Betty Arnold Honored

It began as a pleasant church outing at Hammonasset Beach when she was eleven years old.  Her friend went to the Unitarian Church on Pearl Street, and she decided that was where she wanted to go.  Her parents were relieved.  After all, she and her brother did not like attending their church Sunday school and, at least, this was a church.  Her father was a tobacco farmer, and later worked for the American Pump Company in Hartford.  Her mother was a nurse at Hartford Hospital when nurses worked twelve-hour days for $42 per week.

Mr. Graves, the Unitarian Minister lived just down the street in Wethersfield and was willing to take her to church.  There she attended Sunday school with her friends and as time passed joined the Young Peoples Religious Union, the forerunner of Liberal Religious Youth.   As a sophomore, she attended Rowe Camp.  During her youth, she never got to hear the sermons as she was first busy attending Sunday school and later as a high school junior was recruited to teach Sunday school.  The curriculum may have been more teacher-generated at the time. Once she was handed this: The Fatherhood of God; The Brotherhood of Man; The leadership of Jesus; Salvation by Character; And the Progress of Mankind; Onward and Upward Forever. “Here, do a course on this this year.”

In those days the services were broadcast over WDRC Sunday mornings. In fact, her parents listened to the services and perhaps that is why when she joined the Unitarian Church at age twenty, the family joined with her.

The big draw for young people at the time was the Pearl Street Church Basement, which had a stage where dramatic productions could take place.  In the days before cars were widely available, youth of the time could reach the church by bus and trolley.  She directed some of those productions.

When the depression took hold in 1933-34, many college-aged youth lost their chance for college attendance. A number of them formed the Unity Club, a post high school church group of 15 to 20 members.  She taught Sunday school for many years off and on and then consistently from 1949-68.  She was present when the beloved Mr. Graves retired and Payson Miller arrived to take his place.  In fact, hers was the last marriage performed in the church by Mr. Graves.

The transition from one minister to another was not a smooth one. It may be that Mr. Graves was becoming senile at the time, but in any event the congregation was soon split. As she has said, she lived through a terrible time.  The split congregation finally decided to build a new building.  They were deeply divided over whether they should build a conventional looking church or the one we now inhabit.  When Victor Lundy brought a model of the new building, the reaction was, “Oh my goodness!”   Lundy was a persuasive man and she liked the concept.  At length, the congregation made the acrimonious decision to move forward with the current structure.  A good number of members left because of the decision. Then, in the middle of the building project Payson Miller, the minister, died.  Consequently, the building project, a search for a new minister and a split congregation all happened at more or less the same time.

The Pearl Street Church was sold to become a Synagogue while the congregation met on a temporary basis at Hartford Seminary pending completion of the new building.  As the building project went forward, the original concept specified a Plexiglas ambulatory ceiling.  After the first part was started, the building committee had an emergency meeting under it and voted on the spot not to construct it as it gave everyone a feeling they were in a closed tube.

She was on the search committee that decided on Nat Lauriat, and recalls visiting various candidates in small churches near Boston.  The search committee was supposed to quietly slip into the services, frequently populated by fifty or so congregants. The eleven  person search committee would troop in and sit in the back of the church.  And one would singing so loudly everyone in front would turn about to see who he was.  They did like the spark Nat Lauriat generated and  eventually selected him.

Among other things, she did the Newsletter for a number of years, served on the Council and observed the survival of the Alliance when Payson Miller tried to kill it off.

Asked what things she particularly remembers, she mentioned the flood of 1936 which filled the Pearl Street Church basement and the preoccupation over the long haul with, you guessed it, the leaking roof in our “new” building!

Who is this person?  It is our own Betty Arnold and this summary was drawn from an oral history project done by Betty and Dorothy Fowler dated December 27, 1988. – David Newton