The History of the
Unitarian Universalist Congregation

Mary Houska (August 2001)

Blacksburg, the site of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the New River Valley, is the location of Virginia’s land grant university, Virginia Tech. The Fellowship draws its members from a four county area, known as the New River Valley. The presence of this university as well as neighboring Radford University has influenced the history of the Fellowship considerably. For example, officers’ terms, programs and activities are organized around the academic year.

In the fall of 1955, three recent arrivals to Blacksburg met and decided to explore the possibility of establishing a Unitarian fellowship in Blacksburg. They were: W. E. C. Moore, a Biologist who later founded Virginia Tech’s Anaerobic Bacteria Laboratory, Herschel Elarth, a Professor of Architecture, and Herschel’s wife Wilhelmina, who held a Ph.D. from Radcliffe in Art History. Moore contacted the Unitarian Universalist Association home office on Beacon Street in Boston and, subsequently, Monroe Husbands, a Unitarian minister who specialized in getting fellowships started, visited Blacksburg. A group of about seven families applied for a charter, which was granted October 8, 1956. For its first ten years, there was a consensus leadership with responsibilities shared between the three founders and Perry Holt, a Virginia Tech Biologist.

Between 1956 and 1962, the Unitarian Fellowship of Blacksburg met weekly during the academic year in the YMCA Reading Room at Virginia Tech. Programs usually consisted of a talk and discussion led by either one of the group, a visiting Unitarian, or by someone from the community. Attendance ranged from six to twelve people. By 1962, only a few people were attending and the Fellowship considered disbanding but, after consultation with Beacon Street, they decided to meet monthly instead.

A new President, Marshall Hahn, came to Virginia Tech in 1962 determined to turn the school into a well-rounded university of some size and to attract top-notch faculty to the school. This meant that younger religious liberals started moving to Blacksburg. Young families also wanted religious education for their children. They began to join the small group meeting monthly in the YMCA Reading Room.

In 1966, Virginia Tech decided to renovate its student center so the YMCA Reading Room was no longer available. Members decided to find another meeting place, to meet weekly during the academic year, and to initiate religious education classes for their children. Leadership shifted to the new members with young families. The Fellowship was first permitted to use a room in the Baptist Student Center, but soon it was asked to leave. They then met in the basement of the Wesley Foundation building where there was a large meeting room and smaller rooms where they could set up three RE classes. By then, about twenty-five families attended regularly. The members realized that, in order to grow, the Fellowship needed its own building.

In November 1966, the Fellowship reorganized itself so that it could own property, electing as its first Trustees, Herschel Elarth, W. E. C. Moore, and Charles Burchard, Dean of Architecture at Virginia Tech. Finding a building that such a small congregation could afford was difficult. April 16, 1967, members passed a resolution to purchase a house lot for $3500 and construct a house for $21,500 because mortgage terms for a residential dwelling were much better. Herschel Elarth modified the stock plans for a ranch house with a full basement to make the house more suitable for the Fellowship’s purposes. The new building was completed in December, 1967. The down payment came from a combination of member contributions, loans from members and the UUA, and gifts from people in the community who, though not religious liberals themselves, felt strongly that the presence of a Unitarian congregation in the community was important. One long-term supporter of the Fellowship since it was founded is the Rev. Al Payne, a Baptist who was Virginia Tech’s Chaplain and also ran the YMCA when the Fellowship met there. He was one of the community leaders who donated to the Fellowship’s first building and has continued to be a participant at the Fellowship’s celebrations, including the installation services for the Rev. Rudi Gelsey and the Rev. Christine Brownlie.

Paul Field, a Chemistry Professor at Virginia Tech, was president of the Fellowship in that crucial year (1966 - 67). He devoted extraordinary energy into creating an attractive, dynamic Unitarian congregation. The format he created for Fellowship services endured for years. He introduced what became a popular annual custom for more than twenty years, a Moravian Love Feast on Christmas Eve. Jewell Field, Marcia Bruhn and MaryAnn Mattus organized and taught the Fellowship’s first children’s religious education program in the Wesley Foundation building. Two families who worked with Paul to build the Fellowship that year are still active members, the Heaths and the Houskas. Mary Houska was Treasurer from 1966 to 1970.

Membership soon doubled with families who are still active joining in 1967, the Cairns, and Herndons. The Rev. Allie Frazier, part-time minister to the Roanoke Unitarian Church held the Fellowship’s first Dedication Ceremony at the Meeting House, February 18, 1968. The custom of starting a new program year with a pot-luck picnic started in 1967 and Circle Suppers were initiated in 1968 . Although most services until the early 1980s were presented by guest speakers who were professors at nearby schools or community leaders, with discussion following the talk, gradually music, either short musical interludes presented by members or recorded music, was introduced.

From the time it was founded in 1956 until now, there has always been a split in the Fellowship’s congregation between those who want services to be simple, intellectual occasions with as few ecclesiastical touches as possible and those who want a more traditional Protestant service with a minister. This issue surfaced as a controversy between those who wanted to hire a minister and those who wanted to invest in a new building in the late 1980s.

The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time of considerable social action in the country and, in the New River Valley, Unitarians were at the forefront as leaders to bring about change. It had been the practice in the Montgomery County public schools to allow a fundamentalist layman to give Bible lessons to each Third Grade class in the County one afternoon a week. Children who did not want to participate in the lessons were made to sit alone in the hall. In 1968, several Unitarian youngsters were about to enter the Third Grade. A group of Unitarians, led by Bill Williams, formed a chapter of the ACLU that summer. He gathered the support of the ministers of the mainline Blacksburg churches and, together, they requested that the School Board drop these Bible lessons. They did.

By the early 1970s, the Fellowship moved its services down into a basement room which was larger than the living room where it had been meeting, because some services were too crowded, and talk about building a new building began. One problem was that the house lot was small with little space for parking. In 1977, the Fellowship purchased the vacant lot next door to help solve that problem. It never used the lot, but owning the lot enabled the Fellowship to get a zoning variance to build an addition to its building in 1978 creating a large main-floor meeting space which was designed by Bernard Sabaroff, another Virginia Tech College of Architecture faculty member, who had joined the Fellowship in the early 1970s.

The Fellowship first had the services of a minister on a regular basis between 1981 and 1983 when the Rev. David Kibby, a retired Unitarian minister from Pennsylvania whose daughter was a Fellowship member, agreed to lead occasional services. Though he gave only about ten services during that time period, he introduced the Fellowship to hymn singing and readings. Mr. Kibby also rekindled Fellowship interest in social action.

In 1983, members decided they wanted a closer and more frequent association with a minister and they hired the Roanoke Unitarian Church’s minister, the Rev. Timothy Ashton, as a one-quarter time consulting minister. Mr. Ashton not only led services about once a month, but he also attended Board meetings and was involved in helping the Fellowship solve its problems. His ministry to the Fellowship generated another turning point. During his part-time ministry with the Fellowship, Mr. Ashton and his wife, Gretchen, led the Fellowship through a number of self-evaluative exercises which, in turn, led to the decision to hire a part-time minister. In January, 1986, just after Mr. Ashton had left the area to become Executive Director of the Massachusetts Bay District, a special congregational meeting authorized the establishment of a search committee to hire a part-time minister. At the same meeting members voted to change the name of the Fellowship; the Blacksburg Unitarian Fellowship became the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship of the New River Valley, an action Mr. Ashton had encouraged.

The congregation also established a part-time executive secretary position at that January meeting. The title of this position was later changed to administrative assistant. Members have always filled this position. Mary Ratliff was the first AA. Wanda Brown was AA from 1988 to 1995.The current Administrator is Lisa Evanylo, a former Fellowship president.

The congregation voted January 25, 1987, to call the Rev. William David Main as its half-time minister beginning April 1, 1987. Mr. Main had an earlier career in U.S. military service before he received his Master of Divinity degree at Starr King. He introduced two inter-generational services which have become Fellowship traditions: a water ceremony in which members share their summer experiences as regular services resume in late August and a flower communion service as the last regular service in June. Bob Underhill organized the choir in October, 1988, with Arlene Herndon as its first director. Mr. Main left the Fellowship April, 1989, to become minister of the Unitarian Fellowship of College Station, Texas.

The Ministerial Search Committee recommended that the Rev. Catherine Snyder, a Presbyterian, be hired as a part-time interim minister for the 1989 - 1990 academic year. Catherine Snyder stayed in that one-fourth-time interim position until the summer of 1991 when she and her husband went to Europe on a sabbatical. During this time she gave one service a month and spent up to forty hours a month on other ministerial duties. Ms. Snyder taught the Fellowship how important it was to have a compassionate minister with good people-skills. Russell Gregory, a Professor of Religion at Radford University and an ordained Baptist minister, first gave a Sunday service in 1986. He also did some workshops for the Fellowship in the late 1980s. Starting in January of 1989, he presented one service a month and, in September, he was formally requested to do so for the year. He continued to give one service a month until the Fellowship hired a full-time minister in 1999. When Catherine Snyder came back from Europe in 1992, she resumed her monthly services, but not her ministerial duties. The congregation is fond of them both. When, in January, 1994, the congregation held a retreat to discuss what it wanted to do in regard to ministerial direction, the most popular alternative was to keep Catherine and Russell as monthly guest ministers.

Herschel Elarth had presented information to the congregation at its meeting in May, 1987, about the availability of 2.3 acres of land adjacent to the Meeting House and the congregation authorized the Trustees to seek an option and negotiate a price up to $10,000 an acre for this land. About 2.8 acres of land was eventually purchased for $30,000 and a building committee was established. The congregation voted to retain an architect to prepare preliminary plans for a new building in March, 1990. James William Ritter, a recognized church architect from Alexandria, Virginia, and a former student of Herschel Elarth, was hired. The Unitarian Universalist Association advised the Fellowship that they could afford a building costing about $300,000. Michael O’Brien, a Professor of Architecture at Virginia Tech and a Fellowship member, worked with Ritter in the building’s design. When Ritter and O’Brien’s first plans went out for bids, local contractors bid twice that. Ritter, O’Brien, and the Fellowship’s Building Committee chaired by Paul Gherman and O’Brien (who would later serve as the resident architect for the building’s construction) modified the plans so that the building cost about $325,000.

A special membership canvass raised $72,000 to be used for a down payment along with $4,100 from the newly formed Thomas Jefferson District Chalice Lighters, Fellowship savings, and the proceeds from the sale of the old building. Construction started in the Fall of 1991. Including land cost and Ritter’s fees, the total Fellowship outlay for our new building was $388,721. When the Fellowship’s lot was sold in 1995, the $17,000 was used to finish and furnish the building and to repair the parking lot.

The Fellowship held its first service in its new building in May, 1992, and held an official opening in the Fall with the Rev. David Herndon, who grew up in the Fellowship and is now the minister of the First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh, presiding. There was no money left for landscaping the building, but a newly formed "Beautification Committee" designed the landscaping immediately around the meeting house and members donated plants. The new Meeting House and its landscaping won a Town Beautification award that fall and the Meeting House won an award from the Washington, DC area chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

However attractive the Fellowship’s new building was, it did not attract additional pledging units. Then, in 1994, Catherine Snyder took the position of Presbyterian Chaplain to the Virginia Tech students and Russell Gregory chose to take a leave from us.

Members were divided in their preferences for a minister, one third wanted a full-time minister, one third wanted a part-time minister, and one-third wanted no minister. To build consensus, Morton Nadler arranged with Roger Comstock (then the Thomas Jefferson District Executive) for five young ministers to each spend a weekend with the congregation during the 1994–95 academic year to talk about what ministers do when not giving sermons in addition to leading a service. The five were chosen to reflect a variety of approaches to ministry and for personal characteristics. The result was soon an apparent consensus that we did need at least a part-time minister.

In November, Roger Comstock contacted the Fellowship leadership about the Rev. Rudi Gelsey, a retired Unitarian minister who, with his wife, Trudi, was looking for a three month "Winter Ministry" position in a warmer place than their Saratoga Springs, New York, home. A special "Miracle Sunday" raised most of the money needed to hire Mr. Gelsey as a full-time minister for three months.

Just a month after the beginning of Mr. Gelsey’s winter ministry, most members realized that the Fellowship needed a minister. Jennifer Newcomb, the president that year, wrote to members that, "our fellowship has grown too large to continue as a vibrant and caring community without the guidance and support a minister could provide. The enthusiastic response to Rudi’s first few weeks has exceeded our expectations." The congregation met March 5, 1995 to elect a search committee for a part-time minister. Mr. Gelsey decided to apply for the Fellowship’s position and the congregation enthusiastically voted to call him as their half-time minister starting in January of 1996. In the three years that Mr. Gelsey was its part-time minister, Fellowship membership almost doubled, necessitating a two-service format on Sundays during the academic year. The congregation voted in November, 1997, to change Mr. Gelsey’s position to a three fourths-time position. After Mr. Gelsey notified the congregation that he would retire in June, 1999, members voted to initiate a search for a full-time minister at its spring, 1998, meeting. It also voted to hire a one fourth-time Religious Education Director at that meeting. Kristine Reid is now the Religious Education Director.

The congregation called its first full-time Minister, the Rev. Christine Brownlie, to start in August, 1999. Rev. Brownlie received her BA in Humanities from The New School in 1970. She worked as a medical social worker in New York City for several years and is one of the founders of The Door, a multi-service agency for adolescents. She served as Director of Religious Education for the First Jefferson Unitarian Universalist Church of Fort Worth, Texas, from 1984 to 1997. She received a Master of Divinity from Brite Divinity School (Disciples of Christ) in 1997. After serving congregations in Tuscaloosa and Montgomery, Alabama, she was called to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the New River Valley. She has two adult sons who live in Texas.

It had long been apparent that having no Fellowship activity during the summer months, though often a Unitarian custom elsewhere, meant a break in continuity and caused people to loose touch with each other. Slowly, several fun activities were introduced during the summer, including pot-lucks, hikes and picnics. Arthur and Judy Snoke volunteered in 1994 to be the Fellowship’s first summer program co-chairs organizing services every Sunday. These services were less formal than the academic year services and without music or a children’s program. They continued to do this each summer. At the urging of Mr. Gelsey and with a gift from an anonymous donor, summer services starting in 1997 included services given by well-known Unitarian guest ministers and the inclusion of hymn singing and a children’s program. After Christine Brownlie became the Fellowship’s full-time minister the programming committee assumed the major role in organizing and running the summer program although Arthur continues to act as a facilitator.

Arthur Snoke also played the major role in initiating a Fellowship’s Web Page and E-mail list. He started the Web Page February, 1996, with the Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library as our server. Now the server is the Blacksburg Electronic Village and Arthur continues to handle the Web Page. Starting in September, 1997, Arthur started forwarding Fellowship messages to all members who have chosen to give him their E-mail addresses. These internet communications and a prize-winning monthly Newsletter, edited by Arthur and Judy Snoke, keep members informed of Fellowship activities.

In its fifty year history, the Fellowship/Congregation has grown and prospered not only because of the help it has received from the ministers it has hired, but also because of the dedication of a number of determined volunteer leaders. This Fellowship has been fortunate to have had presidents and other volunteer leaders willing to devote an extraordinary effort to help it succeed, some have done so for many years.

Footnotes

1. The three original founders have all died. Wilhelmina Elarth died of cancer in the 1970s. Herschel Elarth died at the age of 80 on January 19, 1988, actively supporting the Fellowship until shortly before his death. Ed Moore drifted away from the Fellowship but had started to renew his relationship when he died of cancer in 1997. In 1996 a grateful congregation named the meeting room in its new building after Herschel and Wilhelmina Elarth.
    
2. The new Fellowship building is actually on 2.85 acres. The Gladewood entrance is on land which had been part of the parcel belonging to its original building.
    
3. This total does not include interest on construction loans and various transaction costs.
    
4. This is especially true of those who have served as president. They deserve a special mention.

The Presidents are as follows:

1956–1959	W. E. C. Moore
1959–1966	Herschel Elarth
1966–1967	Paul Field
1967–1968	Chauncy [Jake] Tillman
1968–1969	Kim Bruhn
1969–1970	Bill Williams
1970–1972	Carolyn Salmon
1972–1973	Winfield Carter
1973–1974	John Winstead
1974–1975	John Winstead & Carolyn Salmon
1975–1976	Brian Davis
1976–1977	May Hipsman
1977–1978	Walt Pirie
1978–1979	Jake Looney
1979–1980	Chuck Langan & Alan Heath
1980–1981	Jane Walter
1981–1982	Bill Fry
1982–1983	Peter Vitaliano
1983–1984	Linda Ayers
1984–1985	Larry Landrum, Cecile Pirie
1985–1986	Bob Underhill
1986–1987	Larry Hambroff
1987–1988	Leslie Hager–Smith
1988–1989	Paul Gherman
1989–1990	John Randolph
1990–1991	Isabel Berney
1991–1992	Jennifer Newcomb
1992–1993	Lisa Evanylo
1993–1994	Judy & Arthur Snoke
1994–1995	Jennifer Newcomb
1995–1996	Mary Houska
1996–1997	Doug Pfeiffer
1997–1998	Bobbie Littlefield
1998–1999	Frank DuPont
1999–2000	Pat Traynor & Crosby Houston
2000–2001	Cynthia Luke
2001–2002	Barbara Taylor
2002–2003	Mike Skinner
2003–2004	Bruce Ferguson
2004–2005	Glenn Skutt
2005–2006	Dean Mook
2006–2007	Frank & Marilyn DuPont
2007–2008	Pat Traynor
2008–2009	Carol & Jim Kern
2009–2010	Darla Bray
2010–2011	Stephanie Gilmore
2011–2012	Darrel Clowes

At the Annual Congregational Meeting on April 27, 2003, the Congregation voted to change our official name (effective July 1, 2003) from Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the New River Valley to Unitarian Universalist Congregation, and we voted to change our Mission Statement (effective immediately) from

The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the New River Valley seeks to be an open and diverse community of love and support in our quests for meaning, hope and identity. We seek to model and transmit these values to our children as we serve the larger community, humanity and the environment.

to:

We are a caring and diverse community bringing spirit, love, justice, learning, and reason to our congregation and to the larger world.

In 2003 the Congregation votes to change its name to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation.

During the 2003–2004 year, the Congregation took the commitment to engage in the process to prepare for a decision as to whether or not the UUC wanted to be officially recognized as a Welcoming Congregation by the Unitarian Universalist Association. The final step in this process was an overwhelming affirmative vote at our Congregational Meeting on April 25, 2004. At the same meeting, the Congregation voted in favor of amending our Bylaws to include Welcoming-Committee specific language. Click here for a history of the UUFNRV/UUC progression towards this goal.

Reverend Brownlie, was on sabbatical February 4 through July 4 in 2007. During this time, she continued to publish her letter in our monthly newsletter, and she posted messages on her weblog. The Sabbatical Committee and the Committee on Ministries prepared a Sabbatical Brochure with answers for many of the anticipated questions concerning the sabbatical and a calendar of Sunday services for that time period.

On April 16, 2007, our community experienced a great tragedy: a student killed 32 students and faculty before taking his own life. Here is a summary that tragedy from the perspective of the UUC.

During the next couple of years after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in August 2005, Rick Kraft, a UUC member, made three trips to Mississippi to aid reconstruction efforts in areas affected by the storm. Two of these trips were sponsored in part by the UUC, and several members and friends were in the work party. Here is an article about one trip. by Jared Turner in the Roanoke Times (17 March 2007).

At our 2006 annual meeting in May, the UUC Congregation approved the construction of a new meeting hall and congregational life space with classrooms on a lower level. On September 7, 2008, the Sunday service was devoted to the Building-Expansion Dedication.

In April 2010, the UUC Memorial Committee was given Board approval to raise $10,000 for construction of a Memorial Garden. The Committee made a presentation at the June 6 Annual Congregational Meeting, and on July 8 the Board approved the Memorial Garden Policies & Procedures. On May 8, 2011 the Memorial Garden was dedicated. Read more…

In summer, 2010, Kristine Reid retired as the UUC Director of Religious Education — after 11 years of service. Sharon Day served four months as the interim DRE, and Karen Hager started as the UUC DRE on November 1.

On January 22, 2011, an article was published in The Roanoke Times about the UUC (by Mary Hardbarger) that includes a snapshot of the UUC history.

In late 2010, Rev. Christine Brownlie announced that she would retire at the end of June 2011. On May 22, 2011 Rev. Brownlie gave a sermon titled Look What We Did! summarizing the history of the UUFNRV/UUC during her almost 12 years as our minister. The link will take you to a podcast of that sermon.

Rev. Alex Richardson begins his term as Interim Minister in July 2011.

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