true. I felt that if I did not do my job, a good living was not
to be ours. So I worked and Mathilda was a wise manager and we had some
things and accomplished some things I didn't have or do as a boy.
I wondered sometimes how it would have come out if I had made it
through medical school. Then I remind myself that I most likely would
not have met Mathilda and had four such fine sons. And that, it seems to
me, is far superior to being a doctor.
Retirement has been good. Planning and building the house together
has kept us busy and happy. We enjoy each others company---with chances
to do what we couldn't do in the parsonages.
I have been so fortunate to have found Mathilda. Beautiful, wise, a
splendid mother, with excellent taste and manners which I lacked and
needed. My ministry would have been common without her presence and such
improvement in my skills came from her encouragement and strong urgings.
If I was able, she made me. When I disappointed her, I look back now
with regret.
Plus the bounty of four sons---and two daughters-in-law---who were a
pride and joy from the beginning. Each added a particular dimension to
our family life, creating and enriching it. We were socially sensitive,
peace-loving, respected, humane and enjoyed each other because we had a
good home life, with Mathilda at the center of it.
Life has been so varied. I have arrived where murder was committed,
where suicides had occurred, have seen birth and death, cheating and
lying, painful sacrifices, arrogance, frauds, repulsive snobbery and
beautiful lives that moved me deeply.
I have known the Fosdicks, the Niebuhrs, Church Presidents Moss,
Herbster, Wagner and Goebel, Norman Thomas, Paul Scherer, Sherwood Eddy,
Harold Case, John Haynes Holmes, Jim Robinson and that finest of old
lovable radicals Herman Hahn.
Now in these quieter years I find it still true, "Sometimes one must
wait until evening to see how splendid the day has been".
July 15, 1977
16 Perkins Drive
Prescott, Arizona
86301
Go to Supplement to Memoirs.