Our History

By Jay Cherry, May 1999

During the 1958-1959 church year a task force of the First Unitarian Church in Baltimore studied the prospects of supporting the idea of having fellowships initiated in the Greater Baltimore Area. The congregational meeting in May 1960 approved the recommendation of the task force that fellowships be started in Catonsville and Towson. In August some 75 people met in the Lutherville Elementary School to explore the idea. In January 1960 a follow-up meeting was held in the Women's Club of Towson (formerly a Methodist church) at the corner of Bosley and Allegheny Avenues. The thirty-five who were there voted to proceed with organizing a congregation for the Greater Towson Area with services to begin on the third Sunday of January and the name being Towson Unitarian Fellowship.

Having initiated Sunday services with church school AND a choir in January 1960, the original 35 charter members grew to 85 by the end of May. We were recognized as the fastest growing fellowship in Unitarian history. This was a real "coup" in bringing liberal religious thinking into Baltimore County. We were a proud and motivated group operating on our own contributions but with moral support from First Church, Baltimore. It had a long history having been established as a congregation in 1817 and dedicating its new building in 1819 with Jared Sparks as its first minister. This was a challenge to us without being intimidating. We were initiating our own history in 1960.

Early on we were low on funds. The success last Saturday (May 8, 1999) of the parking lot sale was a reminder of our first really big fun(d)raiser: a HUGE rummage sale held on the then vacantland of Goucher College across from what was called the Towson Shopping Center. Rummage, or by whatever label you want to give it, was collected during the spring and summer, stored in the garage of 406 Pennsylvania Ave., then transported on Friday to the sale site. A large - very - army surplus tent was rented where all was taken. While we were an optimistic and trusting band of entrepreneurs, we did not think it realistic not to have some people presence during the night.

It was our nearly senior members, Francis and Dorothy Pettijohn, who volunteered to sleep over to guard our rummage, the sale of which would initiate our first successful fundraising activity.  If those of you reading these vignettes of our history can recall, one of the earliest decisions we made was to find a site on which to build a church at sometime in the future. The importance now was to select and purchase land or land with a building on it which might be converted for our use. A barn in Riderwood was given some consideration as was the high ground on the NE corner of Charles Street and Chesapeake Avenue, the Emerson Farm at Greenspring Valley Road and Falls Road, and our present location on Dulaney Valley Road. This piece was being sold cheap ($35,000 for more than seven acres) by the developer to the south of us since it wasn't suitable for housing. While there were those who wanted us to be in or near the center of Towson where we could be of more service to the community, ultimately the vote favored 1710 Dulaney Valley.

The land was purchased through contributions and by the sale of "bonds" at just over 4 percent interest. Even after this objections kept being raised about the location. After a continuing search over the next four years the Building Committee offered a possible alternative.  Once the "deal" fell through with the admonition that the burden of finding an alternative was on the dissenters, no more was heard, and we could claim 1710 as our own.  After we bought the land here at 1710, we went on to calling a minister. We had passed by the Fellowship status by May 1960, allowing us to change our name to Towson Unitarian Church-a big jump and fast too. We now felt we were ready for the next milestone.

During the 1961-62 church year we took the initiative.  It must be remembered that we had continued to act as a fellowship even though we had become a church. Even today in some churches there is the desire not to have a minister but to continue with lay led services and guest speakers. However, having a place to be identified as ours, which says "Here we are," and a person to be our public spokesperson, saying, "This is our voice in the community," demonstrates that our presence is permanent.

Thus a Search Committee arranged to hear a candidate in the newly formed Universalist Congregation in Silver Spring where the candidate's brother was the minister who had been sent by the Universalists to establish this new group. While the Search Committee was listening to the candidate in Silver Spring, the rest of us were listening to his brother in Towson as the guest speaker for the morning. We were so taken by his presentation that David rather than Robert MacPherson was called to become the first minister of TUUC. His first official sermon was given September 9, 1962, on the topic, We Gather Together. It was ten years later on September 10, 1972, when we would move into our own church building at 1710 Dulaney Valley Road, Lutherville.

We had the place and we had the voice.  So we have the minister, the land, a church school program, a choir, a rented house for offices (including the Joseph Priestley District) and rental of the Towson Junior (then) Women's Club.  But we didn't have our own church. So we held house meetings to put togehter our "wants" list.

The Building Committee viewed several architect's structures. The Finance Committee prepared a construction budget. We were ready. Architecht H. Newell Jacobson of Washington, DC (He'd just had a big spread in LIFE) was chosen and given a budget cap of $165,000 with an additional $35,000 for furnishings. What optimists we were! He came back with a design at a cost of $600,000+. With revisions he resubmitted at $350,000 (he hadn't done any UU churches). We said, Thanks, but no thanks," and paid him $10,000 for work done.

During 1970 the Building Committee tried finding another congregation with whom we might do a joint building venture. Epiphany Episcopal on Pot Spring Road had a church but no RE building. We proposed such a building with the two congregations leasing from a parent corporation. We voted it up; they voted it down - just by one vote. What now?

Mark Beck, an architect and TUUC member who had been advising our Building Commitee gave in to our request for designing a structure for us. The first plan was based on usingTimonium or Hampton Elementary school for our church school. Fortunately, two on the Board recommended a lower level for RE which was approved.

September 10, 1972, we dedicated our new Church after a lot of sweat equity by us and within the $200,000 budget. Twelve years and 9 months having passed since our first service, we could now say, "We are here to stay."

The roster of our consecutive ministers has been described - four "permanent" (for as long as they stayed) and three interims who helped get us through the loss of the ministers who were moving on while preparing us for our next one. During the year or two each was with us, there were some "bumps" that needed to be smoothed over which is part of the role of the interim.

Another area of ministry, however, is the influence our congregation and our ministers have had in stimulating and thus influencing individual members into becoming ministers themselves.  Eileen Karpeles was the first to have been so influenced. Wife of an anatomy professor, mother of three girls, editor of our newsletter, Vice President, and holder of bachelor and master degrees, Eileen enrolled at Starr King School in Berkeley, California, where she was awarded the Master of Divinity degree in 1977. She returned to TUUC later that year to become the first of our ordaining of ministers. She went on to become the interim minister in a number of UU societies and retired in 1993.

Five years later we ordained Dorris Dow Alcott. From the time she joined us in the early 1960s, her interests were with the children. Wife, mother of two boys, teacher in our church school, she became our Director of Religious Education (DRE) and active enough in the Joseph Priestley District to become chair of the RE Committee. She earned a BA from Goddard College in 1980 and was awarded a UUA Diploma as Minister of Religious Education two years later. From TUUC she became the Religious Education Consultant for JPD from which she retired in 1995.

Just this past June Ralph Tyksinski was ordained following an independent study program during which training he was chaplain intern in the York, PA hospital and had a one-year internship with our Wilmington, DE members. Husband, father of two girls and one boy, Ralph earned his AB from Knox College and both Bachelor of Divinity and Master of Education degrees from the University of Chicago. He was substitute pastor of the First UU Church of Austin, TX, in the summer of 2000.

Ordination may be in the future for two of our young folks who grew up in our RE Program. Christina Sasaki and Andrew Bourn both received bachelor degrees from Earlham and have gone on to graduate school. Christina earned a Masters of Divinity from the Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, while Drew is in his final year at Harvard Divinity School from which he will receive a Master of Divinity degree. They are both currently involved in service to the community.