Tag Archives: priests

The Green Book Tour: Some Highlights

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Fern Cunningham’s sculpture Step on Board shows aboltionist Harriet Ross Tubman with a Bible under her arm.

On June 20th, 2026, I joined The Green Book Tour led by Byron Rushing and the Rev. June Cooper.  The Negro Motorist Green Book, published between 1936 and 1966 as a guidebook for African American roadtrippers, became known as simply The Green Book..

On this sunny but windy day we all met outside of the Union United Methodist Church (originally a Congregational Church) on Columbus Avenue in Boston. There were about a dozen of us in addition to the leaders of the tour. Both Byron and June have a depth of knowledge about the South End of Boston and the history of the businesses which were advertised in The Green Book. These businesses, including hotels, were either Black-owned or served Negroes. Charlie’s Sandwich Shoppe on Columbus Ave. is still operating. It was originally owned by a Greek family and was advertised in The Green Book.

The Harriet Tubman House on Holyoke Street offered rooms to Black women who were either in school or working in Boston and would not have been able to rent in the area otherwise. Very near to this location we visited the Harriet Tubman Park with its two sculptures, one of which honors Harriet Tubman herself. The other sculpture sported a traffic cone on its top; evidence of a visit by the Tartan Army, which had visited Boston from Glasgow for the World Cup.

This area attracted many jazz musicians during the height of the Jazz Age. Of the many clubs once open there were two that were Black-owned establishments: Wally’s Café (originally Wally’s Paradise located across the street from its present location) and Estelle’s,  which is now a condominium building at 888 Columbus Ave.. The Hi-Hat at the corner of Mass. Ave. and Columbus Ave., which burned down after the Second World War, was replaced by a settlement house. It is now modern housing (apartments and/or condominiums). The Columbus Avenue African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) Church on the corner of Columbus Avenue and Northampton Street was originally a synagogue. Where one would usually see a rose window, it has a Mogen David or Jewish Star.

Our tour ended at Slade’s, where we had lunch and chatted amongst ourselves. It was a beautiful day for a long walk in Boston.

–Mary Beth Clack, Mary Blocher, Cindy Coldren, Pat Krol, Liz Levin

Wake up! Rise up!

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Easter 4C, May 11, 2025.  The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 9:36-43. He gave her his hand and helped her up.
Revelation 7:9-17. He will guide them to springs of the water of life.
John 10:22-30. It was winter.

O God of life, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

During Eastertide, our lectionary offers no lessons from the First Testament. The effect, I think, is to overemphasize a break between Jesus’ followers and Jesus’ religious heritage. Instead, we have passages from the Acts of the Apostles’ romantic accounts of the beginnings of Christianity, written toward the end of the first century about “the good old days.” Today it’s Peter raising Dorcas from the dead with a line that is almost exactly the same as what Jesus said to raise Jairus’ daughter from the dead: arise or wake up, come alive! In other words, Peter was ministering just like Jesus. I love line, “he gave her his hand and helped her up.” Continue reading →

2024

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  • 6 Jan. Our Candidate for Holy Orders, The Rev. Joshua Padraig (Paddy) Cavanaugh, was ordained to the priesthood at All Saints Church, Richmond VA.
  • 4 Feb.  Senior Warden Elizabeth (Liz) Levin retired after an eventful four-year tenure.  She ably steered us through the Covid pandemic, our rector’s sabbatical, and much more.   Rebekah Shore became senior warden and Pat Krol, who had retired after 15 years as Executive Director of Emmanuel Music, became junior warden.

    The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray & The Rt. Rev. Barbara Harris on our Sanctuary’s pulpit

  • 28 April.  The Rt. Rev. Dr. Carol J. Gallagher, Assistant Bishop of our diocese, presided at our Sunday service for the dedication of Ted Southwick‘s statue of the late Rt. Rev. Barbara Harris.
  • May. With funding from Hanna and James Bartlett, John Tiedemann‘s crew cleaned our Sanctuary’s reredos and walls below its clerestory.  Jim Anderson designed a replacement herald for a window that had been broken in 2000 by firefighters.

    Photo by Julian Bullitt

    Charles Connick had designed its original to match Kempe’s heralds in the south clerestory.  Its banner reads in Latin:  with angels and archangels.  We thank Jill Zunshine, who funded it in memory of her husband Zach and in thanksgiving for her faith and hope.

  • 28 Sept.  The Rt. Rev. Alan M. Gates preached and presided at a service commemorating the Centennial of Lindsey Chapel.

    Thanks to the generosity of Hanna and James Bartlett the walls of our apse were cleaned.

1959

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The Business & Professional Women’s Guild (formerly Club) had 98 members.  Its officers were Miss Lydia LeBaron Walker, President; Miss Caroline G. Whitney, Vice-President and Recording Secretary; Miss Margaret A. Cooke, Corresponding Secretary; Maude D. Gowen; Treasurer.  Our archives has its membership directory for that church year. The Guild was active for another decade.

Oct. 18-20. A series of five Healing Services were held with the Rev. Canon Alfred W. Price presiding, assisted by Rector Harold Sedgwick, the Rev. Dr.  Rollin J. Fairbanks,  and other clergy.  Their hands were laid upon more than 3600 heads.  After a nationwide outbreak of polio in 1955, the Salk vaccine had been widely administered.  People in the Commonwealth became alarmed by a recurrence of paralytic poliomyelitis, which peaked here in September. Since about half of the patients had been properly vaccinated, the vaccine’s effectiveness was called into question.  When the Sabin attenuated vaccine was distributed in oral form in 1961, the nation heaved a sigh of relief.

Dr. Fairbanks (1908-1983) was the Robert Treat Paine Professor of Pastoral Theology at Episcopal Divinity School.  Canon Price (1899–1992), who had been awarded a Purple Heart for his service in WWII, was for many years an international warden of the Episcopal Church’s Order of St. Luke the Physician. His works include:  Healing:  The Gift of God (1955), Religion & Health (1962), and a God’s Health:  Handbook for the Practice of the Church’s Ministry of Healing (1976).

Left to right: Rector Sedgwick, Dr. Fairbanks, the Rev. Don Hargrove Gross, the Rev. Canon Alfred W. Price & ?