Change is the word to describe the 1960's- change in St Paul's, change in the nation and throughout the world. The world held its breath in October of 1962 as it waited for the Russians to answer President Kennedy's demand that they remove their missiles from Cuba. Although that crisis ended without war, the 1960's were years of upheaval. The assassination of President John Kennedy crushed the nation; the assassinations of his brother, Robert, and of Martin Luther King gave rise first to grief, and then to riots, in almost every major city in the United States. The Vietnam War expanded, the flower children took to the streets in San Francisco -- 1967 was the "Summer of Love" in the Haight -- and the University of California at Berkeley was constantly disrupted with student protests against the war and in support of civil rights. Civil Rights marches came from the South -- Selma and Montgomery -- to Washington D.C., and spread all over the nation. Throughout the decade, almost every large city in the country was the scene of a riot, either against the war or for civil rights.
Change and controversy came to the church also. The traditional standards of marriage were challenged, while demands for changes in the liturgy and music resulted in the folk mass in many churches. Formality, including the formality of dress for church attendance, was discarded; women no longer wore hats and gloves to church, and many men discarded the practice of wearing coats and ties. Beneath these outward and visible signs of change were the demands for more serious change, a new prayer book and the ordination of women. These took another ten years to accomplish.
When the Reverend John D. Riley and his wife, Velma (known to all as "Vee"), together with their twin daughters, Carin and Janet, arrived in San Rafael in 1960, St. Paul's was no longer the only Episcopal Church in San Rafael. The two missions, Nativity and Redeemer, were attended by many of the people in northern and eastern San Rafael. But space was still a problem.
The old rectory across the courtyard from the church was still being used for Sunday School classes, and as a residence for a curate. More modern and usable space was definitely needed. The rectory was demolished, the vestry accepted a design for a new building from George Livermore and the new Education Building was dedicated by the Right Reverend James Pike on September 8, 1963. The buildings of the church complex were completed as they stand today.
The new building has a beautiful Music Room dedicated to the memory of Corona Anderson, and it was soon put to use. Barry Mineah directed a large children's choir that also performed in the Jazz Mass at Grace Cathedral. Music in the church was greatly enhanced in 1968 with a new German organ to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the parish.
The nationwide issues of civil and women's rights, and the difficulties over the Vietnamese War, did not affect the parish directly, as no dissent is recorded.1 One issue that did upset the parish in the latter part of the 1960's was capital punishment. The late William Weissick, a vestryman at St. Paul's, appeared on television to discuss capital punishment and a scheduled execution with Bishop Pike. The same execution at San Quentin caused some disagreement within the parish.
During this time, the Reverend Kenneth Anderson was ordained at St. Paul's and became the vicar of the Church of the Redeemer. In 1966, a new assistant came to St. Paul's -- not from the Episcopal Church but from the Methodist.
The Reverend Hugh F. Hardin, a Methodist minister, came to St. Paul's as he was studying to become deacon in the Episcopal Church. Bishop Pike set forth two requirements for his acceptance: one was he pass the canonical examinations, and the other that he get a job. During his first year at his job in St. Paul's, he was ordained to the deaconate, and in the next to the priesthood. Two months after his ordination, John Riley resigned and the very new Episcopal priest, Hugh Hardin, became the rector of St. Paul's. For the past twenty-two years he and his wife, Betty, and their four children -- Paul, David, Sharon and Mark -- have been part of the parish family. His impression of St. Paul's in those early days of his ministry here appeared in an article in a 1975 Independent Journal article by Mary Leydecker -- "[I] found continuity and tradition not only in the Episcopal Church, but in the local parish. At first, I was astonished that people were born and raised here -- that they were baptized in that same church."
Continuity and tradition were about to be challenged throughout the national church and within the local parish. With the acceptance of ordination for women and the new Book of Common Prayer, the 1970's was the decade of the greatest change in the church in modern times. Although both issues divided some parishes beyond reconciliation, St. Paul's was not torn asunder. To avoid this, the rector and his assistant clergy led the congregation in a careful study of the proposed prayer book during the three year probation period from 1976. Some parishioners still have not totally accepted the new book, but they do remain within the family. It was at this time another change came to St. Paul's: the schedule of services was changed gradually from Morning Prayer at 10 o'clock on most Sundays to Holy Communion most Sundays, and Morning Prayer only one time a month.
Dissension over the ordination of women was avoided at St. Paul's largely because a young female seminarian was already working within the parish. Nedi Goss was on the scene as a caring, hardworking woman candidate for Holy Orders; thus the issue was not just a distant theory, but a person visibly following her calling. She was ordained to the priesthood when women's ordination was finally adopted in 1975. Now young ladies were becoming acolytes also.
Throughout all these years, the women's guilds remained steadily working for the good of the parish. As many women returned to employment outside the home, membership fell off, but the faithful few have continued to serve St. Anne's with Pinecone Festivals in December, and by staffing The Apostle's Attic Thrift Shop, the Altar Guild and study groups within the parish.
The Hardin family went to London in the summer of 1975 to exchange parishes and pulpits with the Reverend A.B. Carver of Holy Trinity Church. Mr. Carver received a warm welcome at St. Paul's.
The upheavals of society in the 60's and 70's increased the interest of the parish in outreach programs. It assisted the Deanery of Marin in the operation of Camp Tamal Fair every summer. The camp at Ariquippa in Fairfax provided a summer outing for underprivileged children and was heavily supported by the people of the parish.
As the refugee camps for the people displaced by the Vietnamese War filled to overflowing, the Church World Service sought sponsors for families from Southeast Asia. Holy Innocents Church in Corte Madera, the Church of the Redeemer and St. Paul's sponsored Tien Van Nguyen, his wife Cuc Thi Pham, and their seven children in the United States. In 1988, they still remain in the same house the committee from St. Paul's found for them when they arrived in 1979. For a year, the committee continued to sponsor a group of women to teach the fundamentals of English to refugee women whose small children prevented them from attending regular English as a Second Language classes.
The Canal Area of San Rafael, long a transitional housing area, became a refuge for people from all over the United States, and many from Southeast Asia and Latin America. The Reverend John Thornton, rector of St. Stephen's in Belvedere, and Hugh Hardin joined in an effort to organize a ministry to help anyone who needed aid, and to attempt to provide a sense of community for many diverse groups. From this original effort in the early 1980's, the Canal Ministry has grown to a recognized outreach of the Deanery and the Diocese. The Reverend Charles Gibbs served first as a seminarian, then as a priest at the Ministry after his ordination in January 1988. Nancy Rosa is now Director of Volunteers, after years of volunteer work in the community and in the parish. More than two hundred volunteers from all over Marin teach English as a Second Language, serve a community lunch once a month, and help bring aid and fellowship to the people of the Canal Area. In addition to these community projects, the parishioners have also been active in convalescent home ministries, and prison and jail ministries.
Through the 1970's and the early part of this decade, the birth rate dropped and Sunday Schools almost became extinct, but in 1988 more young families are joining the congregation and children are once again a large part of the care and work of the parish. Fortunately, a young curate, the Reverend Victor Smith, once a seminarian in the parish, has returned and is leading the Sunday School and Youth Group.
St. Paul's has been fortunate through the last decade with clergy help from the Reverends Walter Phelps, William Geisler, Don Fox, Palmer Wilkins, and Don Taylor.
Vestry minutes through the last eighteen years record the trials of keeping a very old building and the larger newer buildings in adequate repair. For years each problem has been attacked and solved separately. In 1984, the vestry took a more realistic view of the constant need for building maintenance, and approved a resolution giving birth to a plan named "SPRIF." The acronym stands for "Saint Paul's Restoration and Improvement Fund." The fund is supported by separate pledges of the parishioners. The SPRIF committee carefully determines the required restorations and improvements and their order of importance. So far the fund has restored the rose window and the east wall of the old church, corrected drainage problems on the periphery of the education building, and seismically braced and anchored the church to the foundation. Most recently, SPRIF has refurbished the parish hall.
When the rose window was restored and reinforced, a cross with scraps of the glass was made and presented to Father Hardin.
With all the windows decorated with stained glass, recent artistic additions to the church have been the colorful banners to celebrate different church seasons, and the Easter vestments, made by parish artist, Patricia Leo. She also designed and executed commission vestments presented by the parish to Don Fox, when he left to accept the call to True Sunshine Episcopal Church in San Francisco.
In a taped interview on his thoughts after more than twenty years in the parish, Father Hardin said that one of his greatest joys was seeing and feeling the continuity of his ministry at St. Paul's -- how he is now baptizing the children of the children he baptized when he first came.
The whole parish expressed their love and appreciation of Father Hardin as a man and as their spiritual leader with a great celebration in June, 1987, on the twentieth anniversary of his arrival at St. Paul's. The celebration dinner and "roast" brought back former assistants, former clergy and parishioners, and long-time friends. The love and good humor of the "roast" reflected the personality of the man who had so faithfully served the parish for twenty years and, hopefully, for many more to come.
Throughout the research and writing of this history, the writers have been struck by the similarity of the history of the parish to the history of a family. For this reason we chose the excerpt from the sermon of the Reverend Herbert Oberholtzer to open the book. We believe this saga of 120 years in the life of a parish shows people of "the family of God" always striving, usually succeeding, but sometimes failing, to be "fellow workers with God" as exhorted in that sermon. We have recorded the failures briefly -- some caused deep wounds -- but fortunately memory almost always clouds over the bad and brings forth the glories of success. The Parish of St. Paul's has been graced with good leaders, good men and women workers, and it should continue faithfully for another 120 years. It certainly will if it follows the exhortation of Father Hardin on Easter Sunday, 1988:
. . . in days when the driving momentum is "ME" and "get mine" and "find my own space . . . ," I call upon you to be the people of the Resurrection who are the FAMILY OF GOD! . . . And I call upon you to be the Family of God looking at others as the most precious child of the Father in Heaven, and one for whom Christ died and rose again. Let there be among us that spirit which cherishes and respects and honors the other person. Let us look upon the other as better than ourselves. Let there be among us, young and old, male and female, rich and poor, let there be the embodiment of the marriage vows: in Christ, I vow to love, honor and cherish you my brother, my sister, until death do us part. Be a Family of God in the world!
CREDITS
The information for this history has been gleaned from parish records, vestry minutes, and newspapers credited in the text. We are extremely grateful to St. Anne's Guild for the marvelous scrapbooks they kept for the years 1930's through 1950's. We also wish to thank the Reverend John Rawlinson, Diocesan Archivist for his time, aid and advice. Other sources used included the files of the late Miss Hulda Moorhead, letters from Mrs. Robert Allison and Mrs. Frederick Avery, and oral interviews on tape with The Reverend Hugh Hardin, Mr. Robert Coman, Doctor Robert Clarke, Mrs. Neal O. (Verona) Madson, and Mrs. Augusta Cunningham.
NOTE: Readers will notice at once that the life and times of Dean Bradley dominate this history. One reason is the long period of his rectorship and association with the parish; another is he remained a leading citizen of San Rafael and Marin for so many years we found more information about his very long life here. His grandchildren and great-grandchildren still live in Marin County.
RESEARCHERS AND WRITERS
IN THE BEGINNING:
Jocelyn Moss, Researcher and WriterPROGRESS:
Helen Walters, Researcher; Jocelyn Moss, WriterFATHER CUTTING'S LECTURES:
Frances Gould, Researcher and WriterTHE DEAN:
Frances Could, Researcher and WriterDEPRESSION AND WAR:
Marilyn Wick, Researcher and WriterGROWTH:
Verona Madson, Researcher; Marilyn Wick, WriterCHANGE:
Verona Madson, Researcher; Marilyn Wick, WriterFINAL EDITING:
Jocelyn Moss and Marilyn WickART, LAYOUT AND PUBLISHING:
Patricia Leo
St. Paul's was active in the Civil Rights movement, with many parishioners actively working in the South. A delegation was present during Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s symbolic march to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on March 9, 1965 and during the subsequent Selma to Montgomery March. On the other hand, while there are no writings from the period describing the differences, anecdotal oral evidence indicates that St. Paul's was indubitably split over the Vietnamese War. It was also generous, working with other churches and groups to aid and house Vietnamese refuges. --Webmaster
