The Legacy of Dr. Wicks

A Sermon by the Rev. Bruce Clear

Sunday, February 16, 2003

All Souls Unitarian Church

Indianapolis, Indiana

The next time you are driving around town and notice a city park that has playground equipment for children, I hope you will think of All Souls Unitarian Church and the minister Frank Scott Corey Wicks. The next time you hear warnings of air pollution in the city and attempts to curtail it, I hope you will think of All Souls Unitarian Church and the minister Frank Scott Corey Wicks. And perhaps dearest to his heart, I hope the next time on a Sunday afternoon you either attend or drive by Victory Stadium, the playing field of the Indianapolis Indians, I hope you will think of this church and that minister.

In this centennial year of All Souls, I am giving occasional sermons on our history. Last month I spoke about the founding of the church in 1903, and the first few years of its existence. Today I focus on its second minister, its first long-term minister, F.S.C. Wicks. There is no single individual who had a greater influence on the character of All Souls than Frank Wicks had. Many people in this room never heard of him. Some people in this room recognize the name but know very little about him. A few people in this room actually knew him.

He began his ministry here in 1905 and officially retired in 1938, for a total of 33 years, a full one third of our history. When he arrived in 1905, the newly organized church had about sixty or seventy members. When he retired, three decades later, the membership was nearly 500. That's not the end, though. He remained extremely active in retirement as Minister Emeritus, making frequent home and hospital visits, speaking at services several times a year, and serving on various charitable boards around the city. His activities continued almost until his death in 1952 at the age of 84. During his tenure at All Souls, he preached over 1,200 sermons. As minister, and as minister emeritus, then, his influence on All Souls and on Indianapolis spanned a total of 47 years, nearly half of the history of this church and half of the twentieth century. That half century included many dramatic events in our history: World War I, prohibition, the Depression, and, during his retirement years, World War II. To follow his ministry is

Also to visit the pivotal events of our world over those years.

To begin the story of Frank Wicks, I'll need to take just a minute to review the story I told last month of the founding of All Souls. Between 1868 and 1900, there were several failed attempts to start a liberal Christian or Unitarian church in Indianapolis. Finally, a prominent businessman by the name of Horace McKay wrote to the American Unitarian Association in Boston requesting that they send a minister. In February, 1903, Elmer Newbert, a Unitarian minister from Bangor, Maine, came to town and began recruiting people from a list of names given him by Horace McKay. The first service was held on May 3 at the Hebrew Temple. On May 11, thirteen people met to commit themselves to the project and organizational plans began. Over the summer, a building was purchased at 14^th and Alabama Streets - it was a temporary structure used by the First Presbyterian Church while waiting for its new building to be completed a few blocks away.

On October 18, 1903, All Souls was formally accepted by the American Unitarian Association, and the Secretary of the A.U.A. was sent from Boston to preach the Sunday sermon. On that day of incorporation, 30 people signed the membership book. Over the Fall, a Board of Trustees was appointed and a Women's Alliance organized. In December, the covenant was adopted and the church recorded its articles of incorporation with the state of Indiana.

From February through December of 1903, All Souls Unitarian Church was being born - and it was strong and healthy by 1904. Newbert stayed another year, but in early 1905, he resigned. His strongest skills were in organizing, but he was not interested in staying on indefinitely as minister. His work was done. Over the summer of 1905, the church searched for a new minister, and they were enthusiastic about one they found from Brighton, Massachusetts: Frank Scott Corey Wicks. Wicks and his wife had been to Indianapolis, and this New England Brahmin thought it an exciting prospect to venture into the developing territory of Indiana. With enthusiasm, he accepted, and he was installed on December 10, 1905.

As you listen to this story, your picture of Indianapolis should be strikingly different from what it is today. For one thing, the population was about 160,000, slightly more than the current population of, say, Evansville, and substantially less, roughly 10% of the current Indianapolis population of over one million. Our city was then what we might today consider to be a mid-sized town with far outlying suburbs, like Irvington or Beech Grove. The pace in the city was considerably slower in those days. Communication and transportation would be deemed primitive by today's standard - when people went someplace they usually walked (almost any place worth going was nearby). When people needed to talk to someone, they didn't telephone or email, they went and knocked on a door of their home or office.

Before moving on with the story, I should probably go back to fill in the gaps of Frank Wicks' life. He was born on February 15, 1868 (he would be 135 years old last month!). His father had emigrated from England as a young child; his mother's roots went back to colonial days. His father was a successful wool manufacturer, not wealthy, apparently, but as we might say, "comfortable." His mother was a woman of culture, and widely well read.

Frank Wicks' childhood was a good one, but fairly undirected. He attended a military school in upstate New York, and upon graduation was unsure what he wanted to do. He had a vague inclination toward practicing law, but ended up as a school teacher and newspaper reporter while waiting to discover his destiny.

Many years later, in 1925, he reflected on his youth and eventual call to ministry in a sermon entitled "Thirty Years in the Ministry." Here is part of what he said.

"I have been asked often why I entered the ministry. Apparently there is some surprise in the mind of the one asking the question why I should enter into the ministry when there are so many more tempting fields open. Of course, I can give reasons, but reasons for doing anything are usually afterthoughts. Our decisions in life arise from subconscious processes as mysterious to us as to anyone else. .

. "There was nothing in my youth that predicted the pulpit. . . . I was brought up in a typical New England home. I went to church because I had to, and Sunday School as a matter of course. Church-going was a bore and I never thought of listening to the sermon, and, apparently, it never occurred to the minister to say anything that interested a boy. Had he used but one illustration from baseball, he would have had me. . . .

I was born of Puritan parents in a New England home, who accepted without question the dogmas of orthodoxy; that is, they believed that in Adam's fall all mankind suffered the taint of original sin and by reason of that fall there had been alienation from God, a chasm not to be crossed until there had been made a fitting atonement. Then God himself came to earth, appeared in the form of Jesus Christ, offered up his life on the cross, and now all confessing his name enter into eternal salvation. These were the teachings of my childhood. There was a hell, but it held no personal terrors for us, for we belonged to the right church and held the right views. The nicest people attended the Congregational Church, but there was no harm in going to Methodist, Baptist, Episcopalian or any orthodox church. Some went to the Universalist Church. We envied them because they could dance in their vestry.

"There were Unitarian churches in our city, but our Sunday School teacher explained to us that they were only Jews who were ashamed to call themselves that. They were the oldest families, and the most wealthy. I supposed no one could enter that church unless first he had his genealogy examined and his escutcheon found quite without stain.

"The family Bible in my home was regarded as the infallible word of God, reverenced but rarely read; usually on the shelf, but if warning was given that the minister was at the door, it was brought out, hastily dusted, and put in a conspicuous place, while I slipped out the back door. I knew that if the minister caught me, he would pry into the condition of my soul, and find that I was not interested in saving my soul or preparing for death. I preferred to go fishing. . . .

"Sometimes I listened to the talk between the minister and my parents. I could not recognize those strange tones, holy tones, exceedingly pious. I then learned how unnatural people are with the average minister. If anybody had suggested that I would ever become a minister, I would have demonstrated that I was better fitted for a prize fighter."

From there, Wicks tells about eventually meeting someone who told him his ideas sounded Unitarian. He investigated the church and discovered, as he wrote, "I had already become a Unitarian, but like so many others, I did not know it."

He was introduced to a Unitarian minister, and after extended conversations eventually became convinced that was what he wished to do. He entered Meadville Theological School, a Unitarian seminary, and upon graduating did further studies at Harvard Divinity School, which was then dominated by Unitarians. His first church as minister was in Passaic, New Jersey, where he stayed for only three years, but during those three years he oversaw the planning and construction of a new church building.

From there he went to the Unitarian church in Brighton, Massachusetts, where he stayed for eight years. Over the years, he had done a bit of traveling, guest speaking at various churches. At one point, he spoke to the fledgling church in Indianapolis. He made an impression. His wife Elizabeth had been with him, and she recalled being very impressed with the city. In October.1905, All Souls voted to issue an invitation to Frank Wicks to become their minister. They offered a salary of $2,000, an inadequate church building in need of desperate repair, but also a group of eager and enthusiastic people wanting to build a strong Unitarian church in a growing Midwestern city. He accepted their invitation.

When Wicks arrived in December,1905, he found his destiny. Sometimes people speak of a relationship between a minister and congregation as a "good match" or "bad match" without being able to articulate what that means. Some even compare it with a marriage. In the case of Frank Wicks and All Souls, it seemed the perfect match.

He was not what this relatively untamed West was used to. He spoke with a thick Boston accent, smoked cigars, and walked about town with a cane and a full length cape. He always carried a cloth bag with books he could read should he find himself with a spare moment. He was an intellectual, and immediately joined the Harvard Club when he arrived.

But his strongest asset was more personal. He was a genuinely warm and caring person - always there with a smile or a joke, always interested in the people around him. It was that character strength that most built the congregation.

One of the original thirteen founders, Helen Heywood Lewis, recalled him this way many years later:

"Mr. Wicks came with all the aura of Harvard, the East, and a certain sophistication that was not what we had up until then.... He belonged to the Harvard Club and that also began to attract a lot of people. And so there came quickly a growth under Dr. Wicks - which was the making of All Souls because he so quickly made friends. . . . He also was very genial, happy-to-meet-you kind of person in a masculine kind of way. He quickly joined the old German House, which is now the Athaneum.. . . . And he attracted a big circle of young men at that time, names that you will recognize very easily and very well.

Wicks was ostracized by the ministers' association because he clearly was not evangelical in his beliefs, and he never was extended an invitation. Nevertheless he developed close friendships with a number of clergy - he was especially close to a Catholic priest named Father Gavis and a Jewish rabbi named Fenerlicht. Father Gavis liked to refer to the three of them as "The Trinity."

Clearly the first project to be undertaken, after gathering a strong group of committed people, was to create a more adequate church building. The temporary structure they purchased from the Presbyterians was frail and inadequate. The stove was outside under a lean-to. One member recalled it this way: It was as "functional in design as a car barn or a factory building; from the exterior, as a church, it was wholly uninviting." It was known around town as "Wicks' cigar box." Mayor Bookwalter referred to it as "Frank Wicks' soap box up on Alabama Street."

By 1910, the work to create a new building was begun. It is probably not fair to associate Wicks too closely with the new building, since the Board insisted that he not get bogged down in the plans, and certainly not be involved in fund-raising, but it is fair to say that the building was possible to a large extent because of the successful ministry he began. And as it turned out, he did have a significant influence on the design.

Raising the money was indeed a challenge. The congregation was still not large, though it did have several very prominent and well-to-do businessmen. With a loan from the American Unitarian Association, they got it done. The old "cigar box" was torn down, and a new church constructed on the same site.

They contracted with the architectural firm of Kurt Vonnegut, Sr., who also happened to be a church member. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., of current literary fame, was his son and was raised in All Souls. The next year they constructed a striking edifice, an English Tudor style building that resembled as much a stately home as it did a church. The new building was dedicated on January 15, 1911, and the newspaper report said this: "The whole idea of the church, according to Dr. Wicks, is to foster the thought that it is a home and those who gather therein are members of one big family." In fact, the church had a curious resemblance to the one in Passaic, N.J., which was built during Wicks' three year ministry there. Dr. Samuel Eliot, President of the American Unitarian Association, spoke at the dedication.

This new building was the source of great pride for the church members, and it attracted many new members, too. In addition to the very warm and inviting architecture, it included other artistic works of interest. The famous Hoosier artist Brandt Steele, a member of the church, contributed beautiful leaded glass windows with a design theme of the "tree of life." T.C. Steele, also a member, donated a painting. Architect Vonnegut commissioned a wood design artist to carve the Covenant in wood to hang in the front of the sanctuary. That piece can be seen today up in our Beattie room.

Churches can take on a sense of sacred space, not so much because there is something particularly holy about them, but because so many important life events happen there. This was where couples met and couples were married. This is where children were dedicated and welcomed into the community. This is where loved ones who die are honored in memorials. This is where friends gather for food, for fun, and for meaningful conversation. What today is called "the old church" or "the Alabama Street Church" was to become a significant sacred space for perhaps thousands of people and several generations of Indianapolis Unitarians.

There is an amusing anecdote told about the new organ. This comes from a history of the time written by someone on the building committee. They met with one organ salesman who told them his company installed one recently at the Fourth Presbyterian church, and the committee could examine and test that one. They arranged for a night to do so. The Building Committee assumed the salesman arranged for a key to the Presbyterian Church, and the Salesman assumed the committee did. Anyway, they arrived that night at a locked church. Someone found an open window, and they all entered. They tested the organ and left. Mr. Glossbrenner, who reported that story, recalled that they joked about a possible newspaper headline the next day: "Prominent Unitarian Laymen Held for Break-in at Fourth Presbyterian Church"

In 1917, Frank Wicks was honored with a Doctor of Divinity degree from Meadville Theological School, and thereafter he was referred to endearingly by the congregation, and throughout the city, as "Dr. Wicks."

Another way in which Dr. Wicks made an impact on the city was through his controversial sermons. It may seem strange to us today, but in the early 20^th century, the newspaper regularly reported on significant Sunday morning sermons, especially if they were controversial.

When Emma Goldman, a well-known communist organizer, was forbidden to give a speech in town, Wicks gave a sermon which defended her right to speak, even if he disagreed with her politics. The newspaper carried the story of his sermon prominently. He also defended the free speech rights of the famous Hoosier socialist and labor organizer Eugene V. Debs. At another time, he defended the free speech rights of a pro-German speaker, even during World War I. In each case, he was able to distinguish between defending the right of the speaker to freedom of speech rather than defending what the speaker had to say. Also during that war, he prepared a sermon by the title, "Would Jesus Love the Germans?" and several of his own church members came to him privately fearing the church would be labeled "pro-German." Wicks sat down with them and went over the sermon, after which one man responded, "I guess we didn't listen carefully enough because it is evident that what you mean is just fair treatment of them."

He defended evolution during the famous Scopes trial in the 1920s. He started a city-wide debate among clergy when the paper reported on his sermon which claimed that Jesus didn't intend to start the Christian church. He supported the repeal of Prohibition. His sermon entitled "In Defense of Judas" attracted wide attention, as might be imagined.

In 1914, the Star carried a long story under the headline: "Dancing Parties Given at Church: Minister Defends Pastime."

"Coming forth as an exponent of dancing, the Rev. F.S.C. Wicks, minister of All Souls Unitarian Church, declared yesterday that his church encourages dancing and provides a room where dancing parties are given and where instruction may be obtained twice a week."

In the story, Wicks suggested, to the shock of many local residents reading the paper, that dancing can be an innocent and healthy activity, and it hurts no one.

Wicks raised a brouhaha that was widely reported in the paper when he came out in favor of Sunday baseball during a sermon. The October 26, 1908 issue of the Indianapolis Star said, "At All Souls Unitarian Church yesterday morning, the Rev. F.S.C. Wicks described what he terms 'A Reasonable Sunday,' and in doing so advocated Sunday baseball, if properly regulated." It seems that the law prohibited the playing of professional baseball games on Sunday. The story went on to say that Wicks believed if the Sabbath is truly a day of rest, we ought to be able to enjoy innocent past-times. Besides, he said, it would draw a lot of people away from the taverns, which tended to be full on Sundays.

Wicks was, indeed, a rabid baseball fan, especially for the Boston Red Sox. When he attended Unitarian meetings in Boston each year, he would duck out of those meetings if the Sox were playing at Fenway Park. And apparently there was no Sunday prohibition in Boston. The story is told that when back in Indianapolis, a meeting after church prevented him from hearing the Red Sox game on the radio. When the meeting ended, he immediately called up the Indianapolis newspaper to inquire about the final score. The woman at the other end said in a righteous tone, "Sir, we are not permitted to give out baseball scores on a Sunday." Dr. Wicks responded, "How pious!" and hung up the phone.

Wicks also was well known around town for his involvement, over many years, in numerous civic activities. In the early years of his ministry, he suggested a motto for All Souls that was eventually carried as a banner on all its publications. The church was known as "A Religious Center With a Civic Circumference." And, in fact, Wicks himself lived that motto to its fullest. His activities on behalf of civic betterment were boundless. He, along with other church members, were actively involved in establishing the Children's Museum, the Heron Art Institute, the Symphony, and the City Park system.

While serving on the Board of the City Parks, he suggested that they construct children's playground equipment. His idea was met with opposition, claiming that this is a passing fad that costs too much money. Years later, when president of the City Park board, the first public swimming pool was constructed.

The mayor appointed him to the city's "Smoke Abatement League," an early environmental organization whose purpose was to find ways to reduce the air pollution cause by factories in the city.

Soon after his retirement he wrote concerning the idea of All Souls being the "Religious Center With a Civic Circumference":

"All Souls has a reputation for civic and social usefulness. We were among the founders of the Playground Association, the Juvenile Court Probation Officers Association, the Children's Aid Association, the Family Welfare Society, and the Public Health Nursing Association. The first two presidents of the PHNA and the present president have been of our church. The president of the Riley Hospital is one of our men. The minister is on the board of each of these organizations, as well as being a member of the Board of the Coleman Home for Unmarried Mothers, and the Art Institute. Of course such an attempt to butter himself all over the city means he is spread quite thin in places."

Dr. Wicks and his wife did a substantial amount of traveling. Most summers were spent on excursions to Europe. One year, the Governor appointed him as Indiana's delegate to the celebration of the 1,000 anniversary of the founding of Iceland.

His wife Elizabeth was active in many church activities, especially with the Alliance. She was dearly loved by many, and when she died in 1929, the congregation was in mourning. A few years later, the growing church added a new wing to its building, including a beautiful children's chapel, and the new addition was named in honor of Elizabeth Wicks.

A few years later, Dr. Wicks remarried, this time to Katherine Gibson, a well known woman from Cleveland, Ohio, with a reputation earned as an author of a variety of books and magazines.

Over the years, Dr. Wicks earned a reputation theologically as a Unitarian humanist. He was active in the early founding of the humanist movement.

In the opening years of this century, John Dietrich, a Unitarian minister in Spokane, Washington and later in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was preaching a non-theistic religion he called "humanism." In Des Moines, Iowa, a Unitarian minister named Curtis Reese was preaching a non-theistic religion he called the "religion of democracy." When these two met at a conference in 1917, they discovered the similarities of their messages, and Reese eagerly adopted Dietrich's label, "humanism."

Throughout the 1920s, the humanist view attracted many followers in the denomination. Eventually, a Humanist Fellowship was formed largely by Unitarians in Chicago, at the University of Chicago. This group later reorganized as the American Humanist Association. In 1933, a statement outlining the philosophy of humanism was published under the title, the "A Humanist Manifesto." Of the 34 people who originally signed the document, over half were Unitarian ministers. The most famous signatory, though, was John Dewey, the philosopher, who was then at Chicago, and later at Columbia University.

Frank Wicks was also an original signer of the Humanist Manifesto. His perspective is easily discovered in many sermons. Here is an example from a sermon delivered February 20, 1925:

"We see that all is natural; we find our revelation of God in the orderly processes of Nature. . . . We must always make images of God, material or mental, and then worship them. There is nothing reprehensible in this. . . . The amount of God we find in the universe is strictly proportional to the amount we find in ourselves. Only as we become pure in heart do we see God. We find something divine in our own natures: a love that unites us to our kind; a craving for truth that urges us to its quest; an instinct for justice which will tolerate no wrong. . . . If these things are with us, they must be the Infinite, for we cannot be left out of the grand totality; we can worship only a God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, who reveals himself in nature which does not change."

There is little question that his sermons were exceptional and distinguished and contributed to his high reputation in a number of areas. It is also true that his impressive activities in civic causes added to the vast store of respect by which he was held in so many eyes. But it is clear that for those who knew him, what is remembered most is his personal warmth and caring. One person told me that when they were children, if they greeted him downtown by the bus stop, he would take them to the store and buy an ice cream. He often took church youth with him to the symphony.

I began by saying that this church has been shaped more by Dr. Wicks than any other single person over its 100 year history. It is also true, I believe, that this church helped shape the character of Frank Wicks, bringing out of him the very best that he was able to do.

In 1945, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination, he reflected on his experience as a minister and had this to say:

"I have never entered the pulpit without a feeling of elation and gratitude: joy in the freedom I am given; gratitude for the liberty bequeathed by my spiritual ancestors, who gave me their best but fixed me to no dogma."

There seems to be a vague institutional memory here at All Souls that Frank Wicks is responsible for authoring our covenant. That is not true. The covenant is a revision of one that had been around the Unitarian movement for some time. It is also true that the first minister, Rev. Newbert, was responsible for offering this as our covenant in the founding year of 1903.

But in some ways, institutional memory has a certain mythical accuracy that mere fact misses. It was the character and ministry of Frank Wicks that set the tone which allowed for our covenant to grow and prosper. It is the legacy of Frank Wicks, more than any other person, that gave life to our covenant and shaped the church along those values:

Love is the spirit of this church

And service is its law.

To dwell together in peace,

To seek the truth in love,

And to help one another.

This is our covenant.