May Memorial has been blessed throughout its history, and continuing right up until today, to have had many pillars that step up, often very quietly, to take on important and/or needed roles in the church. From unsigned material in the archives, someone provided testimony to two such people in our past.
The first was Dr. Marion Sylvester Dooley, an active member during the first part of the last century, who made it a life long habit to visit people when they were ill. Many people in our church were sustained by visits from Dr. Dooley and his wife. A doctor of medicine, for many years he was Professor and Head of the Department of Pharmacology at the Syracuse College of Medicine. He wrote some valued books related to pharmacology and drug therapy during the 30s and 40s. He was President of our Laymen’s League, a member of the Board of Trustees, and Chair of the Unitarian Service Committee. All members of his family were active church members, too.
Miss Elizabeth Ann Lewis was thought of as a saint, tireless worker, and premier thinker in our church and our denomination regarding religious education. She was director of our church school during the 1920s and introduced liberal textbooks and liberal teaching in the curriculum. She worked cooperatively with a few other advanced thinkers in the Unitarian church to influence the direction of curriculum building committee at our national headquarters. She also taught numerous adult education courses in our church. She helped provide leadership for our lending library, the social action committee, and neighborhood discussion groups active during that time. She was very active in the greater Syracuse community, too. MMUUS’ heritage is so rich because of people like Marion and Elizabeth. It makes me proud to be part of this wonderful institution.
Finally, if you have not looked at the Sam May link on our web page, there are four new pieces there about Sam. Two from historian, Dr. Catherine Covert Stepanek, and two sermons from Rev. Richard (Rick) R. Davis, First Unitarian Society of Salem (Oregon). All four are terrific and you certainly will gain new insight into Rev. May’s life.
Rog Hiemstra, Archivist (written on May 17, 2006)
