October 1955: An Organizing Meeting and a Quick Start

Those who attended a speech by Munroe Husband, received a history lesson in his remarks at the community room of the Morristown Trust Co. on Oct. 18, 1955. The outcome of that event was that in 12 days from that date, a steering committee and operating committees were formed and the first religious service held for the developing Morristown Unitarian Fellowship.

The advertised topic for Husbands, who headed the Fellowship program for the American Unitarian Association, was “Who Are These Unitarians?” and he threaded the history of religious liberalism from Socrates through Bishop Arius and Michael Servetus, and through the origin of Unitarianism from the Pilgrims (Husbands did not mention Transylvanian Unitarians) and cited all of the social institutions started by Unitarians, according to the Fellowship’s first newsletter, published sometime in December before the 17th..

More is known about Husbands’ speech than about who attended the meeting as no list of names is known to have existed and there is no list of all who helped plan the October 18 meeting.

One planner was Winfield Greenleaf, who wrote a letter to the editor of the Daily Record on October 12, noting he had read the previous days’ article about Husbands’ upcoming speech. Another worker was almost certainly Eleanor Mason, who was the last remaining founder active with the Fellowship until her death in 2014. The main driver was Marshall Deutsch, who worked with Husbands to plan the meeting and put together the publicity campaign surrounding it. Marshall worked alongside his wife, Judy, who reached out to her acquaintances.

In her memoirs (a loose collection of narratives in the Fellowship library), Mason said she met the Deutsches while attending a service at the Summit UU church. Judy Deutsch asked Mason, “‘Would you like to help start a fellowship closer to home?” Mason reported she replied ”Let’s do it” and Mason said she and the Deutsches “phoned a long list of people.” (Both families were also members of the Morristown Cooperative Nursery, founded a few months before the Fellowship.)

Key groups tapped for possible attendance were local Unitarians, apparently obtained from the AUA, although no list survives, the Cooperative Nursery and League of Women Voters.

The October 18 attendance figure should be considered soft. The number 50 was reported in a Fellowship newsletter of 1956, which reviewed the first year and an attendance 60 was reported in the Madison Eagle on November 24. A newspaper article in the Dec. 8, 1955 Daily Record claimed 100 members—there was technically nothing to be a member of—and it’s not clear if that meant those that attended the Husbands’ speech or the first service of October 30 and subsequent services. The 100 figure looks like PR puffery.

We can identify some connections that drew people together outside of the organizations already mentioned. Marshall Deutsch, Arthur Babson and John Doczi all chemists, worked at Warner-Chilcott—which would become Warner Lambert. Larry Churchill, Stuart Lloyd, Edward Zajac and George Perry were employed by Bell Laboratories. Greenleaf’s letter and a follow on by Deutsch on October 17 said Unitarianism had a special appeal to “engineers, scientists and other professional men”, There would be a lot of those when the congregation formally organized. Paul Tweed and Marsh Seiding did not work at the same company but both were involved with explosives—Tweed at Picatinny Arsenal and Steiding at the Hercules Powder Co. at one point (but not when the Fellowship was organized).

Other known Unitarians in the group were John and Vera Doczi, George and Dorothy Perry, and Robert and Evelyn McCready.

Jean Merritt and Joan Wetton were among the founding board members of the Masterwork chorus when it hired its first conductor in November 1955 and Stuart Lloyd and Ted Newlin were also members of that body—the December 1955 newsletter noted five Fellowship members also sang with Masterwork.

The largest number of founders came from the LWV. These included Mason, who helped start the LWV in Newark, Del., before moving to New Jersey; Judy Detusch, Dorothy Churchill, Dorothy Perry Joan Wetton and Lila Youngquist. Also named as “Fellowship participants” in the first newsletter were LWV first vice president, Lee Bell, and Frances Livingston, who did not join the Fellowship, while LWV president, Marjorie Olsen “attended one of our meetings [as services were called]”

It would be a busy time the rest of October.

The steering committee first met on October 23 with Greenleaf as chair; Mason, secretary, Robert McCready, treasurer. It is not known if the committee chairs were named on October 23 or slightly later with the steering committee announced on October 31 in the Daily Record. Steering committee members with assignments included the religious education committee, chaired by Gerald Quinlan; membership and hospitality by Doris Babson, Anthony Parella as secretary and Robert McCready as treasurer. Marsh Steiding headed the by-laws committee and Marshall Deutsch was in charge of the publicity committee; Vincent Richards, the program committee; Steiding, the publications committee.

The next Sunday, October 30, the Fellowship held its first service at the former Morristown YMCA building at the south-east corner of Washington Street and Western Avenue, opposite the Morris County Courthouse.. Geenleaf probably had something to do with the speed at which a facility was found. He was a member of the Y’s board of directors and was chair of its membership committee.

It would be the Fellowship’s home for almost two years.

And whatever the October 30 topic, there were seven more services before a single person signed the membership book.