Old building houses many memories for generations of children
This coming Sunday the Harvard Unitarian Universalist Church will kick off its “Building for Fellowship” campaign, a fundraiser chaired by Susie Macrae and Cary Browse for the construction of a new fellowship building. On that day the sermon will focus on how the building project ties into the overall mission of the church. Following the service, there will be an old-time picnic.
The present fellowship building was built in 1959. For the past several years there have been concerns about the physical condition of the structure. Consultation with experts determined that the cost of renovation would be prohibitive and that new construction would be the most responsible use of the church’s resources. The congregation had input on the vision for the new building and continued opportunity for feedback during the design process. The new building will be on the same site as the existing structure, but will provide additional space and facilities to meet the needs of the congregation. It will have classrooms, meeting rooms, and a large open gathering space to house the church’s religious education, community, and social action programs. Construction is planned for June 2008 and is expected to take a year.
Among its many uses, the fellowship building has played an important role in the education of children over the years, and it has welcomed a diverse population of young people. In the years before there was a public kindergarten in town, the building housed the Village Nursery School and Kindergarten (VNSK). At that time, about 90 percent of Harvard’s preschool and school-age children attended the school. In the early ’90s the nursery school moved to a new building on Poor Farm Road.
In 1968, Emilie Coolidge, first chairwoman of VNSK, suggested that a few families in town host inner-city children for a two-week period during the summer and bring them together for a day camp at the fellowship building. Jean McCrosky, who was the education chairwoman of the school, saw this as a perfect opportunity: “Roxbury and Dorchester children needed vacations, and our children needed to meet the real world,” she wrote in a 1995 Harvard Post article. That summer 26 children, plus counselors, volunteers, and host mothers, used the fellowship building for arts and crafts, storytelling, dance, and music. For another couple of summers the building hosted the Harvard-Roxbury Education Project.
In the late ’70s a group of Cambodian teenagers arrived from UNESCO’s Camp Seikeo in Thailand to be sheltered and adopted by several Harvard families. At the fellowship building, McCrosky planned stories and art projects for the entire Sunday school once a month: clay-modeling the elephants and tigers of Southeast Asia, stenciling Cambodian fabrics, building kites, and painting. She recalls that five or six teenage Cambodian boys painted murals of the Mekong, with their stilted homes along the jungle riverside. One younger boy put Harvard elms in his Mekong painting and “was mildly rebuked by the older boys for his forgetfulness.” Seen another way, one could argue that his art reflected how welcome and comfortable his host family and church had made him feel.
On and off through the ’60s McCrosky rented a classroom in the fellowship building for afternoon workshops. These evolved into the History-Art Workshops that began in 1974 and continued for 14 years. In 2002, Hellie Swartwood and Eva Cahill opened The Evergreen School, a Montessori-styled nursery school, in the building.
In addition to these educational programs for children, the fellowship building has housed a variety of activities. Betsy Williams remembers it as a real social gathering place for youth in the ’60s, with Friday night dances sponsored by the church youth group, and enjoyed by all young people in town. The early ’70s saw weekly folk dancing classes for teens. After a fire in the church in December 1964, the Harvard Couples Club met in the fellowship building, and Scout meetings, pizza parties, turkey dinners, concerts, funerals, weddings and receptions all have been held there. Fond memories of all these events and activities will remain long after the old building itself is gone.