1939

  • Priscilla Rawson Young (1909-2000), benefactor of our series of Bach Cantatas

    Our benefactor Priscilla Rawson (Young) studied music with Stanley Chapwell at the Royal Academy of Music, London. Craig Smith, founder of Emmanuel Music, who also had studied with Chapwell, kept this portrait of her on his desk. See also 19091942, 1971, 19731994 & 2000.

  • January.  A funeral was held at Emmanuel for our organist Albert Williams Snow, who had recently retired and died at the age of sixty.  Having studied under Wallace Goodrich at New England Conservatory of Music, he had become organist at Church of the Advent, Boston, before he replaced our organist  Lynnwood Farnum in 1918.  During his tenure he taught at NEC and served as organist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.  His memorial plaque (#G4), reconstructed by Ted Southwick in 2021, can be seen behind the chancel organ.

 

1930

  • Farnam253Nov. 23.  Our former organist Lynnwood Farnam, who was head of the Organ Department at the Curtis Institute of Music, died and bequeathed his papers to their library.  In 1932, the Theodore Presser Co. (Phila.), published his Toccata on “O Filii et Filiae, which he had played when he tested the “full organ” sound of the many organs he visited.
  • See his memorial plaque in the chancel behind the organ.
  • Listen to a rendition of his Toccata by Diana Bish.
  • See also 1913, 1917, and History of Music at Emmanuel.

1918

Albert Williams Snow replaced Lynnwood Farnum as organist.

January 20. The Anthony Memorial Organ in the West Gallery was dedicated, honoring Silas Reed Anthony (1863-1914), who served as Parish Clerk (1887-1898), Vestryman (1898-1906), and Junior Warden (1906-1914). The organ was a gift of his widow, Harriet Weeks. who later became Mrs. Randolph Frothingham.

March 22.  Bishop William Lawrence and Rector Elwood Worcester officiated at the funeral of Andrew Robeson Sargent, who at the age of 42 died in his sleep. After graduating from Harvard College in 1900, he had followed in his father Charles Sprague Sargent‘s footsteps and worked as a landscape architect with his brother-in-law Guy Lowell.  His wife Maria de Acosta Sargent, daughter of the writer Mercedes de Acosta, had been painted by his third cousin John Singer Sargent. His mother Mary Robeson Sargent and sisters Henrietta, Molly, and Alice Sargent gave in his memory our hymn boards and the carved doors to leading from our sanctuary to the “Bride’s Lobby”.

See also:

  • His letters to his father Charles Sprague Sargent in the archives of the Arnold Arboretum.
  •  “Andrew Robeson Sargent, Class of 1900.”  The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, 1918.
  • “Andrew Robeson Sargent Dies.” The New York Times, March 21, 1918.
  • “Many Friends Mourn Andrew R. Sargent.” The Boston Daily Globe, March 23, 1918.

August 26.  Col. Cranmore Nesmith Wallace, who had served on our vestry from 1896 until his death, died at the age of 74.  His widow Eunice Sprague Wallace gave 2 lancets in our sanctuary (#18: Adoration of the Magi) in his memory

November 2The Churchman (p. 518) reported that the Emmanuel Memorial House was serving as an emergency shelter for children made homeless by the influenza epidemic.  Nurses and workers from the Children’s Aid Society and the (Episcopal) Church Home Society were supervising children housed in its “clubrooms” until they could be placed with families by “the usual placing-out services”.

1905

Tuberculosis Class, organized by Joseph H. Pratt MD and Lesley H. Spooner, MD., reached 308 patients in its first year.

The Rev. Dr. Samuel McComb (1864–1938) became Associate Rector. Raised in Belfast, Ireland, with a doctorate from Oxford University, he had taught church history at Queens University, Ontario, and served as a Presbyterian minister in England and New York City before his ordination in the Episcopal Church. He became a spokesman for the Emmanuel Movement during its active years.  See also 1909 and his many works available on Amazon and full text from Hathi Trust.


November 23.  Emmanuel Memorial House was dedicated.  Given by Harriet Pierce Weeks (Mrs. Silas Reed) Anthony in memory of her brother Andrew Gray Weeks, whose widow gave its playground, it was located at 11 Newcomb St. around the corner from 1906 Washington St., where our diocese maintained a mission in the South End, Church of the Ascension (now Grant African Methodist Episcopal Church).  Through the Emmanuel House Committee, Emmanuel parishioners helped with the kindergarten and summer play school for neighborhood children.  They also ran homemaking and other classes and a gymnasium for Ascension parishioners. Emmanuel Memorial House567

1897

October 28. Rector Leighton Parks set up the Emmanuel Club to give young men of the parish a venue for fellowship.  Samuel Taylor was its first secretary.  They met several times a year for dinner with speakers or entertainment at the newly formed University Club at 270 Beacon Street.   Fitz-Henry Smith Jr. was secretary during its last year in 1911.  A member of the Harvard College Class of 1896, he went on to write these works about Boston:

  • The story of Boston light, with some account of the beacons in Boston harbor (1911).
  • The French at Boston during the Revolution : with particular reference to the French fleets and the fortifications in the harbor (1913).
  • Storms and shipwrecks in Boston and the record of the life savers of Hull (1918).

November.  The Rev. Henrietta Rue Goodwin began her service as deaconess at Emmanuel, which included distributing clothing, monitoring the Mothers’ Meeting, helping to fund choir vestments, and overseeing a Bible class and the Students’ Club.  Her reports in our Yearbooks (1897-1906), give her accounting of Special Funds for distribution of aid to the poor and her other activities, which included thousands of visits to the sick and needy.

Children of Anne & Benjamin Rotch (clockwise): Aimee, Edith, Arthur & Lawrence

Work of Emmanuel House in the South End was transferred to our mission there, Church of the Ascension.

Edith Rotch, the younger daughter of Anne Bigelow Lawrence & Benjamin S. Rotch died at the age of fifty.  She was memorialized by her sister Aimee R. Sargent in our Rotch reredos.

1893

Anne Bigelow Lawrence Rotch. Portrait by Chester Harding in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Anne Bigelow Lawrence Rotch died. The daughter of Katherine Bigelow and Abbott Lawrence, Annie had married Benjamin S. Rotch in 1846 . Their daughter Aimee (Mrs. Henry Winthrop) Sargent gave our sanctuary’s Rotch reredos in memory of her, her husband  and two of their children, Arthur & Edith. They are buried in a family plot (#3004) on Bellwort Path, Mt. Auburn Cemetery.

1882

Our first organist and music director, Silas Atkins Bancroft (1823-1886), retired after two decades of faithful service.  He is buried in Lot 2607 on the Mistletoe Path of Mt. Auburn Cemetery.

B.S. Rotch (1817-1882) at time of our foundation. Photo courtesy of Boston Athenaeum.

Senior Warden Benjamin Smith Rotch died in office. A founding vestry member and warden since 1880, he was later memorialized with his wife Anne Bigelow Lawrence (1820-93) in our sanctuary’s reredos. They are buried in  Lot 3004 on Bellwort Path in Mt. Auburn Cemetery.  His epitaph from Revelation 2:10 reads:  Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.

1873

Several famous botanists were connected with our church.

  • Rhododendron “Edward S. Rand”. Photo credit: Tijs Huisman

    When Benjamin Tyler Reed retired as senior warden, Edward Sprague Rand served again as warden until 1875.  His son E.S. Rand, Jr. (actually III)  wrote many botanical works.   An orchid and a rhododendron are named for him (or perhaps his father).

  • Henry Winthrop Sargent (1810-1882) became junior warden. In 1859 and 1875, he published supplements to Downing’s reference work, A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1841).
  • Dec. 2.  Winthrop Henry Sargent (1840-1916, son of H.W. & Caroline Olmsted S.) married Aimee Rotch, daughter of Emmanuel charter members Benjamin S. and Annie Bigelow Rotch.  They lived at 207 Commonwealth Avenue.  Winthrop served for 30 years as warden of St. Luke’s Chapel, Fishkill-on-Hudson, NY, where the Sargents summered.  See also:
    •  Rotch Reredos
    • Henry Winthrop Sargent and His Family
    • Register of the Mass. Society of Colonial Dames of America: 1893-1905, (p. 83, #144) lists some of Aimee’s ancestors including Emmanuelites Amos & Nathaniel Lawrence.
  • The Rev. Dr. A.H. Vinton officiated at the wedding of Mary Allen Robeson (1853-1918), daughter of charter members Andrew (1817-1874) and Mary Allen Robeson (1819-1903), and Charles Sprague Sargent (cousin of H.W. S.), who founded the Arnold Arboretum and wrote many botanical works. Andrew and his wife Mary Allen Robeson lived at Holm Lea across from Fairsted in Brookline.  They were memorialized by their daughter Alice Robeson (Mrs. Stephen Van Rensselaer) Thayer in our windows depicting Simeon and Anna.  See also:
    • Register of the Mass. Society of Colonial Dames of America: 1893-1905, (p. 48, #41) lists Mary’s ancestors who served the Commonwealth.
    • Register of the Mass. Society of Colonial Dames of America: 1893-1905, (p. 57, #66) lists even more of Alice’s ancestors.

      Simeon & Anna lancets

      Simeon (Andrew Robeson, 1817-1874) & Anna (Mary Allen Robeson, 1819-1903) by Harry Eldredge Goodhue