Registration for this year’s Conference of Quaker Historians and Archivists (CQHA) is now open. The conference is taking place online June 24–26 and is free for everyone to attend. Information on the conference can be found here, and you can register directly here.
The conference will take place between approximately11:00 am – 4:00 pm EDT each daywith built in time for breaks, and will be held over Zoom.
Presentations at CQHA, organized into thematic sessions, address aspects of Quaker history across all time periods and locations. Since this year’s program builds on the postponed 2020 conference that would have taken place at Earlham College in Indiana, the program includes several presentations related to Quakers and the American Midwest. In addition, CQHA has been able to take advantage of the virtual format to invite colleagues from several continents to participate in a series of special sessions on historiography and archives in Quaker historical studies. To view the conference’s full program, click here.
CQHA is a biennial conference which operates under the auspices of the Friends Historical Association (FHA) which focuses on the history of Quakers and Quakerism. It is organized by a steering committee appointed by the conference group during the biennial concluding business session.
Assemblee des Quakers a Londres by A. Moubach, 1727-1738
We are excited to share this guest post from Cathy Miles Grant about her father, Frank Miles. An American citizen at the time he served with the Friends Ambulance Unit in China, Frank Miles was naturalized Canadian after he and his wife Pat Miles moved to Canada in 1974. He served as General Secretary for Canadian Yearly Meeting from 1983 to 1989.
Service, Spiritual Gifts, and the 1993 Sunderland P. Gardner Lecture: Tapping reflections from a former volunteer with the Friends Ambulance Unit in China
By Cathy Grant Miles
I recently came upon a full audio recording[1] of the 1993 Sunderland P. Gardner Lecture, which featured a panel, four Canadians who volunteered with the Friends Ambulance Unit in China during the 1940s, reflecting on what their experiences had meant for them. “They spoke of the clearness of their discernment to take on this service, the life-long influence of this experience and of its effects on their spiritual life,” reported Elaine Bishop, Clerk of Canadian Yearly Meeting 1993.
1946 December – Frank Miles w. FAU Truck #23 Changte, now Anyang – Photo by Mark Shaw.
Three of the panelists, Gordon Keith, Ed Abbott, and Francis Starr, had served in China during World War II, the time of China’s “War of Resistance” against Japan. Chinese and Western Unit members teamed up to offer mobile medical aid and to transport, over rough mountain roads, some 80–90% of medical supplies entering Free China. This was “probably one of the most valuable single contributions of the Unit.”[2] Gordon Keith spoke of the significance of sharing and working and living together with the Chinese, solving problems together, “the feeling of understanding that sweeps through both people.”[3]
The last panelist, Frank Miles, chuckled that he was “the late arrival…the junior, the kid of this outfit” who’d only arrived in China in 1946.[4] He had begun his World War II years training to do relief and reconstruction work with German war refugees, until the US Congress withdrew authorization for conscientious objectors to go overseas. He was then assigned to Civilian Public Service camps,[5] where he performed work as a medical guinea pig, a psychiatric hospital aide, and a labourer in a national park, all of which seemed “very ordinary, undramatic, in a world that was full of destruction and great need.”[6] By the time the young medical mechanic landed in Shanghai in September 1946, he was chomping at the bit to do his part for lasting peace. Instead, he walked into a rising civil war.
1947 July – MT-19 & Li Jinpei and Li Chia Ke J’ai, interpreters – Photo by Douglas Clifford.
The Unit made every effort to offer its medical and rehabilitation services to people on both sides of the political conflict, through the work of its small teams of Chinese and Western associates. They persevered despite acute limitations in supplies and personnel, long periods of isolation and, at times, threats to their own life and limb. They were ever conscious that they could only meet a fraction of the need.
1947 July – Frank Miles fitting wooden leg to Nationalist boy soldier Li Jia Geichai – Photo by Douglas Clifford.
But the searing divides of the Civil War, itself embedded in and inflamed by world conflict, imprinted itself heavily on the work of the Unit. Frank was serving as Unit Chair, based in Shanghai, when Mao’s Communists claimed victory. With Washington refusing to recognize the new communist regime, the Unit’s attempts at neutrality were increasingly interpreted as indifference or, worse, passive resistance. At the time he left China, in April 1950, he scrawled out a note: “The past four months have been just about as difficult as any I’ve passed through and I do need some time to get transitioned around.”[7]The Unit closed its doors in China, the Korean War broke out, and for nearly three decades Cold War hostilities prevented contact across the Bamboo Curtain.
At the 1993 lecture for Canadian Friends, Frank Miles told his audience that, for him, the Unit’s work had ended “with a distinct sense of failure and disappointment.” But he had also come away humbled by the Chinese people with their long history and their rich heritage, their courage and perseverance in facing extremely difficult circumstances, the ways they responded to a simple and direct message and took destiny in their hands. “God’s purpose is made known in many ways outside the Christian tradition of which we are part,” he reflected.
Frank Miles’s time in China was not the heroic service he had pictured when he entered the Unit. Still, he said, “I learned a lesson in patience, to wait for the Way to open, and to feel the bonds of common experience with those around me who were also blocked from proceeding as expected.”
1948 March – Villagers carrying hospital’s ONAN 2kw generator from Xia Beitai – Photo by Douglas Clifford.
1948 March – International Peace Hospital Nurses and xiao gui crossing stream near San Jiao – Photo by Douglas Clifford
1948 March – Doctors Li Bing & Doug Clifford, Hsia Pai T’ai – Photo by Douglas Clifford.
1948 September – Unit principal interpreter Yu Jinlong & Frank Miles in front of “free religion” & “protect foreigners” slogan – Photo by Douglas Clifford.
1978 – Reunion Dr. Doug Clifford, Li Bing (Vice-Director, Cancer Institute and Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing), Frank Miles – Photo by Frank Miles.
Way did open, over time. In 1978 the Chinese Ministry of Health invited Frank and the other members of the Unit’s Medical Team 19 to visit China and to reestablish contact with the Chinese personnel from the First International Peace Hospital with whom they had formed a mobile medical unit that moved through the “Liberated Areas” of Shaanxi and Shanxi after they evacuated from Mao’s base in Yan’an in March 1947.
The renewal of friendships and contacts allowed Frank and Pat Miles and a small group of other Canadians to facilitate education in Canada for three young adult offspring of Chinese colleagues who had lost six years of training to the Cultural Revolution. This paved the way for Frank and Pat to teach English conversation in Zhengzhou, in Henan Province where Frank had begun his work in China, for three months in 1992. That reciprocity continues to this day as I and other Chinese and Western sons and daughters of former Unit members collaborate to piece together and share this story.
8. 1978 – MT-19 reunion in China 1978. Panel from exhibit at Xi’an’s Eighth Route Army Museum.
“God’s final purpose is not carried out in one or many lifetimes,” Frank told his audience at the 1993 Sunderland P. Gardner lecture. “One’s life is very small, but we each play a vital role in being part of that purpose, as we stay in tune, by searching in a spirit of worship day by day, we do what is demanded of us and we are led to a sense of fulfillment in our lives.”[8]
2016 April – Cathy Miles Grant and Li Gang (son Li Jingpei, MT-19 interpreter), at Xi’an’s Eighth Route Army Museum exhibition about the Friends Ambulance Unit.
Eighth Route Army Museum, Xi’an – Excerpt from press packet.
Catherine Miles Grant is writing a book, Leap of Faith: A Pacifist in China During the Years of Revolution — 1946-1950, based on her father Frank Miles’ experiences with the Friends Ambulance/Service Unit in China. In 2016 the Canadian Quaker History Journal published Grant’s “To Build Up a Record of Good Will,” based on early stages of her research for this book. If any readers would like to contact Cathy to discuss her post or her research, she can be reached at [email protected].
[1] The video recording previously in the Canadian Friends Service Committee’s collection only includes the first half of the panelists’ presentations.
[2] Summary Report of the F.S.U. (China), 15 September 1950.
[3] Gordon Keith, Sunderland P. Gardner lecture, 1993.
[4] Frank Miles, Sunderland P. Gardner lecture, 1993.
[5] According to General Hershey, “The conscientious objector… is best handled if no one hears of him.” General Hershey’s testimony to Congress’ Committee on Military Affairs. Conscientious Objectors’ Benefits: Hearings before a Subcommittee on military Affairs on s. 2708, 77th Cong, 2nd sess., August 19, 1942, 14.
[6] Frank Miles, Sunderland P. Gardner lecture, 1993.
[7] Frank Miles to Ross and Laura Miles, 17 April 1950.
[8] Frank Miles, Sunderland P. Gardner lecture, 1993.
2016 March – Audience response to presentation about the Friends Ambulance Unit to the Zhengzhou Salon – Photo by Cathy Miles Grant.
In 1961 MacLean’s, a Canadian news magazine, published John Gray’s article titled “How Seven Families Really Got Away from it All.” The article introduced Canadians and other readers of MacLean’s to the Quaker community of Argenta in the west Kootenay region of British Columbia. A group of American Quakers settled in the Argenta region in the early 1950s. Friends continue to make up a significant proportion of Argenta’s population today. CFHA member June Pollard has family connections to the Argenta community and has provided a brief introduction to the MacLean’s article. We hope our readers will enjoy reading Gray’s article and encountering Argenta, an important part of Quaker history in Canada.
A Contextual Introduction to Argenta Quakers June Pollard
I grew up with great respect for my Uncle George and Aunt Mary Pollard who left California with the Stevensons to start a Quaker community in Argenta, in the interior of British Columbia. My understanding was that they left California because they did not want their tax dollars going to war activities in the United States. Uncle George was my father’s oldest brother; his mother was Agnes Henderson and father was Albert Pollard. They were members of the Conservative Friends’ Norwich Meeting in Southern Ontario.
Uncle George and Aunt Mary built their own log cabin. They actually built it twice since it burned down once in a forest fire. They grew their own vegetables, and were active members of the Friends Meeting. They raised their four children—Ted, Edith, Dick, and Donald—in Argenta. Edith became principal of the Friends Boarding School during its last years.
This community has been a shining example for me as I have lived much of my adult life in intentional communities, and the Quaker process has provided guidance for that. The Quaker process involves discernment for decision-making, listening with an open heart and mind to the views of others, listening for one’s own inner voice, sitting in silence when there is disagreement, and coming to unity. This is different from consensus and from taking a vote. When living in community I have experienced the value of the Quaker process. While it may take more time, in the end everyone in the community is committed wholeheartedly to the decision.
In this month’s Founders and Builders Series, we introduce you to David L. Newlands, an early member of CFHA and a dedicated advocate for Quaker heritage in Canada. David has held various roles in the CFHA and has contributed numerous publications to the Canadian Quaker History Journal.
David L. Newlands By Gordon Thompson
David Livingstone Newlands was born on 25 July 1938 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the second son of Margaret (nee McCutcheon) and David Newlands. Margaret’s family and her older siblings had emigrated from Scotland as had David Newlands Sr. Exposure to gas warfare in the First World War contributed to the premature death of David’s father when David was only three years old. Technically considered an orphan, David was taken into the care of Girard College in Philadelphia. He remained there until his graduation at the age of seventeen.
After finishing University, David, who was a registered conscientious objector, had to find civilian work to fulfil the requirements of conscription. He was sponsored by the Mennonite Central Committee and was sent to Newfoundland as a teacher. In 1961 he taught grades three and four, and in 1962 he taught eighth grade students in a one room school at Kettle Cover, Twillingate, Newfoundland. After his required two years of alternate service, he taught science and math at the Rockway Mennonite School in Kitchener, Ontario. In 1965 he was invited to become General Secretary of the Canadian Friends Service Committee.
David was present at the inaugural meeting and was among the very first organizers of the Canadian Friends Historical Association in 1972. Many of the early issues of the Newsletter were personally typed by David in his office at the Royal Ontario Museum, where he worked in the Canadiana Department. He was also head of the Yonge Street Monthly Meeting committee to renovate the Yonge Street Meetinghouse at that time, and recalls that one of the purposes of creating CFHA was to provide a means to raise awareness of this significant project.
The fledgling CFHA gained strength and, at the second annual general meeting held at the University of Western Ontario in November 1974, David was named as Convenor of Publications Committee. In this role David worked enthusiastically to raise awareness of CFHA. In order to do this David realized that it was first necessary to identify and promote a broader awareness of Quaker history and heritage within the existing community of historians and researchers and beyond. To accomplish this David used the Yonge Street Meeting House renovation project as a focal point to create initial interest and awareness. In 1974 he submitted a detailed article accompanied by beautiful images of the meeting house to Rotunda, the popular member publication of the Royal Ontario Museum. The article “A Meeting House for Friends” was the feature item in Rotunda Volume 7: 4 (1974). This article was quickly followed by “The Yonge Street Friends Meeting House, 1810-1975” which was published in the 1975 issue of The York Pioneer. David made himself available for media interviews and presentations as interest in the project developed.
Photo of David L. Newlands (right) and a student assistant analyzing material excavated from Old Fort York in 1978. Toronto Star Photograph Archive, Courtesy of Toronto Public Library.
David also brought his professional skills to bear on his contributions to CFHA. His training as an archaeologist is reflected in the first CFHA monograph published in 1983. Titled “The Orthodox Friends Burying Ground, Yonge Street, Newmarket, Ontario,” this scholarly and well researched treatment of all aspects of Quaker burial practices as demonstrated in this burying ground was typical of the high standard of publication that was established early on by CFHA.
In the 1980s David was employed as Director of the Museum Studies program at the University of Toronto, and this interest is reflected in the concern advanced on his behalf at the 20th Annual General Meeting as reported in the 1992 Canadian Quaker History Journal 52, page 5:
David Newland’s concern: as David Newlands was not present, Kathleen Hertzberg spoke to his concern. On the model of ”The Meeting Place” of the Mennonites which they have built at St. Jacobs, David would like Friends to consider a similar historic-museum outreach Centre at Yonge Street. This could be a building alongside the Meeting House containing archives, a library and outreach centre, manned by a retired Friend. David thinks that grants could be applied for. A discussion followed. His concern will be brought to the attention of the Yearly Meeting Records Committee, Yonge Street Meeting and the Doane House Committee.
This passage speaks to a very important and very personal aspect of the contribution to CFHA that David Newlands has made and continues to make: an unbounded and inspiring faith in the vision and potential of CFHA to achieve great things. Although this particular concern is yet to be realized David continues to advance awareness and appreciation of CFHA and Quaker heritage.
In 2012, the year which saw CFHA celebrate forty years of activity, David produced with then CFHA Chair Andrew Cresswell the Yonge Street Meeting House Bicentennial Committee publication, “For deeper rest to this still room: The Yonge Street Quaker Meeting House.” At the meeting gathered at the Yonge Street Meetinghouse in October 2012 to commemorate the bicentennial of this building David and his wife Marion and members of his family joined the many in attendance. As the featured speaker of the afternoon program, David delivered an illustrated presentation, “Choose what is Simple and Beautiful.” It is fitting that this contribution by David Newlands would take place in the same cherished meeting house which inspired him to take up the cause of CFHA and appreciation of Quaker traditions and legacy over fifty years earlier.
The biennial Conference of Quaker Historians and Archivists (CQHA) will take place virtually this year between June 24–26. Operating with the support of the Friends Historical Association, the CQHA focuses on the history of Quakers and Quakerism. This year’s conference will be free for all to attend.
Registration will open by the end of March, though you can check the CQHA website for updates on registration and program details.
The 2018 conference, held at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, featured excellent presentations on diverse topics ranging from Quaker spirituality, transatlantic politics, persecution, discipline, and enslavement. Past programs can be found here.
“Assemblée des Quaquers à Londres” by A. Moubach, 1727-1738
William Allen, a Black American Quaker, spent his later years as a minister in Canada and the pastor of Newmarket Friends Church. Allen first visited Canada in 1875, though his return in the 1890s was permanent. A gifted orator, Allen spent five years preaching to different meetings in Canada and was described in his memorial as a “man of sterling character, noble in spirit,” and “firm in his conviction for the truth.”[1]
Born in Tennessee in 1821, Allen’s father was an Irish plantation owner and enslaver, and his mother was enslaved. He lived his early years under the bondage of his own father, and according to the writings of his ministerial companion Fred L. Ryon, his mother was sold when he was a young boy.[2] Allen spoke often of his experience living in slavery and the cruelties he witnessed growing up. This included the racism he faced when he preached.
Ryon’s memories include an incident that took place in a New York meeting where a group of men had gathered to stop Allen from speaking. Ryon recalled that Allen, upon being unable to continue due to the noise caused by the gathered group, “poured forth such a deluge of oratorical denunciation of infidelity as I had never heard before. The very foundation of the house seemed to tremble neath the tread of his indignant feet. The large part of the congregation was spellbound.”[3] Ryon also noted that when Allen travelled, many families that hosted him at first “felt a hesitancy about receiving him into their homes,” further demonstrating the racial inequalities that Allen faced. This never stopped Allen from sharing his story, and a pamphlet about Allen’s life recorded that Allen’s “reference to slavery days was full of pathos, and his graphic word-picture of his mother and his parting with her, burning into the memory of his audience.”[4]
In Allen’s memorandum book, he recorded lecturing on slavery in the following Ontario townships: Hibbert, Hatchley, Mariposa, Colebrook, and Moscow.[5] He also spent time in Pelham, Toronto, Gowrie, Uxbridge, Plymouth, Wellington, Bloomfield, and Pickering. On the subject of his calling to preach, Allen wrote:
My motto is to preach the preaching that the Lord bids, [re]guardless to what men may say, or what they may think. For it is God I am working for and not man. So I hold up a free salvation, every person can have it by repentance towards God & faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. If we keep on the straight line with God we will have power to do his will. He will bless us in so doing.[6]
Allen also believed wholeheartedly in social reform and valued the role Quaker women played in public ministry. When he fell ill during his travels, he recorded that Alma Dale, a minister from Uxbridge, was able to take over his work and run the meetings. He stated: “the Lord blest us in sending us Alma Dale.”[7]
William Allen was an influential Friend and upon his death in 1898 he left behind a lasting legacy of great faith. Described as an outstanding leader, Ryon wrote that Allen’s “eloquence and sincerity left a lasting impression upon the large audiences which gathered wherever it became known that he would hold service. As the years passed, his ministry, broadened by diligent and continuous study, won for him the distinction of being known as the ‘traveling theological seminary of the Society of Friends.’”[8] Allen’s life and his work are a testament to the continual importance of anti-racism work and learning from the work of Black leaders.
[2] Fred L. Ryon, “William Allen, Evangelist of the Society of Friends,” Bulletin of Friends Historical Association 47 (1958): 94. Ryon’s memoirs can also be read in the Canadian Quaker History Journal 65 (1999): 37-53.
[4] Jessie M. Walton, From the Auction Block of Slavery to the Rostrum of the Quaker Ministry: The Life of William Allan (Aurora, ON: J. M. Walton, 1938).
[5] William Allen’s memorandum book was transcribed by Jane Zavitz Bond and can be read in the CQHJ 64 (1999): 54-73.
[6] “William Allen’s Memorandum Book 1887-1891,” CQHJ 64 (1999): 71.
[7] “William Allen’s Memorandum Book 1887-1891,” 59.
This new transcription is two books in one. The first forty-seven pages include removal certificates from 1797 to 1808 and record a number of removals from the Muncy Meeting in Pennsylvania to Pelham Meeting in the Niagara area and the Yonge St Meeting in the Newmarket area.
As well, the minutes detail a number of Friends, including Ellen McCarty and Mercy Ellis, who travelled to Upper Canada in the aftermath of the Orthodox-Hicksite schism.
Our thanks and appreciation go out to Carman Foster once again for his transcription from images of the original text, and to Randy Saylor for researching and writing the detailed introductory notes.
A photo of the Friends Meeting House, Pennsdale (Muncy), courtesy of the James V. Brown Library.
In this month’s Founders and Builders Series, we introduce you to Norman Jolly, a longtime member and treasurer of the CFHA. His life is remembered here by Sandra McCann Fuller.
Norman Thomas Jolly (1923–2012) By Sandra McCann Fuller
Norman Jolly was born 20 December 1923, in Mossbank, south of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, the son of Thomas and May Jolly. Norman’s father, Thomas Gordon Jolly, was born in 1884 in Saskatchewan about the time of the North-West Rebellion. In 1906 he applied for a Homestead Grant. The 1926 Canadian Census records the Jolly family, including Norman (two years) and his older brothers Harold (five years) and Donald (six years), living near Willow Bunch in southern Saskatchewan. Norman remembered that the Jolly family lived in a sod house in the 1920s and 1930s. Life on the prairies was challenging, especially from the harsh winters and the summer droughts. The 1930s brought many dust storms. During theEconomic Depression of the 1930s, frequently called “the Dirty Thirties,” the Jolly family decided that they could no longer endure the hardships of life on the prairies. They loaded their household belongings, as well as some horses and farm animals, onto a number of railway freight cars and moved to a farm near Exeter in southwestern Ontario.
In April 1943, during World War II, Norman, then a young man in his early twenties, joined the Royal Canadian Naval Voluntary Reserve (RCNVR). His first posting was on HMCS Kenogami, which escorted ships from overseas, serving on the triangle run from St John’s, Newfoundland, to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and New York City USA. His next assignment was serving on the North Atlantic run.
Photo from Norman Jolly’s page at dignitymemorial.com
After the war, Norman took advantage of education for veterans and became a student at University of Western Ontario (currently called Western University) in London, Ontario. He decided to become a secondary school teacher. He married Dorothy Fuller from Stratford, Ontario, who was also a teacher. Norman taught at schools in Lively (west of Sudbury), Port Hope, Aurora (Dr. G.W. Williams Secondary School), and Newmarket (Newmarket High School). He retired in the late 1980s.
Norman’s interest in genealogy led him to work at compiling information for several books. With Alvin Mylo Srigley, Norman compiled Robert Srigley 1777–1836 and Jane Heacock Srigley 1787–1867 and Their Descendants to Seven Generations, printed in June 1977. Norman’s keen interest in history was demonstrated by his work with the York Region Branch, Ontario Genealogical Society. Later, after retirement, as a World War II veteran, Norman worked at compiling York County Men & Women who gave their lives in World War I. Volume I: York County, Ontario, excluding the City of Toronto (1995) and Volume II: Toronto City (2002). The books were both published by York Region Genealogy Group of the Ontario Genealogical Society, Toronto Branch.
Norman was a life member of the Newmarket Historical Society and served as its president in 1990, 1991, and 1992. Norman was also a member of the Aurora Historical Society. Norman’s ancestry and knowledge of Quaker history led him to become a member of the Canadian Friends Historical Association (CFHA); he served CFHA as treasurer for a number of years in the early 2000s.
Norman Jolly passed away in his eighty-ninth year, on Saturday, 18 August 2012 at Southlake Regional Health Centre, Newmarket, Ontario. His wife Dorothy predeceased him in 2007. Norman is survived by a daughter, Donna (Martin Blackwell) of England, and a son, Norman William (Bill) of Newmarket. Norman and Dorothy Jolly (1928–2007) are buried at Aurora Cemetery.
For a photo of Norman during his years in the Navy and to listen to his story, visit thememoryproject.com.
An exciting new anthology, Quakerism in the Atlantic World, 1690–1830, is coming out this May. Edited by Robynne Rogers Healey, the anthology features articles on Quaker testimonies and practices, Quakerism in community and in the world, and expressions of Quakerism around the Atlantic world. More information on the book can be found on Penn State University Press’ website.
Below is the description from Penn State University Press:
This third installment in the New History of Quakerism series is a comprehensive assessment of transatlantic Quakerism across the long eighteenth century, a period during which Quakers became increasingly sectarian while simultaneously expanding their engagement with politics, trade, industry, and science. The contributors to this volume interrogate and deconstruct this paradox, complicating traditional interpretations of what has been termed “Quietist Quakerism.”
Examining the period following the Toleration Act in England of 1689 through the Hicksite-Orthodox Separation in North America, this work situates Quakers in the eighteenth-century British Atlantic world. Three thematic sections—unique Quaker testimonies and practices; tensions between Quakerism in community and Quakerism in the world; and expressions of Quakerism around the Atlantic world—broaden geographic understandings of the Quaker Atlantic world to determine how local events shaped expressions of Quakerism. The authors challenge oversimplified interpretations of Quaker practices and reveal a complex Quaker world, one in which prescription and practice were more often negotiated than dictated, even after the mid-eighteenth-century “reformation” and tightening of the Discipline on both sides of the Atlantic.
Accessible and well-researched, Quakerism in the Atlantic World, 1690-1830, provides fresh insights and raises new questions about an understudied period of Quaker history.
In addition to the editor, the contributors to this volume include Richard C. Allen, Erin Bell, Erica Canela, Elizabeth Cazden, Andrew Fincham, Sydney Harker, Rosalind Johnson, Emma Jones Lapsansky, Jon Mitchell, and Geoffrey Plank.
While Friends globally hold differing views on the holiday season, early Quakers did not mark Christmas as a day different from any other. In his book, Christmastime in Pennsylvania, Don Yoder argues that while Quakers were against Christmas celebrations, some Quakers in mid-nineteenth century Pennsylvania “succumbed to a modified attention to Christmas at least as a family festival.”[1] For a humorous look at what early Quakers did on Christmas, below is a post by Rob Pierson, originally posted in Quaker Life in December 2011, copied here with the author’s permission.
For a modern discussion on Quaker and the holiday season, QuakerSpeak, a member-supported project of Friends Publishing, recently published interviews of Friends and historians discussing their views on Christmas, titled “Do Quakers Celebrate Christmas?”
[1] Don Yoder, “The Folk-Cultural Background,” in Christmas in Pennsylvania, ed. Alfred L. Shoemaker and Don Yoder (Lanham, MD: Globe Pequot, 1999), 9.
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Early Quaker Top 10 Ways to Celebrate (or Not) “the Day Called Christmas”
By Rob Pierson
Until they got mushy and liberal in the last century, Quakers didn’t celebrate Christmas at all. In fact, celebrating “the day called Christmas” was a good way for a Friend to get him/herself dragged (figuratively) before the monthly meeting and asked for an explanation of such worldly behavior.1
As a member of Mushy Yearly Meeting firmly committed to the Testimony of Holiday Ambiguity, I’ve urged the Committee for Worrying about Change to consider how we might recapture the zeal with which early Friends did not celebrate the holidays. After painstaking research, combing through Friends’ journals and late-night talk shows, the committee has gathered the following “Top 10” surefire ways to recover the true meaning of Christmas — oops! the day called Christmas — in the spirit of early Friends.
Slaughter Hogs. This is how Alice Allen’s Quaker ancestor recorded the day in 1882: “Dec. 25. We killed three hogs. Uncle Austin Gray and Tom Brady helped us. We went to meeting in the evening. Weather pleasant with some snow.”2 New Years Day was equally festive: “Pa and I hauled two loads of wood in the forenoon. Afternoon I fixed my boots. It was snowing all day.” Unfortunately, fewer Friends today slaughter hogs, mend our sneakers or haul our crude oil. So, perhaps, we could spend December 25 grilling some turkey burgers and paying utility bills?
Sell Things. That’s right. ‘Tis the season for blatant capitalist enterprise! If there’s one thing early Friends agreed upon, it was that there’s no better day than December 25 to man the cash registers in defiance of both law and custom. Since Friends saw Christmas as an un-Christian outward ritual foisted upon them, it followed that only godless heathens would close up shop. Celebrate your Quaker heritage by demanding that the local mall reopen bright and early Christmas morning or by marketing your seasonal George Fox Apps and ring tones for download.
Repair Windows. No, not the computer operating system (since it’s still not clear what operating system was preferred by early Friends), but do recall that many Quakers spent December 25 sweeping up broken glass. As George Fox noted in 1689: “We have greatly suffered both imprisonments, and the spoiling of our goods, because we could not observe your holy-days, as you call them, and for opening our shops we have been much assaulted by the rude multitudes.”3 So, if those mass mailing for George Fox Apps and ring-tones you sent on December 25 convince some neighbors that you are an anti-social misfit, you are in good company. Count your blessings for your physical safety but check your Windows™ for any malware.
Accumulate Debt. Yes, sad to say, early Quakers racked up serious holiday charges and fines — legal fines. In some cases, penalties for ignoring Christmas ranked second only to charges for refusing to take up arms. For example, Joseph Borden was fined nearly 7,000 pounds sterling for not bearing arms when riding patrol but another 2,000 pounds for “opening his Shop on Holy-days.”4 Today’s Quakers fear MasterCard™ more than magistrates, but it is important to follow George Fox’s example and pay money where it is due. “When the time called Christmas came,” he writes, “I looked out poor widows from house to house, and gave them some money.”5
Employ Seasonal Workers. Nothing says Quaker Christmas quite like hiring some unemployed seasonal laborers and supervising a major building project. Quakers Herbert Griffith and William Fortescue discovered this strategy in 17th century Barbados:… on the 25th of December, the Day called Christmas-day, Herbert Griffith and William Fortescue, standing to inspect some Workmen employed about the Wall of a Burying-place, were observed by William Goodall, a Justice of the Peace, as he passed by; who in much Anger called to those who were with him, saying, Is there no Constable here? Lay hold on these Rogues …6One suspects the workers were grateful for the Quakers’ Christmas Day graveyard shift, but this strategy propelled Herbert and William straight to Top 10 item number six.
Get Arrested. The Quaker “rogues,” Herbert and William, were arrested, knocked to the ground and dragged away. Constables locked them in stocks, then sent them to jail for four weeks before releasing and promptly re-imprisoning them for six more weeks. A jury trial set Herbert and William free just long enough for the judge to set aside the verdict and throw them back in jail. A second trial, in October, found both men innocent again — since neither had tools in hand at the time of the heinous Christmas wall-building. One suspects that few of us are going to jail for committing Christmas this season. But perhaps there are still some rogue Quakers to be found, laborers to be employed and walls that need building up or tearing down around the world this holiday season.
Avoid Frolic. A young John Woolman complained of being “much troubled” by the behavior of his fellow Americans: “I observed many People from the Country, and Dwellers in Town, who, resorting to Public-Houses, spent their Time in drinking and vain Sports.”7 Luckily Woolman missed the advent of happy hour, ESPN and big-screen TVs. Still, when he visited Blackwater, Virginia, in December 1817, he seemed to find most Friends out at the mall: “there are but few Friends; and it being the time called Christmas, many were preparing for their intended frolick.”8
Go Green. Yes, eco-green. Although there are few signs left of the early Quaker “Reduce, Reuse and Repent” program, Friendly eco-warriors waged a major green campaign against the rampant consumerism of colonial America. Writing in 1656 to those well-known profligate party-animals, the Pilgrims of Plymouth, two Quaker women asked: W hat is the ground, and cause, and reason, that about the time called Christmas, there is so much provided of the creatures, that which people calls good Chear, which abundance is provided against that time, and wasted upon the lust, and destroyed, and this is in most places through the Nation …? 9 Today, good cheer comes pre-packaged, vacuum-packed, year-round, online, in the super-economy size. Please dispose of properly.
Sit and Wait. Okay, this one was predictable. Go to meeting, or hold a meeting where you are. Although both Quakers and Christmas have changed over the years, nine out of 10 Quakers can still find consensus that there’s nothing better than a group of Friends gathered together and breaking spontaneously into silence. Just don’t try taking this door-to-door like caroling.
Celebrate Christ. Well, I know this is pretty radical and controversial, but remember, every day, in Quaker terms, is Christmas Day. It’s not that there’s no Christmas; there’s just a whole lot more of it than most people expect. As one Quaker puts it:T he closer one lives to Christ, who makes all things new, the less proper it seems to treat 364 days as less special than one … Today Christ is born in me, in each of his people and in us all together. The star never leaves the sky, the song of the angels is never stilled.10So, Friends, I hope you enjoy your day in the company of early Friends. The angels are never stilled. Glory to God! Peace on earth! Good news of great joy for all the people! And on behalf of Mushy Quakers everywhere, I wish you the day called Christmas of your choice.
Mark Dixon, “Re: Quaker Christmas Traditions,” 9 Nov 1998, Quaker-Roots-L Archives, http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/ QUAKER-ROOTS/1998-11/0910646229.
Alice Allen, “Re: Quaker Christmas Traditions,” 11 Nov 1998, Quaker-Roots-L Archives, http://archiver.roots web.ancestry.com/th/read/QUAKER-ROOTS/1998-11/0910848525.
George Fox, “Inward AndSpiritual Warfare, And The False Pretence Of It. And A Distinction Between The True Liberty And The False,” 1689, inWorks of George Fox, Vol. 6, 1831.
Joseph Besse,Collection of the sufferings of the people called Quakers, Vol. 2, 1753, Ch. VI. Barbadoes.
George Fox,Journal Or Historical Account Of The Life,Travels, Sufferings, Of George Fox, 1694.
Joseph Besse,Collection of the sufferings of the people called Quakers, Vol. 2, 1753, Ch. VI. Barbadoes.
John Woolman,Journal of John Woolman, 1774.
William Williams,Journal of the life, travels, and gospellabours of William Williams, 1828.
Margaret Killam and Barbara Patison,Warning from the Lord to the teachers and people of Plymouth, 1656.
Paul Thompson, “Friends’ Christmas Experiences Part 1,” http://www.quakerinfo.com/quakxmls1.shtml, includes paraphrase of Howard Thurman’s “The Work of Christmas.”
