history5

History of the

Unitarian Universalist Society

of Greater Springfield

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Historical Text - #4

Recollections of the Universalist

Church Of Sixteen Acres

February 1995

Bill and Barbara DeWolfe

The Sixteen Acres Universalist Church had a unique birthing process by today's standards. In 1953 the Massachusetts Universalist Convention was granted permission by the Massachusetts Council of Churches to establish a new congregation in the Sixteen Acres area of Springfield. The next year Universalist ministers in the state were recruited to conduct a house to house canvass in Sixteen Acres and Wilbraham. The Convention purchased a seven acre property on the corner of Wilbraham and Tinkham roads which included a twelve room house, a barn and a four car garage. The congregation was organized and began to hold services. In 1955 the Reverend Keith C. Munson was settled as the first minister. The Munson family moved into the house, living in the midst of all church activity, including Sunday services held in the living room. During Keith Munson's ministry a church school was started, and the basement of the building was remodeled into preschool classrooms. One of the traditions that began during this time was the annual Father's Day Breakfast, held each June on the front lawn. The fathers of the congregation cooked and served the meal which was a popular climax to the year's activities.

By 1960 the congregation had about 80 members and 60 children were enrolled in the church school. In May that year Keith Munson was called to serve the church in Andover, Massachusetts. During the summer the congregation transformed the four car garage into a chapel. They obtained the pews, pulpit and pump organ from the church in Oxford, Massachusetts, and these were installed in the new chapel. The pulpit was the one from which Hosea Ballou was ordained in 1793. This new congregation now had a visible sense of history! The pews and pulpit were refinished and the organ tested the strength and ingenuity of r}Dorothy White and her successor, Marian Sheelds, for a number of years. At the same time, the second floor of the former garage became the minister’s study and a youth room. The main house was also remodeled, creating an apartment on the second and floors, into which the new minister and his family would move in September.

Rev. William A. DeWolfe was the second minister. The DeWolfe's discovered a congregation composed primarily of young families with children ranging in age from babies through high school. The few older members contributed much in the way of maturity, experience and a willingness to contribute to the intergenerational nature of activities. A few members had previous Unitarian Universalist connections. Professionally, they were chemists, college professors, social workers, teachers, business people and sales persons. The congregation was socially active, participating in a number of community and denominational projects. Bill DeWolfe chaired the Hampden County ACLU Chapter.

One of the major highlights of this period was the expansion of the congregation's educational program. Not satisfied with a one hour a week church school, the RE Committee proposed a two hour program, allowing more activity and experience within the curriculum for children and teenagers. Adults, in addition to the worship service, participated in a weekly forum which took advantage of the rich source of information and insight of many of the members as well as outside guest leaders. This was a congregation that really kept its lay people involved, physically and mentally, as the property became more and more adapted to church use and the program expanded to meet growing needs. A Junior Choir was organized, mothers sewed choir robes, and the group participated in the statewide Junior Choir Festival. Members became very supportive of their church community, much like an extended family. When crises in families occurred, support was provided, not only in terms of meals and visitation, but, in the case of one family whose six year old child had leukemia, in the form of care for siblings and special events for the children. When Bill DeWolfe moved to San Antonio in 1964, the DeWolfe's left a vital congregation that was providing a full menu of religious experience to its members and friends in the Sixteen Acres area. In 1965 Rev. William G. Horton became minister.