A wonderful tea-time was had by all on Saturday, January 31st in Chu Hall, celebrating Morristown UU Fellowship's 70th anniversary year. We had a great turnout of old and new friends alike! Quite a few folks came in great Tea Party Attire - so many awesome outfits and hats that we had to double the number of prizes! Thank you to everyone for dressing for the occasion and making it such fun, and for sharing your teacup stories and learning some history. We enjoyed some fabulous Confections made by members and friends - I wish everyone could have gotten a prize, and I hope we get to try them again! Thank you for your contributions. In addition, Thank You to our wonderful Diana Hart and her Green Apron team, including Barbara Lucas-Chin, Sheila Battaglia, and Diane Marks, who put in many hours of prep ahead of time, and Minda Chu, Susan Oxman, Irene Mendelson, Katharina Pietrazek, Judy Bjorkland, and Carolyn Evans, who worked before, during, and after the party to make the food and the presentation so wonderful. Thanks also to Maria Yumbla, one of our custodial staff, for her work in the kitchen and smiles for all. You all rock! Thanks to Alex West for working with us on audiovisuals and to Matt Barry for the wonderful music playlist he curated - music through the decades since the 50s, and all UU-friendly! Maybe he could offer that list at our next Service Auction!?! Our gratitude to the industrious folks who came and helped us set up and stayed to help clean up: Margaret Roman, Paul Snellgrove, Andrea Zugale, Tim Davis, Kathleen Johnson Caccavale, Kendall Martin, June Perigo, and the party planning team members. A big thanks to Bob Scott, who has spent countless hours researching our history and the people who founded our Fellowship, and his articles giving us back our stories. Thanks also to Steve Parker for collating and writing the history of the building and the stories behind it. We hope to capture all this history in an album – both physical and online – soon. I’m sure there were others who helped that I haven’t listed. Thank you! We are grateful to everyone who helped make this a success. Lastly, a HUGE thank you to the 70th Anniversary Planning Team - Candice Donaldson and Nan Perigo led a great team, including Barbara Long, Bob Scott, Delina Blount, Carolyn Schwartz, Rachel Barry, and Ida Picker. And, to all the lovely folks who let us borrow your teapots - THANK YOU! Please remember to pick yours up from the mansion kitchen - they're having their own tea party in there!!

The historic Mansion is filled with unique and beautiful architectural details. How could it not be? The architects, Delano and Aldrich, who were well connected in New York City social circles, had designed homes for such notables as Charles Lindbergh and Paul Mellon. The firm also designed Kykuit for the Rockefellers, and renovated a portion of the White House for President Truman. To fully enjoy these details, and relive a little of the history of the Mansion “in its day”, one needs to know where to look. Technology can help! In connection with the Fellowship’s 70 th  Anniversary, new QR codes have been posted around the building near key architectural details. You will find these codes in clear 4x6 acrylic protectors like the two shown in the photograph. Use your cell phone to photo/scan each QR code, and it will link you to a short presentation about that area of the building. Special thanks to Tim Davis, who not only mounted the QR codes but spent hours reformatting the tour information so that it displays well on a cell phone. There are seven of these short presentations with the following themes and locations: Introduction to the Mansion, and views of the Great Hall Location of QR code: Great Hall, on the wall to the left of the double doors that lead into the transept hallway going into the Meeting Room. Who created Atlas? How did he meet E.H. Harriman’s daughter?! Location of QR code: Great Hall to the right of the Atlas sculpture on the right side of the fireplace. The Terrace Room Location: Left hand wall immediately before going into the Uhrhane-Wilson Welcome Gallery. The Library Location: In the library on the right side of the fireplace. The Second Floor – the Master Bedroom and Nursery Locations: Great Hall, right hand wall at bottom of grand staircase, and top of the staircase to the left on the corner wall. The Third Floor – the Servant’s Domain Locations: Great Hall, right hand wall at bottom of grand staircase, and Third Floor, right hand wall, just past the doorway to room 301. The Grounds and Gardens Location of QR Code: Chu Hall. Courtyard side interior wall to your immediate left after entering the double doors. Thorne Oaks – Gateways – Has been place on the register of National Historic Buildings. It is one of a small group of remaining mansions in Morristown from the Gilded Age. We hope you enjoy the Tour!

Many who first enter the doors of the Fellowship notice not only the charm of the Mansion’s Great Hall, but the Welcoming Table, staffed by volunteers who encourage newcomers with a smile, a name badge and a visitor’s information card. But the Welcoming Team is involved in much more than the Welcoming Table. Each week Noelle Jensen, current head of the Welcoming Team, sends out an email request for volunteers. Besides two people to staff the Welcoming Table, two Ushers, a  Greeter, and a Welcoming Ambassador are weekly positions to be filled. “It’s really a fun opportunity for people get involved. It’s an easy way to meet people, and not difficult to learn the routines.” Noelle encourages volunteers to sign up once a month, so staffing the positions is easier. “It’s a great way for new members to meet others, and for current members to share their knowledge about the fellowship.” Besides Sunday opportunities, Welcoming volunteers are involved with Monthly Newcomer Information Gatherings. The Welcoming Team also supports Reverend Sasha at quarterly Newcomer Luncheons, where more information about Unitarian Universalist history, the establishment of the Morristown Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, and the path to membership is shared. These monthly and quarterly events are also open to existing members who want to brush up on their UU history, as well to meet new people. Another opportunity to meet new people in our communities is by volunteering at the Morristown UU Booth at local festivals, including the Morristown Fall Festival and events at the County College of Morris. These events are a fun way to reach out to our larger community. Shifts are typically two hours. There are many opportunities to volunteer at the Fellowship, and the Welcoming Team is a fun way to get involved. Contact Noelle Jensen at noellejensen@muuf.org for further information on how to help!

Extracted From “A Good, Goodbye”, the farewell sermon of Paul Ratzlaff Oct. 13, 2002 Each of us is a vessel through which Life/God passes. Our task, for whatever time we have, is to be an ample vessel, richly pouring life through our being so that others may live more fully. I pray that in this time we keep this deep wisdom present. Many of the people visiting our congregation come seeking a deeper understanding of life than the one offered by the mainstream consumer oriented, "success" by working longer hours model that we live in. They want to experience a deeper assurance that their lives have meaning in a transcendent way, for they suffer the emptiness of much of contemporary American culture. I want you to be a shining beacon of liberal religious values in the greater Morris area. The world, this part of New Jersey needs our liberal religion more than ever. The man who created the world’s first computer animated film and became an economist who is still quoted; a still-revered aviation artist who made significant contributions to the invention of the automobile seat belt; and who, along with his wife, were nationally recognized atheists and were friends with Madalyn Murray O’Hair; a rocket scientist who patented a two-stage rocket and a liquid fuel cooling system; another who helped designed thrusters for the lunar landing module; a nationally known portrait photographer who created a method taught around the world, along with his wife, also an expert photographer; an engineer who helped develop acoustical technology for combating Soviet submarines during the Cold War; a mathematician who was worked on the Manhattan project and invented an algorithm still important for its use in data compression; a chemist who virtually invented the medical device industry. Founders of the Morristown Unitarian Fellowship were responsible for ideas and inventions that impact people around the world in their daily lives. Among the most important contributions came from Jo Kotula, the aviation artist, known for his drawings of airplanes that adorned hobbyist magazine covers for decades. As an aviator himself, it was Kotula’s flying hobby and concern for safety there that led him to contribute designs that led to the development of the automobile safety belt. He also credited as the first person to outline plans for automobile air bags. His correspondence with aviation pioneer Hugh DeHaven on the subject was eventually quoted in Congressional Hearings in 1976 about requiring air bags in automobiles. In his correspondence to DeHaven, written on May 7, 1941, Kotula gave his description for a safety bag which he described as a cushion, which could be filled with air or gas and provided drawings, although he certainly did not construct a physical model The first air-bag patents were filed in 1942, but Kotula was not one of the people who sought one, “I wish I had patented it” he said in articles published in New Jersey newspapers in the 1980s. If that were not enough, Kotula and wife Charlotte were founding directors of the Freedom from Religion Foundation (although not its unincorporated predecessor) on April 15, 1978. Both were prominent enough that they were friends with Madelyn Murray O’Hair, who could be called America’s Atheist in Chief, and won the battle against prayer in school through a Supreme Court, although the very unlikely O’Hair eventually aliencated them. And the location of the Foundation’s first chapter: Morristown, New Jersey, with several Fellowship members joining. The world’s first computer generated animated film was developed by founder, Ed Zajac, who was president of the Fellowship when ground was broken for the meeting room. In 1963, Zajac, who worked at Bell Laboratories, produced a 1.25-minute film with the catch title “Simulation of Two-Gyro Gravity-Gradient Attitude Control System” to describe how this kind of satellite would move through space. With Zajac narrating, the film simulated the motion and autorotation of a communication satellite as a succession of single phases. While the animated drawing is crude (available on YouTube), it was described by Fellowship member George Aronson, who worked with AT&T before becoming a professional photographer as being a decade ahead of anything he had seen at the time. Zajac promoted the technology in 1964 in an article, “Computer-made Perspective Movies as a Scientific and Communication Tool” that appeared in a scientific publication. He was not just a mechanical engineer and scientist. After the breakup of AT&T, Zajac moved to Phoenix, to join the Economics Department of the University of Arizona and became nationally known as an economist. Another computer pioneer was Stuart P. Lloyd, another Bell Lab’s employee. Lloyd, who worked on the Manhattan Project (but as a very young man), was responsible for what is known as Lloyd’s Algorithm or more usually, which was proposed in 1957. Wikipedia defines the algorithm as a way of” finding evenly spaced sets of points in subsets of Euclidean spaces and partitions of these subsets into well-shaped and uniformly sized convex cells” and is known as a “Volonoi relaxation”. If you don’t understand that, it’s enough to known it is widely used in data compression and especially in computer graphics and it is so influential there are articles available on the Web discussing whether it’s time to replace Lloyd’s algorithm. Another pioneer, Robertson Youngquist, served on the first Fellowship’s board of trustees, elected in January 1956 and patented a rocket motor cooling system and a two-stage rocket in the years immediately after World War II. He notably suggested the type of fuel that was adopted for the well-known experimental airplane, the X-15. Before he joined the Fellowship at its formation, Youngquist designed a rocket that blew up on its launching platform in Wanaque, N.J., basked when rocket pioneers launched rockets from there and Franklin Lakes—which was not highly popular with residents or police. While he lived in Morris County, Youngquist worked at Reaction Motors, often described as America’s first rocket company. That business also employed Alfred Mathisen, who described himself and his wife, Dorothy, both founding members, as people no one would remember at the Fellowship. While he described himself as an aerospace engineer, Mathisen was not quick to elaborate on any of his experiences, including the fact that he worked to design the thrusters for the Lunar Landing Module for Project Apollo. Finally, Art Babson, the third president, had a major impact in the field of medical devices, even though he was not widely known outside the field. In fact, Babson described himself as inventing the medical device industry. He was awarded forty-six U.S. patents on his inventions and published sixty-five scientific papers. Judging from the fact in later years he became a supporter of the Cheetah Conservation, donating 12 square miles of land in Namibia to expanding a Cheetah preservation area and 35 of his and his wife Susan’s friends attended a surprise party for him in Namibia when he turned 80, he did quite well. He found Babson Research Laboratories, which became Cirrus Diagnostics of which he was president. In 1992, that company became the Diagnostics Products Corp., and he was chief scientist there when Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics purchase DPC on July 27, 2006, and he remained in that role until his retirement in 2012. Siemens paid $650 million for DPC and judging from the purchase of the Namibia land, Babson did well from that deal and when he died in 2016, Siemens paid tribute to him.

There is $12,329 available from the Endowment Fund for grants this year.  If you are interested in submitting an application, please remember that it will need to be reviewed and sponsored by the appropriate committee. Please note the sponsors for specific types of applications: Buildings and Grounds – Facilities Committee Child or adult education programs – Director of Religious Education Environmental programs – Green Earth Ministry (GEM) Community engagement – Social Justice Committee Sunday services and supplies – Minister Furniture and equipment – Facilities Committee If you are uncertain about who your sponsor should be, please contact Sandra Persichetti . Please do not wait until the last week to request review by the sponsor. All applications are due on February 28, 2026. They can be filled out online. Please contact endowment@muuf.org with any questions! Fill out the Endowment application form online by clicking below.

Starting on February 1, Morristown UU is sponsoring a month-long food drive to support the Interfaith Food Pantry Network (IFPN) serving Morris County. Food insecurity in NJ  is a serious, year-round issue, but demand surges in winter due to holidays, higher utility costs (heating), and, this year, reduced SNAP benefits. It affects over a million residents in NJ, including many children and seniors.  What:  Non-perishable food items (canned goods, pasta, cereal, peanut butter), baby items, and essential toiletries. See IFPN’s Most Needed Items list below for what they accept and don’t accept. When:  From Sunday 2/1 through Sunday 2/22 Where:   Drop-off bins located in the Great Hall and outside of Chu Hall IFPN will gladly accept cash donations, also. You can give checks (payable to "MUUF" with Food Drive in the memo line) until 2/15. Also, you can contribute to IFPH by texting “Hunger” to 26-989 and add a note mentioning MUUF’s Food Drive. IDEAS: Fill a reusable bag for the food drive next time you go grocery shopping. Or, better yet, one per week! Involve the kids. Give them the list of items and let them (or help them) fill up a bag to share. Request contributions of food from friends and family (or share the donation text information). Share notices posted on MUUF social media on your accounts.  We're excited to be able to join our partners at the Interfaith Food Pantry in helping our neighbors get through the winter. Please join us! For more information, contact  SocialJustice@muuf.org Be sure to visit our Social Justice page frequently for updates on how Morristown UU is responding to the challenges being faced locally, nationally and globally. (click to expand)

Feb 2, 6 pm: Historical Events in February: Although February is the shortest month of the year, some rather significant events occurred throughout history that ask us to pause and recognize that hearts and flowers are not the only things to think about. Join us on Groundhog's Day, to explore some fascinating scientific, political, and cultural milestones. There will be tasty goodies to enjoy and stories to exchange. A small donation is asked to contribute to our use of the Fellowship. And you're welcome to join a small group at a local diner afterward to continue the camaraderie! Feb 9, 6pm: Love Songs and Lullabies: While many think of Valentine's Day as one of purely Romantic love, there are many kinds of love that make the world go 'round. Prepare to share a song or a few of your favorites and be prepared to tell us why you love it so. Email your selections to Sherri and Gordon at Info@GAAMC.org by February 7 to be part of the fun! There will be tasty goodies to enjoy and stories to exchange. A small donation is asked to contribute to our use of the Fellowship. And you're welcome to join a small group at a local diner afterward to continue the camaraderie! Feb 16, 6 pm: The Joys of Winter: Come join us as we talk about the season—its positives and negatives—and how we cope with the weather. We’ll also learn about the Winter Solstice. There will be tasty goodies to enjoy and stories to exchange. A small donation is asked to contribute to our use of the Fellowship. And you're welcome to join a small group at a local diner afterward to continue the camaraderie! Feb 23, 6 pm: The Florham Park Diner: Enjoy good fun & food at a reasonable price! We’ll meet at the restaurant located at 182 Ridgedale Ave in Florham Park. Please rsvp by Friday, Feb 20, to Gordon Sauer at president@gaamc.org .

You are warmly invited to our Afternoon High Tea Party celebrating: "70 Years of MUUF Through the Decades" Saturday, January 31st, 2:00 -5:00pm. Snow date, February 7th. Gift Basket prizes to be awarded: Most Distinctive Tea Cup Best Tea Party Attire (couple) Best Tea Party Attire (individual) Best Tea Hat People's Choice: Best Confection (enter when you arrive at the party) For further info, read our earlier blog post . Bring your own favorite tea cup to earn a raffle ticket for a door prize. You'll be greeted in Chu Hall by a lovely balloon arch/backdrop for pictures. Tables will have a pretty teapot floral arrangement and a teapot with hot black tea to start. Besides an assortment of teas, coffee and cold beverages will be available. You'll be invited to a buffet style tea sandwiches table, sandwiches are made by our very own caterer Diana Hart. There will also be a dessert table with some catered desserts, to win a prize bring your own favorite confection. Our own historian Bob Scott, will entertain us with pub style trivia questions. For our listening entertainment we'll enjoy a playlist of music over the past 70 years. The children will be invited to participate in a Scavenger Hunt. Remember to reserve your tickets below at just $10.00 per adult before January 25, so we can have an accurate count!

One of the executive orders that Governor Mikie Sherrill signed on her first day in office directs the state’s utility board to seek new opportunities for generating solar power. Her administration is prioritizing solar because it can be built quickly and is now the least expensive way to produce electricity. With battery storage, electricity generated from solar panels can be available at night and on dark days. Unlike electricity generated by burning natural gas or coal, solar power does not contribute to climate change. Update your knowledge about solar power by reading Bill McKibben’s latest book, Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization. Find out how solar power can be the best solution to the problem of energy affordability while mitigating climate change. On Monday, February 2, 7-8:30 pm, join Green Earth Ministry on Zoom for a book discussion of Here Comes the Sun. This book is scientifically accurate but not overly technical, and it presents intriguing social justice aspects of solar power. You can borrow the book from your public library system. At 208 pages, it’s a quick read. Register here to receive the Zoom information and a discussion guide. No time to read the book? Watch a related 30-minute documentary on YouTube, The Light Won’t Dim . Or simply join the discussion. All are welcome.

There is $12,329 available from the Endowment Fund for grants this year.  If you are interested in submitting an application, please remember that it will need to be reviewed and sponsored by the appropriate committee. Please note the sponsors for specific types of applications: Buildings and Grounds – Facilities Committee Child or adult education programs – Director of Religious Education Environmental programs – Green Earth Ministry (GEM) Community engagement – Social Justice Committee Sunday services and supplies – Minister Furniture and equipment – Facilities Committee If you are uncertain about who your sponsor should be, please contact Sandra Persichetti . Please do not wait until the last week to request review by the sponsor. All applications are due on February 28, 2026. They can be filled out online. Please contact endowment@muuf.org with any questions! Fill out the Endowment application form online by clicking below.

Are you missing some of the Mansion’s wonderful architectural details? The architects, Delano & Aldrich, had an impressive client list in their day including the Rockefellers, President Truman, Charles Lindbergh and, of course, William Thorne. Their expertise is on display in the Mansion. Would you know where to look? When it comes to all things Building, this guy does. COMING SOON! In connection with our 70th Anniversary, QR Codes that link to some of the Mansion’s special features and history. Watch for them posted on the walls in the near future!

Chu Hall needs you! If you enjoy our social hour in Chu Hall, we need your help! We need 2-3 people before the service to set up tables and chairs in Chu Hall, and 2-3 people after social hour to take down the chairs and tables and put them away. If all of our able-bodied folk volunteered for two times (set up or take down) per year, we’d have our needs for help covered. Can you step up and volunteer? Please sign up to volunteer here . Thanks for helping make our Social Hour a success!