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Centennial
History of Orange Grove Monthly Meeting, 1907-2007
Orange
Grove Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends was founded
in 1907 by a group of twenty Eastern “Hickisite” Quakers who
had migrated to Pasadena in the latter part of the nineteenth century.
These Friends found a congenial home in Pasadena, where Friends of the
Orthodox and Conservative Quaker traditions had already established a
strong Quaker presence. Quakers of the Hicksite tradition worship in silence,
believe that everyone is capable of having a direct relationship with
God, and acknowledge that God may call upon anyone to offer vocal ministry
in the meeting for worship.
The Quaker convictions of unity, simplicity, peace, integrity, community,
and equality are derived from the fundamental belief that the Divine Spirit
or “Inner Light” is present in everyone. From this fundamental
belief, it follows that committing violence of any sort against another
is tantamount to committing violence against God. Therefore, Quakers have
played leading roles in opposing war, working for peace, promoting racial
and gender equality, and supporting environmental and other causes.
In the past one hundred years, Orange Grove Quakers have actively practiced
their faith. After World War I, Orange Grove Meeting members were active
in support of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), which engaged
in post war relief efforts in Western Europe and Russia. Later, Orange
Grove members were instrumental in establishing AFSC’s Pacific Coast
branch.
During Word War II, the Meeting served as a hostel for Japanese-Americans
being sent to internment camps, and Pasadena Friends sent aid to those
already interned. The Meeting members also provided hospitality and financial
support to area conscientious objectors and their families. After the
end of the war, Orange Grove Friends hosted families displaced by the
war and its aftermath.
In 1954, Orange Grove Meeting came face to face with McCarthy-era repression
when the state of California enacted a law requiring all tax-exempt entities,
including churches, to sign a loyalty oath. Because Friends do not take
oaths of any kind, Orange Grove Meeting refused to obey this law and thereafter
lost its tax-exempt status. The Meeting paid taxes under protest and supported
a judicial challenge to the law. Eventually, the United States Supreme
Court nullified California’s loyalty law, and taxes paid by Orange
Grove Meeting were refunded.
In
the midst of the Meeting’s challenge to McCarthyism, Hollywood came
calling in the personages of Gary Cooper and Jessamyn West, who attended
Meeting in preparation for the film adaptation of Ms. West’s novel,
Friendly Persuasion, a story of how a Quaker household contended with
the effects of the Civil War on their family. After Meeting for Worship,
Gary Cooper stayed for social fellowship. Reportedly, few of the older
Meeting members recognized the actor, who was then at the zenith of his
career.
During the Viet Nam War years, Orange Grove Meeting Friends protested
the war in many ways. In December 1968, the Meeting provided “sanctuary”
to a group of AWOL soldiers, draft resisters, and their supporters. From
January to March 1969, a number of conscientious objectors lived in the
meetinghouse, slept on benches, and were fed and clothed by Meeting members.
Although military police and other government officials stood watch outside
the meetinghouse throughout the sanctuary period, they never entered,
even when invited to join the Meeting in worship.
Orange Grove Meeting members have frequently led the way in civil rights
and social justice movements. Meeting members took part in freedom rides
in the South, the Selma, Alabama protests and efforts to desegregate the
Pasadena school system. In 1972, the Meeting acknowledged the equal rights
of homosexuals and the validity of same-sex unions. In 1989, the Meeting
announced that it welcomed applications for marriage between same-sex
couples, and in 1990 the first such wedding took place.
Following Quakers’ long tradition of supporting both public and
Quaker education, Orange Grove has been instrumental in founding five
educational institutions. Pacific Ackworth Friends School (1942) and Pacific
Oaks School (1945) were established by Meeting parents to provide a nurturing
educational environment for community children. In 1961, Mara Moser, an
Orange Grove member, established Mothers’ Club on the Meeting property
to support the families of imprisoned men; Mothers’ Club later evolved
into a child development and family center serving low income, primarily
immigrant families. In 2001, the Friends Western School, which provides
a Quaker-based kindergarten to seventh grade education, opened its doors
on the Orange Grove Meeting site. In 2002, responding to the crisis in
Afghanistan, Orange Grove and Claremont Quakers established a school for
Afghan refugee girls in a camp in northwest Pakistan. There are now two
schools in the camp, providing elementary educational opportunities to
more than 500 girls.
At the time the present meetinghouse was built in 1909, members planted
five stone and canary pines that have grown to over 90 feet. Four of these
magnificent trees have come to the end of their natural lives and will
be taken down this year. Several years ago, the Meeting planted replacement
California native pines in anticipation of the demise of these landmark
trees. Orange Grove Meeting strives to be equally forward thinking in
cultivating and sustaining its membership. The Meeting is increasingly
sustained by younger attenders and families committed to raising the next
generation of Pasadena Quakers. The Meeting celebrates its proud history,
while planting the seeds of the future.
This is a revised and expanded version of the Press Release that was prepared
for the Centennial Celebration by the Centennial Committee of Orange Grove
Monthly Meeting.
The
Meetinghouse
The
Meeting met in the homes of members from its inception in December 1907
until the erection of the current meetinghouse on the corner of Orange
Grove Boulevard and Galena (now Oakland) Avenue. It was first used for
worship on February 28, 1909. The meetinghouse is an excellent example
of the California Craftsman style adapted for use in a religious structure.
The frame construction building has a high-pitched cross-gabled roof with
a broad porch spanning the facade. The simplicity of the roof line, almost
Gothic in angularity, contrasts with the Craftsman touches most evident
in the shingled gables, exposed rafters, and overhanging eaves. Other
Gothic elements are the lancet vent treatments in the gables. A new wing
(1918) to the east on the lot is well matched in materials, trim, and
roof pitch to the original meetinghouse.
Source:
City of Pasadena Architectural and Historical Inventory. Survey Area Two:
Madison-Oakland Neighborhood.
For more information
about the meeting, or to ask specific questions, please contact:
info@ogmm.org
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