Notes on Two Hundred Years (and More)
by Douglas H. Parkhurst

Continued from June 2026…

In late January of 1965, Pilgrim Lodge of Odd Fellows began renovating the interior of a storage building on their premises at 21 King Lane in Ridgefield. This space, about 1,100 square feet, once housed a dog kennel; a previous owner raised Bedlington terriers there. Plans were drawn for a new meeting room and kitchen. Other community groups used the Odd Fellows building and property and more space was needed to satisfy demand. One of these groups was the new Unitarian Fellowship of Ridgefield. The congregation had commenced holding Sunday morning services in Pilgrim Lodge’s main hall in October 1964. The Unitarians planned to move into the newly created meeting space once construction was complete, projected to be later in 1965.

The Ridgefield Unitarian Fellowship had but a two-year existence as an independent entity, from mid-1964 to mid-1966. The year 1965 was the only full calendar year in the life of this congregation. It was a most active twelve months, with interesting and wide-ranging lay-led programs, a variety of guest speakers, and exceptional music. A church school program ran concurrent with Sunday services and a social concerns committee was organized.

January 1965 began with guest speaker Philip Hilsenrad, a Ridgefield lawyer who had worked with the civil rights movement in Mississippi during the previous summer. The following week heavy snow caused the postponement of a presentation by Rev. Ray Blakely of Mahopac, New York, to a Sunday in late February. Rev. Blakely’s topic was to be “The Scandal of Respectability.” The next Sunday, Danbury State College [see note below] faculty member David Driscoll of Newtown considered “the interaction between philosophy and religion in the modern world.” Services for January concluded with a film showing the activities of the United Nations police force in various world trouble spots. The film recognized International Cooperation Year being sponsored by the UN.

This was the flavor of programs and services conducted during the coming months. In February, a group from First Unitarian Society of Rockland County, New York, visited and presented a service based on the plays of Sophocles. Violinist Joan Weibel and pianist Grace Bakamjian provided music. Also that month the social concerns committee began collecting books to give to needy children. This effort augmented a continuing children’s clothes drive sponsored by the committee.

Rev. William Horton, interim minister of the Danbury Universalist-Unitarian church [see note below], was a guest speaker in March and presented “Unitarianism: The Emotional Religion.” Martha Salzman, oboist, performed Handel Concerto No. 1 in B Flat Major for this service. In April, Rev. Arnold Westwood, minister of the Unitarian Church of Westport, spoke on “James J. Reeb: A Tribute and a Challenge” [see note below]. Easter services that month were led by the children of the fellowship. In May, a group from the religious education program traveled to New York City, spending a Sunday visiting an Episcopal church in Harlem and engaging in a discussion session there. At a lay service in May, three members of the Ridgefield fellowship discussed their “varying points of view” and personal experiences within Unitarianism.

Sunday services recessed for the summer months, but members of the social concerns committee carried on. At an evening meeting in July, a guest, Mrs. Frederick Adams, spoke about a summer program for youth in the Danbury area called “Operation Breakthrough.” This was an educational and recreational program sponsored by the Danbury branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and based at the Danbury Universalist-Unitarian church. On August 14 the Ridgefield fellowship organized a picnic at Putnam Park in Redding for members of Operation Breakthrough. On Labor Day, the fellowship participated with Congregational, Episcopal, and Methodist congregations in a bake sale at Great Pond in Ridgefield. This effort helped defray the expenses of a day camp for young people in Brooklyn, New York. Around this time, too, committee members initiated monthly visits to patients at Fairfield Hills Hospital in Newtown. And, with the coming of the school year, a volunteer tutoring program was established for junior and senior high school students in Ridgefield needing help with their studies.

The Ridgefield Unitarians resumed Sunday services on September 12 in their newly constructed Odd Fellows meeting space. Rev. Mounir Sa’adah, a Unitarian Universalist minister then teaching at Choate School in Wallingford, was guest speaker. He would return in November to lead another service. On Sunday, September 26, dedication ceremonies were conducted at the new hall. For a time this refurbished space would be referred to as the “Unitarian Meeting House.” An article announcing the dedication appeared in The Ridgefield Press [see note below]. It said in part:

“The new meeting room in the rectangular building on the Odd Fellows property was designed by Architect George Shear, a Fellowship member. The wood paneled and fieldstone interior seats about 75 people. One wall of sliding glass doors supplies light and opens onto a paved terrace.”

Program committee member Robert Hoffman led this service of dedication, assisted by children from the church school. Mrs. Raymond Rogers, pianist from Brewster, New York, played the Prelude and Fugue in E Flat Major of Bach; the Sonata No. 2, first movement, Hindemith; and the Allegretto in E Minor, Beethoven. It was announced that works of area artists would be displayed on a monthly basis. First to be shown were paintings by Joseph Salzman of Ridgefield.

United Nations Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, who died in July 1965, was remembered at the first service in October. Stevenson, a prominent Unitarian, was a former governor of Illinois and 1950s Democratic presidential candidate. Later in the month guest speaker Herman Baptiste, a Unitarian and director at large for the National Council of Teachers of English, presented a talk on “The Right to Read and the Teacher of English.” A Mason and Hamlin grand piano was installed in the new meeting room and a series of musicales to benefit the piano fund was planned for Sunday evenings beginning in October. Among musicians taking part over the next few months were Marguerite Fischer, violin; Martha Salzman, oboe; Grace Bakamjian, piano; Edmond Finaldi, violin; Joseph Childs, violincello; David Volckhausen, piano; Alex Ogle, flute; and Anne MacLean, soprano. Mostly classical selections were performed [see note below].

Writer and teacher David Driscoll, who spoke to the congregation earlier in the year, returned in the fall with a series of presentations on the world’s great philosophers. These included French mathematician Blaise Pascal; Danish theologian and social critic Soren Kierkegaard; and Russian author Feodor Dostoevski. On November 7, Rev. Lynn Partridge, former minister of the Unitarian Society of Rockland County, presented a “worship service of words spoken against the background of high quality jazz.” Other guest speakers in November and December included Rabbi Michael Gelber of Brooklyn Heights, New York; Rev. Norman Naylor, a Unitarian minister working in New York City; and Dr. Thayer Wade, superintendent of Ridgefield schools. The year 1965 closed with a family Christmas candlelight service on Sunday afternoon, December 19, at 4:30 pm. Highlights of the celebration were music by oboe and piano, decorating a mitten tree, and refreshments.

[Note – Danbury State College is now Western Connecticut State University.]
[Note – First Universalist Church of Danbury added “Unitarian” to its name in 1960, in anticipation of the two denominations joining together during the following year.]
[Note – Rev. James Reeb was a white Unitarian Universalist minister murdered in Selma, Alabama, at the time of voting rights protests there in March of 1965.]
[Note – “Unitarians Dedicating New Meeting House” The Ridgefield Press, September 23, 1965.]
[Note – Some of the performers were fellowship members and others were not.]

To be continued…