On Sunday, January 19, we will celebrate 75 years at East Shore Unitarian Church! Here is a brief history of East Shore.
The Beginning
East Shore began in 1948 when the Eddys, the Wensbergs and the Farners decided it was easier to establish a Unitarian Sunday School of their own than to pack up their young children on a Sunday morning and drive to University Church in Seattle. The parents soon felt the need to have a program of their own while Sunday school was in progress and in January of 1949, the Mercer Island Fellowship was begun.
The fledgling group soon needed more meeting space and leased the Chapel of Flowers, a funeral home in Bellevue. Meanwhile, a former Baptist minister named Lon Ray Call convinced the Unitarian staff in Boston that the post-war period was ripe for church expansion. They agreed and sent Rev. Call out west.
On the third Sunday in January, 1950, the official organization of East Shore Unitarian Church was celebrated. The 99 charter members representing 54 families signed the register. By the spring of that year, East Shore had called its first minister, Chadbourne Spring (the namesake of Spring Hall).
The congregation longed for a church home, and acquired property for a church. On October 20, 1955, the church was dedicated, even though there was no glass in the big front windows!
East Shore Growth
From the beginning, East Shore members were determined to learn about and affect the world around them. Well-publicized debates and forums on such controversial subjects as the admission of “Red China” to the United Nations earned the new church the name, “The Little Red Church on the Hill.”
In 1961, East Shore helped found Northlake Unitarian Fellowship in Kirkland, while at the same time expanding their building to make room for the children and youth. They continued to expand adding more storage and the North Room.
In 1990, representatives from the University, Northlake, and Edmonds Unitarian Churches, met together to plan a new congregation in Woodinville. East Shore was the covenanting congregation. The Woodinville Church began as a congregation in February, 1991.
Supporting Social Justice
After months of study and deliberation, the East Shore congregation voted in May, 1984 to participate in the Sanctuary Movement. This Movement began in 1981 at a church in Arizona which provided help to refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala who feared persecution for their political beliefs if returned by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to their countries of origin. East Shore became one of about 300 churches across the US offering “sanctuary” on church property to such persons.
In 1991, East Shore began a partner relationship with a Unitarian church in Transylvania. The Khasi Hills of India partner church relationship began at East Shore during the summer of 2007.
East Shore became a Welcoming Congregation for Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual and Transgender people in March of 2001.
by Nicole Duff, Director of Membership Development (edited from the Archives report, October 2015)