We took some kids backpacking to the Black Mountain Trail Camp last night. The trailhead is a short drive from Palo Alto, and the hike in is just two miles with only 500 foot elevation gain, making it a nice get-away for both church and Ecojustice Camp kids.
I got up before sunrise and heard some Great Horned Owls. And then, as the muted chorus of autumn birds was starting up, watched “rosy-fingered Dawn [Eos]” cast her glow on low-hanging stratus over Black Mountain.
Part Twoof a history I’m writing, telling the story of Unitarians in Palo Alto from the founding of the town in 1891 up to the dissolution of the old Unitarian Church of Palo Alto in 1934. If you want the footnotes, you’ll have to wait until the print version of this history comes out in the spring of 2022.
The Unitarian Church of Palo Alto Begins, 1905-1910
In 1905, Helene and Ewald Flügel invited Rev. George Whitefield Stone, the Field Secretary of the American Unitarian Association for the Pacific States, to come to Palo Alto to christen their children. When Stone arrived in September, 1905, the Flügel children were aged 4, 10, 13, and 15 years old. The family had lived in Palo Alto since 1892; it may be Rev. Eliza Tupper Wilkes had christened the two eldest children in 1895. In any case, Stone came to Palo Alto, and while there he conducted Unitarian services each Sunday from September 10 through October 8. At the conclusion of the service on October 8, Stone said he was willing to continue with weekly worship services if those assembled showed sufficient interest. Karl Rendtorff made a motion “that a Unitarian Church be formed at once,” giving Stone the authority to appoint a “Provisional Committee” to transact any necessary business until a regular congregational organization could be formed. The motion was seconded by Melville Anderson, and “carried by a rising vote.”
Stone promptly appointed five men and two women to the Provisional Committee: Melville Anderson, John S. Butler, Henry Gray, Agnes Kitchen, Ernest Martin, Fannie Rosebrook, and Karl Rendtorff, who became the Secretary-Treasurer. Melville Anderson, Henry Gray, Ernest Martin, and Karl Rendtorff were all professors at Stanford. John Butler and Fannie Rosebrook had both been on the executive committee of the old Unity Society. Agnes Kitchen was active in civic affairs in Palo Alto, including the Woman’s Club. Once again, women filled leadership positions in the new Unitarian congregation from the very beginning.
Collection of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto, used by permission.
Just two weeks later, on October 23, the women formed their own Unitarian organization. The Women’s Alliance, formally known as the “Branch Alliance of the Unitarian Church of Palo Alto,” became a local chapter of the National Alliance of Unitarian and Other Liberal Christian Women. How did the Palo Alto women decide to form their own Branch Alliance so quickly? Perhaps George Stone promoted the idea. The national organization existed to “to quicken the life of our Unitarian churches,” which would have suited Stone’s goal of building a self-sustaining Unitarian church. But it’s equally possible that some of the women had already belonged to a Unitarian women’s group. The National Alliance had roots in several earlier organizations, including the Western Women’s Unitarian Conference, organized in St. Louis in 1881; Emma Rendtorff and her mother Emma Meyer were active Unitarians in St. Louis in that year. Closer to Palo Alto, the women’s organization of the San Francisco Unitarian church, called the Channing Auxiliary had been active in promoting Unitarianism along the entire Pacific Coast ever since it was formed in 1873; perhaps some of the early members of the Palo Alto Alliance had contact with the Channing Auxiliary.
Part One of a history I’m writing, which tells the story of Unitarians in Palo Alto from the founding of the town in 1891 up to the dissolution of the old Unitarian Church of Palo Alto in 1934. Rather than telling history as the story of a succession of (mostly male) ministers, my focus is on the lay people who made up the congregation. If you want the footnotes, you’ll have to wait until the print version of this history comes out in the spring of 2022.
The first Unitarian and Universalists in Palo Alto, 1891-1895
Unitarianism and Universalism arrived in Palo Alto before there was a congregation. Some of the first residents who arrived in Palo Alto in 1891, the year Stanford University opened, were already Unitarians and Universalists.
Emma Meyer Rendtorff began studying at Stanford University in 1894, eight months before Rev. Eliza Tupper Wilkes, a Universalist and Unitarian minister, preached the first Unitarian Universalist sermon in Palo Alto, at Stanford’s Memorial Church. Emma’s parents had been Unitarians, and as a girl she had attended Sunday school the Church of the Unity, a Unitarian church in St. Louis, Missouri. She was a lifelong Unitarian, and would play a key role when the Unitarian Church of Palo Alto was organized in 1905.
David Starr Jordan, the first president of Stanford, grew up in a Universalist family. As a young adult he briefly joined a Congregational church. While president of Stanford he disavowed any denominational affiliation, although he often spoke in Unitarian churches and at Unitarian gatherings. Whether or not he would have called himself a Unitarian or Universalist when he arrived in Palo Alto, he was often perceived as a Unitarian and often provided financial and moral support to the Palo Alto Unitarians. And when he retired from Stanford, he finally did join the Unitarian Church of Palo Alto.
Luna, Minnie, and Leander Hoskins were probably Unitarians before arriving in Palo Alto. Minnie moved in Palo Alto in 1892 when her husband Leander became a Stanford professor, and Luna had joined them in Palo Alto soon after. Luna and Minnie Hoskins were recognized as delegates by the Committee on Credentials of the Pacific Unitarian Conference at San Jose on May 1-4, 1895, a few days before Eliza Tupper Wilkes arrived in Palo Alto. Since they knew about Unitarianism before Eliza Tupper Wilkes arrived, she couldn’t have been the one to introduce them to Unitarianism, so it seems likely they had been Unitarians when they came to Palo Alto.
Eleanor Brooks Pearson, who came to Palo Alto in 1891 from South Sudbury, Massachusetts, may have been a Unitarian before she arrived in Palo Alto; her childhood home in South Sudbury would have been close to the Unitarian church in Sudbury Center, she was one of the organizers of the Unity Society in 1895, and she later married a Unitarian, Frederic Bartlett Huntington. Some sources hint that there were others who were Unitarians or Universalists before arriving in Palo Alto, but so far it has proved impossible to name them.
The Unity Society, 1895-1897
In November, 1892, the very first issue of the Pacific Unitarian, a periodical devoted to promoting liberal religion up and down the West Coast, declared that a Unitarian church should be organized in Palo Alto:
“The University town of Palo Alto is growing fast. Never was there a field that offered more in the way of influence and education than this. A [building] lot for a church ought to be secured at once, and the preliminary steps taken towards the organization of a Unitarian Society.”
It’s like one of those crime scenes you see in pop culture. Except that instead of human remains, it’s the remains of a bird. I found this on the dike next to Adobe Creek in Palo Alto, right across from the island in the marsh where there’s a California Gull nesting colony. The rib cage in the upper right corner of the photo is big enough to be from a gull — it’s about eight inches long — and check out that huge breast bone for the flight muscles to attach to. The other bones are scattered in the center of the photo, though there appear to be some bones missing. There are lots of feathers — grey feathers characteristic of juvenile gulls.
Before you start mourning the death of a young gull, remember that the mortality rate of young gulls is high. Something on the order of 75% of nestlings die before they develop flight feathers (Patricia Baird, Comparative Ecology of California and Ring-billed Gulls [Larus californicus and L. delawarensis], Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of Montana, 1976). After the birds learn to fly, but before they move on to winter quarters, mortality rates are on the order of 5%, although in bad years post-fledging mortality rates could be as high as 70% (Kristie N. Nelson, Nora Livingston, and Teague Scott, “Population size and reproductive success of California Gulls at Mono Lake, California,” Point Blue, 2015). In short, perhaps 75-90% of young California Gulls die before they’re six months old. Predators
So it would not be surprising if a juvenile California Gull were killed here. Any number of predators might have killed it — a raptor, a dog off leash, a raccoon, a coyote. But any clues to what the predator was have doubtless been obliterated by the carrion eaters that came along after the predator was finished — Turkey Vultures, American Crows, rats, and other critters must have further scattered the bones and feathers.
About all we can say for certain is that a juvenile gull died here. It died some time after it fledged — California Gull nestlings were fledging beginning about a month and a half ago — but long enough ago that the bones are been picked clean and are now dry and without odor.
This morning I walked from Wright Woods conservation land past Walden Pond to Goose Pond. On my way back to the car, I passed by the main beach at Walden. It was a warm sunny day, so as you’d expect the beach was crowded with humanity.
And there, past the buoys that mark the area that the lifeguards watch, was a Common Loon (Gavia immer) diving underwater, presumably for small fish or some other underwater food.
It was surprising to see a loon at Walden Pond in July — twenty years ago when I lived in the town of Concord, you might see a loon during migration, but I don’t remember ever seeing one during summer breeding season. It may be that the resurgence of the beaver population in the area has changed the landscape enough that loons now have adequate habitat to breed; although that’s purely speculation on my part.
Another highlight of my walk past Walden Pond worth mentioning is the Thoreau Society bookstore. They focus on Thoreau of course, but they also stock an excellent selection of books relating to the other nineteenth century Concord authors — certainly the best selection of publications relating to the Concord authors that I’ve seen. While in the store, I chatted with Corinne Smith, a librarian and author. She told me that the “Thoreau Edition,” published by Princeton University Press and currently based at the University of California Santa Barbara, has released preliminary versions of the journals from 1854 to the end of Thoreau’s life (the “Thoreau Edition” has already published print versions of the journals from 1831 to 1854).
I’ve been at a religious education conference for most of a week now. It has been very nice to be able to talk with colleagues in person, face-to-face. But it’s also exhausting. I talk with people for an hour over breakfast, then teach a class where we spend a lot of time talking, then talk for an hour over lunch, and often for another hour after lunch — and then I’m ready for a two-hour nap.
Others at the conference are having similar experiences. It’s really good to be able to be in a big group of people for the first time since March, 2020, but it’s also really tiring.
I’m at a religious education conference at Ferry Beach Conference Center in coastal Maine. They’ve had quite a bit of rain in the past month, and not surprisingly quite a few mushrooms have spring up — like this one:
A couple of weeks ago, the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Cal/OSHA) decided that masks would be required in workplaces, unless all employees in a given area proved that they were vaccinated. Then the business community leaned on Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, and the rules quickly changed. Requiring businesses to determine the vaccination status of their employees would hamper the economy, said the business owners. Newsom is facing a recall vote so he quickly agreed, and Cal/OSHA had to fall into line, and now employees who say they’re vaccinated (no proof required) won’t have to wear masks.
Mitch Steiger of the California Labor Federation, AFL/CIO, disagrees with Newsom. Steiger pointed out that workers in rural areas — some rural counties in California have vaccination rates on the order of 25% — will especially be at risk. When the San Jose Mercury News asked for comment, Steiger said, “We will literally have decided to sacrifice workers’ lives in order to spare employers the inconvenience of looking at a vaccination card.”
