Early Days of the Midcoast UU Fellowship

by our first president, Roger Duncan

In 1982 it appeared to some perceptive Unitarian Universalists including Reverend Qare at Beacon Street, Reverend Joseph Barth in Alna and Reverend Glenn Turner, District Director in Portland, and to a group of local lay people that the Damariscotta region would be a fertile field to cultivate. It lay between UU churches in Augusta and Brunswick and not far from a growing UU group in Brunswick. The population in this area was growing quite rapidly, many of the new people being “summer people who didn’t know when to go home,” (that is, retired people who stayed year round).

Many of these had belonged to UU churches in their former home towns and missed the social, intellectual and spiritual associations of a church but could not accept the theology of the local church.

Accordingly, the word was passed around and announcements appeared in the newspapers of the opening of a Midcoast Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.

My journal for Sunday, October 17, 1982, records, “Mary and I dressed in our Sunday regalia and drove to the Edgecomb Town Hall for the first meeting of the Midcoast Fellowship of the UUA. About 50 people (probably an exaggeration), mostly suburban types transplanted from Massachusetts and mostly well along in years. Among them were Jack and Marcia Wilson, Howard Bass, the Ripleys, Jim and June Johnson, and others. Dan Schick seemed to be more or less in charge. The service, a traditional Unitarian one, was conducted by Glenn Turner.”

From here more or less regular services were held but there seemed to be no planned program until on November 19 we held our first Program Committee meeting at Dan Schick’s. After talking old houses and drinking coffee, the Committee decided on Reverend Robert Ives on Boatbuilding for Bad Boys on December 5, Rev. Turner on December 12 (no topic), Candlelight Service on December 19 (no leader, no music, no topic), December 26 no service, January 2 Open, Duncan in reserve.

However several good programs gave us momentum enough to get through the holiday season. Laurie James did a good program on Margaret Fuller. Reverends Lothrop and Turner filled in with thoroughly professional services on short notice, and Dan Schick read a service by Rev. Peter Richardson. Many choirs and many churches joined in an ecumenical service in November in which we were invited to take the collection. On December 5 the reserve speaker spoke, and we heard Rev. Turner again on December 12. Our first year’s program culminated in a Candlelight Service ending with carols, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Silent Night. We held no service on the 26th and were left standing on rather unsteady legs by faithful ministers and a few terrified amateurs.

We soon got going, however. On Sunday, January 9,1983 we gathered five groups to discuss our goals and purposes: Fellowship, Religious Growth, Education, Sound Organization, Worship. We still had no elected leadership, but Jean Pillimer, Dan Schick and the Davisons seemed to have an unofficial grasp of what was going on and there was always the touch of Reverend Barth’s guiding hand behind us.

Things got done. On Sunday morning, Lee Smith opened the door and turned up the heat. Reverend Leonard Helie, Jean Howe or Douglas Ludwig was at the piano. The coffee pot bubbled, and every Sunday someone turned up in the pulpit to give us intellectual and spiritual refreshment.

At first no children came. Then Dan Schick volunteered for one month to teach whatever children came. On the last Sunday of the month, one came. Soon after, Mary Duncan and Molly Eipper got into the program and when the three Ludwig children joined we began to talk seriously of religious education.

During the months before we were incorporated, the quality of services varied widely. Several were second-hand, good sermons written for other occasions and read by one of our people. Others were preached by ministers who knew us and adapted old sermons to the occasion. Some were written by amateurs among us with ideas to share. Eleanor Richardson spoke on Women in the Bible with reference to the mother of Moses, Abigail and Jezebel, and some were very special ones. One of these was not really a sermon but a skillfully guided discussion on the meaning of the letters “G‑O‑D.”

In March 1983 committee of Bruce O’Brien, Jack Wilson, Art and Blanche Davison and Roger Duncan put together from the January conference, further discussion and the help of the UUA a set of by-laws they submitted to Dennis Jumper, Esq. for review. On May 9 the by-law committee reviewed Mr. Jumper’s suggestions and on May 15, the Fellowship took two hours to approve them, at the same time refusing the gift of a heavy oak pulpit and accepting the gift of 50 blue hymnals from the Augusta church. The by-laws were accepted.

On June 2, I posted the Warrant on the Edgecomb Post Office and on the church door. On June 11, we were incorporated under the laws of the State of Maine. Officers were elected: Roger F. Duncan, President; Dan Schick, Vice President; Eleanor Richardson, Clerk-Secretary; Bruce O’Brien, Treasurer. Trustees: Jean Pillimer, Blanche Davison, Arletta Rice. During its first year the Fellowship grew to about 41 members. Attendance fluctuated from about 25 in the winter to up to 60 in the summer.

The Program Committee provided the same kind of programs as before with more emphasis on speakers from our own group and from UU ministers. We have sometimes met at other than the usual place: once at the Old Alna Meeting House, once at the Wilson Chapel on Ocean Point, twice at the Richardson’s for clambakes and twice at Les Smith’s for picnics. We met once at Joseph Barth’s home to celebrate his lilies.

Rev. Barth has made special contributions. Not only has he been an indispensable member of our program committee and helped in liaison with other UU ministers, the Northeast District, but he has conducted Sunday services in the form of discussions where we could see each others’ faces rather than the backs of each others’ heads and where participation was carefully guided.

Refreshment was provided every Sunday by various ladies of the congregation in turn, for over coffee and cakes some of our most interesting ideas are shared. Under the leadership of Mary Duncan, Molly Eipper, the enrollment in church school grew to ten by 1985. Our activities have been reported in local papers and we ran advertisements in our local papers.

We have been accepted by the Unitarian Universalist Association and by the Northeast District as formal members. We have contributed our “fair share” to their support and sent a delegate, Eleanor Richardson, to the 1984 General Assembly. We have been well represented at District meetings and workshops. We have established our legal position with the State of Maine and the IRS. Our existence has been recognized by churches of other denominations by invitations to ecumenical services.

Financially we were liberally supported.

As we looked to the future, we saw the need for strengthening our church school, our music program and our social responsibility program.

As we look back on our second year, we can view with amazement what we have accomplished. We have drawn together a group of people with mutual, liberal religious interests who have stimulated far beyond what might have been expected and in whom has grown a remarkable loyalty to an infant institution. Sunday has become again a day for shared friendships and new ideas. Just as two candles burn more brightly together than separately, so we are stronger for being together.

Roger Duncan