About – HistoryUC Evanston2023-01-25T18:06:47+00:00
HISTORY
Nellie Brough was the daughter and granddaughter of Unitarian ministers. She and actor-turned-banker Herbert Brough were beginning a family and they wanted their children to grow up in the Unitarian faith. When they moved to the Chicago area, Mrs. Brough went to work to recreate the Unitarian experience here for her children. She met neighbors who were also transplanted New England Unitarians, and together they decided to gather folks interested in hearing Unitarian preaching and perhaps starting a church in Evanston.
They contacted the Secretary of the Western Unitarian Conference, J.R. Effinger, who met with their first gathering in September of 1891. He recommended them to the Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones who was riding circuit in those days, supporting the establishment of several groups in the greater Chicago area (and beyond). Rev. Jones, in turn, recommended the group to his colleague, the Rev. James Vila Blake of Third Church Chicago. The men preached at the Evanston gathering for the first meetings that fall. In December, Rev. Blake agreed to preach and minister to the small congregation on Sunday afternoons.
For its first decade, the group met in various halls around Evanston, and in 1898 they began to talk about perhaps building their own church. The Board of Trustees, however, was reluctant to take on such an expensive endeavor. The Woman’s Alliance had other ideas and began staging fundraisers for a Building Fund, garnering $1500, which they presented to the Board in 1900. The Board then decided that they might well be able to bring it off and started a capital campaign.
The group had trouble coming up with a name for the church. They were divided on the issue of whether to declare themselves Unitarians. The vote, after quite a discussion, was equally divided between calling themselves “Evanston Unitarian Church” and “Church of All Souls,” a popular alternative to “First Unitarian” in many communities. No decision was made, but in practice the group called themselves the “Church of All Souls.” However, two issues forced their hand: When Julia Hintermeister took over the Sunday School in 1899, relieving Mr. Blake of a charge almost beyond the hours of his day, she began an earnest effort to recruit new families; however, members found it difficult to persuade their neighbors to bring their families to an institution that had no name; secondly, the Board learned they could not own the land they wished to buy, on which to build the church, without being incorporated (which they did in 1902), which process required registration of a name. And so “Church of All Souls” was so named officially in 1901.
Excerpt from A History of the Unitarian Church of Evanston by Margaret Shaklee
Historical Articles
Submitted by: Margaret Shaklee
At the turn of the twentieth century, after a decade of renting space in various buildings in Evanston, the Evanston Unitarians began serious talk about building their own church. The board of trustees thought raising that kind of money would be too hard for the little congregation until the Woman’s Alliance presented them with $5000 they had collected through bake sales, rummage events, and square dances, to seed a capital campaign. Well, said the board, I guess we might, at that.
Marion Mahoney offered to design the building. She was part of Frank Lloyd Wright’s young studio and a member of the church. She and a building committee (dontcha know) came up with the little chapel on Chicago Avenue, dedicated in 1904. In 1924 the congregation added a social hall and classrooms.
The congregation grew in fits and starts until the 1950’s, when they experienced the bump of growth felt by most denominations as post-war families brought their youngsters to church. The Sunday school began using classrooms at nearby Miller School and once again the congregation thought about building a church.
This time, they wanted space not only for their children but for 
themselves, as well – to square dance! And voila! the concrete cathedral designed by architect Paul Schweikher was conceived and dedicated in 1958. Members of the congregation worked over the next fifty years to warm our barn with touches of beauty: gradually we added the mural, banners, stained glass, a dropped ceiling, a terrazzo floor, a chancel.
One wonders what they felt as they moved from their cozy chapel on Chicago Avenue to the concrete hall on Ridge Avenue. Must have taken some adjusting, wouldn’t you say? But, oh! could they square dance!
Submitted by: Margaret Shaklee
We Evanston Unitarians have a long history of carefully considering the naming of our church. When we were founded in 1891, we were not pressured to name ourselves, and so we didn’t. Known informally as the Evanston Unitarians, the church was not officially named until 1902, when it became apparent that they needed to be incorporated in order to buy land and obtain the mortgage necessary to build a new church. And they needed to provide a corporate name on the applications.
Anecdote has it that the new religious education director asked that the congregation settle on a name because it was hard to ask new families to come to a church with no name. A vigorous discussion ensued as to whether the young congregation wanted to be identified with the Unitarians, who had a much more radical sense of themselves out here in the west than they had back east where our founding families originated. A congregational meeting resulted in the default choice of “All Souls Church”; the vote was exactly even for “Unitarian” and “All Souls,” and the chair of the board felt the idea was too important for him to break the tie and tip the fledgling congregation into identity crisis. Nevertheless, the Evanston community continued to recognize them as Unitarians and regularly called the church “All Souls Unitarian Church.”
The congregation changed the church name to the Unitarian Church of Evanston in 1931, at the suggestion of Rev. Lester Mondale, who convinced them that being openly Unitarian would add to the strength of liberal religion by contributing to the name recognition of that growing liberal denomination.
At the merger of the Unitarians and the Universalists in 1961, churches were asked to consider adding the new denominational moniker to their name. UCE demurred, as “Unitarian Universalist Church of Evanston” seemed cumbersome and “UUCE” awkward to say. Until now.
Thank you to Dana Deane, Margaret Shaklee, Jane Kenamore, and Lee Bannor for your work exploring our historical documents, working together to understand the themes we wanted to share, and for communicating so well on Sunday, January 15th. Several people asked if the written reflections could be shared, so we will store these reflections on our website under history, found HERE
