1919

  • Mary Robeson Sargent died of diabetes at the age of 66.
  • Courtenay Baylor (1870-1947) published Remaking a Man: One Successful Method of Mental Refitting (NY: Moffat, Yard), full text.  Recently helped by our fourth rector Elwood Worcester, Baylor gave up his insurance business to join the Emmanuel staff in 1912.  Under Worcester’s supervision he became a lay therapist for alcoholics.CourtneyBaylor253

In 1925 he and Worcester formed the Craigie Foundation to continue their work privately in anticipation of Worcester’s retirement from Emmanuel Church in 1929.  In his book, Baylor claimed he had success with about two thirds of a thousand patients.  Through his patients Rowland Hazard and Richard R. Peabody he influenced William Wilson, a founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.

For more information on Baylor’s contribution see:

  • “The Continuation of Therapy:  Courtenay Baylor and Richard R. Peabody”, pp. 35-59 in Richard M. Dubiel, The Road to Fellowship:  The Role of the Emmanuel Movement and the Jacoby Club in the Development of Alcoholics Anonymous (NY:iUniverse for the Hindsfoot Foundation, 2004).
  • “Worcester in Retirement and Successors to the Emmanuel Movement”, pp. 99-108 in Sanford Gifford, The Emmanuel Movement:  The Origins of Group Treatment and the Assault on Lay Psychotherapy (Boston: Harvard U. Press for the Francis Countway Library of Medicine, 1997).
  • “Early alcoholism treatment: the Emmanuel Movement and Richard Peabody”, K. McCarthy. Journal of Studies on Alcohol 45(1):59-74, Jan. 1984. PMID:  6366377.

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”.

1912

The Rev. Dr. Elwood Worcester established a Free Legal Bureau, which was set up at the Emmanuel Memorial House in the South End under the direction of the Vicar of Church of the Ascension, The Rev. William A. Brade.  He reported in the Year Book of Emmanuel Parish  (pp. 168-70):

Some cases have required but a word of counsel, others have required time and care to adjust, and only in extreme cases has recourse been had to our courts….the wrong has, in many cases, been righted and the oppression removed as quietly and expeditiously as possible and at no expense. 

1908

In response to a devastating fire in Chelsea, Emmanuel Church rented one of the few houses left standing to provide care for the homeless.   The Emmanuel Relief Station offered food, clothing, and medical care for the wounded.  The church arranged for medical personnel, instruments, and supplies. The house was also used for the care of women during and after childbirth.

Religion and Medicine: The Moral Control of Nervous Disorders by Worcester, Samuel McComb and Isador A. Coriat, an early psychoanalyst, was published by Moffat, Yard.

Worcester published a series of six articles about the Emmanuel Movement in the Ladies Home Journal (Oct. 1908 – March 1909).

1877

Richard S. Fay (1806-65), drawn in 1847 by Duane H. Hurd (History of Essex County MA, 1888).

Richard S. Fay , member of our founding vestry, helped found and manage the Cooperative Society of Volunteer Visitors to the Poor in response to high unemployment coupled with the devastating fire that had left many poor people homeless in Boston.  Having undergone name changes since then, the Society abides with us as Community Work Services, which provides job training to those with disabilities or living in poverty.  Under the direction of Rob Yeomans, trainees clean and maintain our facilities, which are enjoyed by the many groups of our community.