UUSS HISTORY PART TWO — The Long Thirty Years (1915–1945)

Inside UUSS History

With the completion of its church building in 1915, made possible only through Unitarian money from Boston, it was then thought that the little congregation would flourish under its own roof. But that was not yet to be, for thirty long years were to pass with the Society struggling in indifferent success, in brief brilliant achievements, often in long despair, but always with a central few who would not give up their cherished hope for better days. Sustained by financial aid from Boston, often doled out in amounts just sufficient to barely save the Society from extinction, through good times and bad, this is the story of those thirty years.

 

World War I Years and the Return to Peace (1916-1921)

The Reverend Charles Pease & the War Years, 1916–1918

The Society began the year of 1916 with its annual meeting on 3 January in its new church building at 1415 27th Street. Seventeen of its members were present. Mr. Charles Pease1 its minister of several years, was receiving a salary of $75 per month. The American Unitarian Association was granting financial aid of $400 yearly in addition to its help with the construction of the building which had included a $1,000 no-interest loan which was to be repaid at the rate of $100 a year for the next ten years.

During the Spring of 1917, which marked America’s entry into WWI, the membership declined to seventeen, and the operating budget of $460 had been subscribed for that year. Evidently heroic measures were needed for survival. A membership drive was undertaken in the autumn of 1917 and by the following spring there were seventy-seven members representing sixty-five families. In 1918 the pledged subscriptions came to $1,400, but the annual subsidy from the American Unitarian Association was reduced to $300.

In a report to Boston Headquarters, the Sacramento Society treasurer wrote in April of 1918:

We found that Mr. Pease had, through his tireless activity both in and outside the Church, through his public spirit and broad interests in matters spiritual, intellectual, educational, social and artistic, established himself, an[d] made himself and us favorably known throughout the community. It is due to the great public regard for him and his work that this campaign for new membership has proven so successful.

The Society has been laboring under a great handicap — our minister, Mr. Charles Pease, whose services were not undervalued, was very much underpaid. In fact the situation was desperate and something had to happen. The Board knew that Mr. Pease could not be expected to do his best work while receiving a salary entirely too small to support his family, with a wife and four children of school age to care for. We were beginning to feel that we should suffer a loss of dignity and self-respect to allow matters to continue as they were. It became our conviction that he should receive a salary of $150 per month.

If you decide you can aid us with an appropriation for the specific purpose named, viz: to put Mr. Pease’s salary on an $1,800 per year basis, it will be a great stimulus both to us and to him to do our best work.

Shortly after this letter was sent, the Directors voted to increase the minister’s salary to $100 per month as of 1 June 1918. Mr. Pease, after five years with the Society, must have been questioning the wisdom of attempting to remain in his post. With the war period, his salary had been increased thirty-three percent but the continuing inflation had resulted in a fifty percent increase in the cost of living, leaving him with less purchasing power than when he had started his ministry here. Sometime after May of 1918, Mr. Pease left Sacramento, the date not being known because Society records cannot be found for the period of July of 1918 through February of 1921.

Who Were the Unitarians in 1918?

The Society membership list of 1918 and the 1918 city directory were used to determine the church members‘ place of residence and occupation. This information gives some indication of the lifestyle of local Unitarians over half a century ago.

Of forty-eight women, twenty-six were “housewives” whose husbands were mainly in occupations of professional, managerial or skilled work; of twenty-two women not indicated as having a spouse, fourteen were teachers, four were librarians, and four were clerks. Of twenty-five men, there were two physicians and one veterinary surgeon, a president and a vice-president of a bank, the city superintendent of schools, and two high school teachers, a chief engineer of highways, a civil engineer, a legislative counsel; two assistant superintendents, one of mails and one of a life insurance company; a chief clerk, two merchant owners, three salesmen, a grocer, a court reporter, a farmer, a gardener, a bill-poster and a tinsmith. The occupations of many members indicated that they either had professional training and/or an academic degree in an era when only three percent of the population had graduated from college.

Their main area of residence was between G and P Streets, from 11th to 29th Streets, or in a minor area south of T Street which was bounded by 21st Street and Franklin Avenues. Those areas seem to have been at that time occupied mainly by middle class Caucasian families whose names indicated origin in the British Islands and Germanic Europe.


Arbor Day, 1920

The Hardy Armenian, the Reverend Mr. Fereshetian

The Sacramento Unitarian Society was founded by early-day Easterners, mostly from New England, in nostalgia for their distant homes to which they could not return. As time spun out, that early influence would be diluted with peoples of diverse origins and memories, and with their descendants, although some new Englanders continued to influence the Society, particularly the ministers.

In the late summer of 1920, Martin F. Fereshetian, a native of Armenia, came from Salt Lake City Unitarian Church to the Sacramento Society, sent by the American Unitarian Association Church Extension Department in Boston to be Minister-at-Large. His interim mission was the revival of the then moribund local Society.

A memory of the Society at that time was recalled in a letter written in 1975 by Anne Mudge from Santa Rosa, California, who as a high school girl in Sacramento was attending Unitarian services in 1920.

My first remembrance of the Sacramento Unitarian Church (in the little shingled building at 27th between N and a Streets) must have been around 1919 or 1920. We met, a small group, usually twelve or thirteen people, mostly women. A Mr. Pease was minister. He was an interesting preacher according to my mother, but not very practical. Taught at a private school part of the time to eke out his income.

He left and a vigorous Armenian, Mr. Fereshetian, took us on. He was a very nice, outgoing person and very good with young people. But my mother found his preaching rather overwhelming. “How he roars at us poor meek little people” she said, “the usual row of faithful Unitarians!”

Mr. Fereshetian’s biography indicates that physical vigor may have contributed to his survival as a child. Born in 1888 at Arabkir, Armenia where he lived for seven years, he escaped with his mother to Egypt to avoid being massacred in genocidal warfare of that period. Only the boy survived the flight; his father, then on a visit to the United States, went to Egypt for his son and brought him to the United States.

Martin Fereshetian was educated in Philadelphia with a degree in Scientific Agriculture. He then attended Meadville Theological School for a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1916, and was ordained to the ministry in Kent, Ohio, that year, where he served until 1918. While in the Colorado Springs pastorate in 1919 he earned a Master of Arts degree from Colorado College. Afterwards, he was with the Salt Lake Unitarian Church for an interim until coming to Sacramento.

Fereshetian’s Local Ministry

After his arrival here, he quickly visited all the Society members, raised a budget, and held a church dinner with forty-five people in attendance. On November 16, 1920, he wrote to his Boston office in triumph:

Well, the Extension department has done it!

I grouped all the ladies of the Church into two Companies, and appointed a captain for each. We are to have Family Suppers in the church the last Friday of each month. The dates are fixed until June. That will make ALL the women work. It will tend to do away with petty things.

Sunday School now has thirty enrolled and we average twenty-five every Sunday. I am teaching a class of Boys and Girls of High School age, and of course that is a great joy, but I cannot really give them to anyone just yet. I must develop a High School teacher to take them in time.

In his letter he expressed surprise that he had been elected to the local Ministerial Alliance, and as if to forestall suspicion of apostasy he wrote:

What do you think of this? I have been elected into the Misterial Alliance of Sacramento. One thing the Extension Department is doing through its worker in the West is the breaking of prejudice against us. I am never compromising in our Gospel. At the same time, I am not going about this with a chip on my shoulder against those who disagree on certain principles. One reason I enter the Ministerial Alliance is in order that those who come to these places after me may have access to various activities in the communities. I make the way easy.

Among the records of that period is a copy of a newspaper advertisement which gives our only information about his religious philosophy:

UNITARIAN CHURCH
27th St., Between N and 0 Sts.
Rev. Martin Fereshetian, A. M. B. D., Minister
Devotional Services at 11 :00 a.m.
Subject: The Prophet as Social Reformer

All liberal minded men and women are invited to come and join us in our worship service. The minister is at your service at any time. If you are interested in a Christianity which places character over creed, this church heartily invites you to take part in its life and efforts.

In the Spring of 1921 his temporary mission in Sacramento was coming to a close; the “Board Minutes” for March of 1921 report that Mr. Fereshetian was present and preparing for his departure. Records in Boston show that he went to the Salem, Oregon, Unitarian pastorate for the years of 1921 to 1929. There he Americanized his name by changing it to Ferrey, studied law at Willamette University, and retired from the ministry in 1930 to practice law and work in politics until his death in 1935.

The Brief Ministry of Hubert Cyril Carter

The Reverend Dr. Hubert Cyril Carter arrived to Sacramento in May of 1921. The American Unitarian Association sent him on an interim basis for continuing the work of reviving the Sacramento Society. He was being paid from the Boston office entirely until in June the local Society began contributing $75 per month as a portion of his salary.

During the summer Dr. Carter prepared for resumption of the regular Sunday services in September, as it was then the custom to discontinue meetings during the heat of summer. Display advertisements in the leading local newspapers give us the only known information of his ministry, such as the Sacramento Union issue of Saturday, September 3, 1921:

FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH
Sacramento
Twenty-seventh Street, between N and 0

The Fall and Winter work of the Church will be opened on Sunday September 4, at 11 am. Dr. Hubert Cyril Carter, minister of the Church will preach. All lovers of Liberal Christianity are most cordially invited to worship with us.

A week later the advertisement text read:

Dr. Hubert C. Carter will preach on FOOT WASHING. School of Liberal Education: We have an able staff of well-trained teachers under the direction of Mr. B.B. Blake. This is an excellent opportunity for the training of your children in the grace of Liberal Christianity. The open door of Sacramento’s LITTLE CHURCH AROUND The CORNER IS FOR YOU. Add to your faith VIRTUE!

In September the Board of Directors received a suggestion from the American Unitarian Association Boston headquarters that Dr. Carter be selected as permanent minister for the Sacramento Society. In view of the fact that the local group had not been paying its own way and was still dependent upon subsidy from the national organization, it could not ignore the request. There seemed to be a lack of enthusiasm over the situation, but a special meeting was called for voting on the proposal on September 25th.

No record has been found of that meeting, but in the first week of October a letter was sent to Boston asking that Dr. Carter be relieved of his assignment in Sacramento. This request was purportedly based on the state of the Society treasury which contained $6.20 on October 1, 1921, after the September bills had been paid and the recently installed telephone had been discontinued as an economy measure. After his departure, Sunday services were continued with lay leaders and visiting ministers as a temporary arrangement.

 

1 Mr. Pease was the Minister of the Sacramento Society during the construction of the church on 27th Street.

 

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