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By Jean Smith (Worship Committee Chair)
November 3, 2003
The Vietnam War. Anti-war
demonstrations. Civil rights demonstrations. Sit ins. Boycotts. They
don’t call them the turbulent 60’s for nothing. During those
troubled times, Arno Winard was a young family man living in
southern Prince George’s County. He was actively involved in the
local Fellowship for Equal Rights; the Allentown Civic Association,
serving as its zoning chair; the Prince George’s County Citizen for
Charter; and both the Prince George’s and National Capital Area
chapters of the ACLU. In these communities he worked along side
Unitarian lobbyist Bob Jones, and Davies members Bill Carr and Herb
Rosenstock. Together they worked tirelessly on the desegregation of
schools and other public facilities in the county. This association
with people whose views and efforts he respected led him and his
family to Davies.
Roz Winard provided this bio of Arno’s early years. She begins, “ He
was born in Danzig in 1929. (the Free State, he would always
explain, to be sure you understood it wasn’t Poland or Germany at
the time.) He wanted to dissociate from both of those countries. He
was the only child of an upper middle class family. His father was a
successful businessman in import-export and his mother a dentist,
retired after her marriage.
When Poland was invaded in 1939 his family was living in the port
city of Gydnia, and Arno in a Polish (rather than Jewish)
neighborhood and he was attending a secular Polish school. His
father believed in assimilation. During all of his school years he
was bullied (persecuted was his word) because he was Jewish.
When the war started the family had the option of leaving the
country or going inland to Radom, the family home of his mother. His
father deferred to his mother who wanted to be with her family
during this time of stress and uncertainty. His father’s Aryan
appearance, and successful assimilation into the majority community
made him feel invincible. He would protect his family. The move to
Radom started the chain of events that ended in the concentration
camps. His mother died in Auschwitz. Arno and his father were sent
to slave labor camps in Germany, and eventually to Dachau.”
Roz continues, “After the war he and his father lived in Munich
where, after tutoring to catch up on lost years, he graduated from a
German High School. Immediately after the war they had tried to
return to Radom but found anti-semitic persecution to be unchanged.
This was during the time that Jews were attacked on a train to
Kielce and killed. Return to Poland was not an option. They felt
more comfortable and accepted in Munich. In 1951 Arno got a
scholarship to Brooklyn College in New York and started a new life
in the United States.
The experience of persecution, before, during, and after the war,
never left him. In fighting the battles of the underprivileged, the
powerless, those discriminated against because of race, religion or
any other reason, he was fighting his own battle. He was overcoming
his own pain. He was taking back his own humanity, denied to him as
a powerless child. The energy and passion he expressed in the cause
of equality was like a charge to fight, it was a battle, there was a
victory to be won, or lost. The language of war expressed the
intensity of his involvement.
In his job at the Census Bureau he was in charge of Poverty
Statistics; keeping a precarious balance between the detachment of
information gathering, and advocacy. He led the life of an activist
and Roz imagines that were he alive today he would still be at it;
envisioning and working toward equality and social justice.”
Arno died June 5, 1987 from pancreatic cancer. Following is an
excerpt from a poem written by Roz for his memorial service:
"Unraveling in an endless line the twine is cut
Having moved across boundaries, rivers and seas.
From language to language, faith to faith
Keeping all in its’ knotted memory.
Forgetting nothing, under the surface of purpose and activity.
He was, as we are, the expression of what he had lived, loved, and
lost.
Experience, modified by time and acceptance – irrevocable.
Each pain and pleasure to live in our future, seen or unseen.
Each experience to appear in disguise in all the others that follow.
His experience of persecution to become anger, a loss of self,
And a love of civil liberties – a need for justice.
His experience of death of family, or unjustified murder,
Ever after to feel any injustice to others as a stab in the heart –
Not to be tolerated.
His experience of the loss of his mother to be an open wound
Under the surface of life – never to be closed.
Only soothed, pushed further back in memory by ongoing life;
By the love, caring, and tolerance of others,
And the actions of redress and attempts at understanding.”
Sydney Wilde-Nugent who was our minister in the late 80’s understood
the dedication Arno put into his efforts to make the world more
just. Before he died she initiated the Arno Winard Social Activist
Award to be given at the Fellowship dinner, annually, or as often as
a worthy candidate surfaced. Oddly, I can find no mention of this
development in the board minutes and in fact, since the nominations
are considered in secret by the board, the only mention I found in
any minutes was to say that the board had made a selection and the
award would be given at the dinner. I was unable to find any
nomination forms and I suggest that from now on we keep a file of at
least those nominees who are selected to receive the award.
Before he died, Arno himself became the first recipient “for his
life long commitment to civil liberties”. Arno’s 10 1/2’s might be
hard to fill but Sydney foresaw that many at Davies would be
challenged to walk a similar path. Today we want to recognize the
recipients of the Arno Winard award. I also invite you to consider
others in the congregation or among the many “friends of Davies” for
nomination for the 2003 award. Nomination forms are on the table in
the lounge.
Another member of Davies who left us far too young was Arno’s friend
Bill Carr. He was the second award recipient “for his enduring
efforts in Civil Rights”. Bill came to the struggle from his
perspective as an African American. I think a student known to me
only as Brandon B’s describes that perspective very well in his poem
entitled “Civil Rights”.
Pain, Anguish, Sadness
A person walking in shame
Violence, Bloodshed, Fright
Reactions when mistreated because of their color.
Courage, Change, Hope
What they needed to get freedom.
Passion, Determination, Pride
Peace protests leading them to a better life.
Civil Rights
Liz Echols recalls being concerned for their safety when Bill Carr,
Bill Echols, and Arno delivered food downtown during the riots that
followed the Martin Luther King assassination.
“For his efforts to improve the lot of humankind” is what it says on
the plaque next to 1991’s honoree, Herb Rosenstock. Like Arno and
Bill, Herb was active in the Prince George’s County Fellowship for
Equal Rights and other civic organizations including the PTA. His
involvement spanned both the local and state levels as he pursued
civil rights and environmental issues. Margaret Jennison tells me
that one of the last things he did before his death was to join the
fight to limit the Woodrow Wilson Bridge expansion.
Arno, Bill, and Herb personified the award criteria # 3, “to have
provided leadership in social activism”.
In a category by herself is the 1997 recipient, Gertrude Entenmann.
“She was a great lady,” says Dick Hess. Gertrude was a founding
member of Davies and received the award “for an exemplary life of
service”. She was unrelenting in her determination to spread the
good news of what Unitarian Universalism had to offer and used her
Channel 4 TV show from 1962 – 1972 to do so during the same time
Unitarianism in the Washington, DC area was experiencing a growth
spurt. She had an uncanny way of getting people involved. I hadn’t
been at Davies a year when she suggested that I served as the church
board secretary.
Gertrude worked tirelessly at all levels of the denomination,
particularly in the Greater Washington Area association and the
Joseph Priestly District and she was a champion of the work of the
Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, going back to its early
days. Liz remembers her traveling to Jamaica and Haiti on UUSC’s
behalf. Son Lee Rogers adds that she also visited over 40 cities for
UUSC.
To understand the UUSC philosophy is to understand Gertrude’s
contribution so I turned to Jack Mendelson’s book, Being Liberal in
an Illiberal Age, subtitled, Why I am a UU?. He tells us that the
UUSC was “established in 1940 to rescue Jewish and other refugees
from Nazi Europe. … then goes on to say that UU’s (like Gertrude)
support UUSC and participate in it because it represents our
profound spiritual need to mingle, as Jane Addams says, ‘on the
thronged and common road where all must turn out for one another and
at least see the size of one another’s burdens’, and we do not
expect anyone to pat us on the head for being good and we do not
expect anyone to become converted in return. We work with and not
just for others. If it is possible for us to bring help, or know
how, or advocacy, or whatever where it is needed, we want to try to
meet the need, but only in keeping with what others express to be
their desires.”
In a few weeks when you are asked to support UUSC through Guest at
Your Table boxes, think of Gertrude and keep her work and spirit
alive. She was the embodiment of criteria #2, that is, to “have an
established pattern of social activism, displaying a commitment that
informs and is a major focus of his or her life.”
That certainly describes the 1989 recipient. Gary Mummert resigned
his commission as an Air Force officer to pursue what he felt would
be more socially responsible work even though he didn’t know what it
was at the time. That led him to a teaching position at a Catholic
high school in Washington, DC, teaching shop classes. Then his peace
activism led him to work with Admiral Carroll at the Center for
Defense Information. Next he took his skills and tools to work for a
non-profit group, Manna, whose stated purpose is “to serve low and
moderate income families, assisting them to fulfill the dream of
home ownership”. Around that same time, UU churches in the greater
Washington area began exploring what they could do to address the
problem of homelessness. Representatives came together to form the
Unitarian Universalist Affordable Housing Corporation and through
Gary’s guidance adopted the Manna model not to just provide housing
but to educate the new home owners on how to maintain their new
homes and provide sweat equity during construction. So in the
beginning, Manna received low interest loans from UUAHC and local
UU’s volunteered to clean and paint and tile, making the spaces
ready for first-time home owners. Gary’s award was “for his
continuing work on behalf of the underprivileged and his abiding
concern for peace”. In addition to his work in housing, he also took
an active role in the cause of women’s rights, and non-violence.
From the beginning, Davies has contributed a high percentage of the
loan money and the sweat that is UUAHC. One of our energetic
volunteers is the 1999 Arno recipient, Rex Neihof. Rex is very
modest about his contribution to UUAHC, but I think that the people
who came on board early are the ones responsible for its success
today. Rex was a frequent volunteer at work parties, a financial
backer, and the Davies representative to the UUAHC board. For many
years he also served as the secretary to that board.
Scott Peck recognizes the value of the contributions of people like
Rex and Gary in his book The Road Less Traveled and Beyond. He says,
“Many significant contributions are made to society through the
giving of time, money, or other resources by strongly principled
individuals who regard their citizenship as a responsibility. As
soon as a person stands up for something with no expectation of
reward, his or her involvement in a cause is essentially voluntary.
Doing volunteer work is a calling as legitimate and as complex a
choice as a career decision.”
The four names remaining on the plaques, Joyce Dowling, 1992;
Elin-marie Papantones, 1993; Liz Echols, 2000; and Virginia Lloyd,
2002 represent a plethora of volunteer hours. I’ve grouped them
under a heading that Daphne Rose Kingma in her book Heart and Soul,
calls, service in love. She says, “Service in love is temporarily
setting aside your own needs, wants, and priorities and allowing the
needs of another human being to become so radiant, so vivid, and so
pertinent that for a moment your own are dissolved. This gracious
moment is love and the more we live in the practice of service, the
more we create this love.”
Elin-marie’s inscription simply says, “for caring for others”. When
she was with the Mental Health Association she belonged to the
community choir. This group gave disabled and able-bodied people a
chance to harmonize before church and civic groups. By her own
admission, they weren’t very good but that the experience itself was
the reward. As a long time member of the caring committee at Davies
she is often responsible for coordinating help. One beneficiary was
Marian May who was ill with cancer for some time. Elin-marie
arranged many meals and other support for Marian and Tom. Even today
Elin-marie works in the early intervention program where she helps
poor mothers get access to social and medical programs. If you’ve
ever gone shopping with her you know that she purchases a lot of
extras for her little clients out of her own pocket.
After Liz Echols retired she became involved with hospice. Her Arno
award reads, “for her caring, kindness, and dedication with hospice,
community service, and our adopted Laotian family”. For those of you
who don’t know, Davies has had an adopted family for many, many
years. With nurturing and their own initiative, they have been very
successful in their adopted country. When the daughter in college
was selected to go to Spain to study she hit a snag trying to get a
passport and visa. Liz had worked for INS and was able to pull
strings with them and Senator Barbara Mulkuski to get the necessary
documents in a short time so that the girl could go. She also helped
the son get his driver’s license.
Speaking of driving, who can you think of who is always chauffeuring
folks to appointments or the store when they can get around on their
own? Often the answer is Virginia Lloyd. When she’s not in the car
she may be found at the piano at a local church where she fills in
as needed, or coordinating care and fixing meals for people like
Anne Cislak and Ethel Harrell, or on neighborhood watch in District
Heights, or for forty years, involved in the education aspect of the
Homemakers club. Virginia says she enjoys working on committees, and
I’ll add that her selection of committees seems to be ones where she
can reach out with love and care for young and old alike.
Roz also said in his bio that “Arno’s involvement in civil rights
and the personal history that brought him to it, is a lens through
which we can understand the why of an individual’s participation in
social action. As you’ve heard, gaining power for those to whom
equality was denied, and working together to promote social justice
and equal rights for all, was a prime motivator in his life.” Arno
Winard Social Activist Award recipient Joyce Dowling will now share
some personal ideas about what motivates her to work for others.
Social Justice Work - My motivation and overcoming problems
by Joyce Dowling
I'd like to share with you about what has motivated me in my life of
social justice work and how that has changed throughout my life.
I was raised a Unitarian, but I learned some of the same values as
those of other religions and even those with no religion. On Labor
Day, I collected money for Jerry's kids and on Halloween, I went
trick-or-treating for UNICEF. I wasn't as exposed to other social
justice issues or how to help people as our children today are here.
Though issues were discussed in youth group when I was a teen, I
wasn't regularly attending any more at that point and I was trying
to deal with my own issues about life so I found it hard to deal
with other people's. I also didn't believe that anything that I
could do could really make a meaningful difference.
My first real motivation came from my work as a family child care
provider. People were calling me, asking me to care for their
children, people I didn't know and who didn't know me. Some were
begging me to take care of their precious infants and telling me
horror stories about other child care providers. I could believe
these stories due to my exposure to providers when I went to
mandatory workshops for providers who wanted to collect federal food
program funds (at the time this was the only kind of mandatory
training they had for home-based child care in Maryland). I heard
providers talk about how they had to spank children because there
was no other effective way to provide discipline and I heard
evidence of ignorance about basic health and safety issues. I felt
that my knowledge and care for children, made me responsible to do
something about it.
Education seemed the natural method at first, but since education
was not mandatory, only people who were already aware of many of
these issues were attending classes. So then I had to pursue
advocacy to change the laws to require education, but the
regulations couldn't be too stringent or providers would just work
outside of the law as they always have.
Of course, I did this work with organizations, and I first had to
convince the organizations that this was something that would
benefit them or that I had some insights that were useful in the
work they were already doing. So it did take patience and time and
it wasn't easy, but I learned a lot about people, how organizations
work, what is going on in our society, and many other things.
It's sometimes hard to tell how much good you've done and how to
measure your success. I did need to feel that it wasn't for nothing,
so I listened to people and tried to take in all the small pieces of
useful feedback that I got. Legislators told me that they weren't
used to seeing child care providers and parents go to Annapolis -
just larger businesses and agencies primarily, so they did
appreciate my being there. There were small comments from providers
and parents about appreciating information, too, so I held onto
those things as evidence of the worth of my work.
It's easy to get discouraged, but I contemplated about what things
made a difference in my life. I realized that there were people whom
I never thanked or indicated to them that they may have helped me.
There were people whose words of wisdom inspired me with whom I only
had a brief encounter. I'm sure that there were those who had
affected my life - through their work to improve conditions or
provide services, whom I never met and could not know. These
thoughts helped to encourage me to feel that my work was indeed
worthwhile.
There were those who said that I should be spending more time with
my family and doing the traditional things that wives and mothers
do. My Unitarian upbringing had taught me to think critically and
make decisions for myself, which helped me to believe that I could
do what really needed to be done as a wife and mother and do this
important work also. This helped me to empower my husband and
children to help which was also educational for them, but I thank
them for their support.
Looking back, I don't know where I had the energy for all that, but
it was a great experience. But the time came for me to leave child
care work and the 12 hour work days. I didn't want to totally leave
my advocacy work, though, so I got involved in the Unitarian
Universalist Service Committee's program called, "Promise the
Children."
This was much less rigorous - attending a monthly meeting, reading
some materials, sharing information with the congregation, and doing
things like writing letters to legislators. I could handle that!
One of my present projects is going to Beacon House Community
Ministry to bring inner-city children to the library once per month
at most during the school year, so it usually adds up to only about
5 or 6 visits per year for only a couple hours. I try to recruit
others to go in my place when I'm busy with other things as Anita
Parins did yesterday. Gathering school supplies and Christmas
presents for the Beacon House children could hardly be considered
work at all because I merely announce it and put up a list and the
congregation is happy to give, and other people even volunteer to
take them there.
If you could see how this community in northeast DC has changed in
the 11 yrs. I've been helping out there, you might better understand
how I feel that no matter how small my participation is in it, I can
believe that I'm making a difference since Beacon House is making a
difference. I really believe what anthropologist Margaret Mead said,
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens
can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
I feel that being a recipient of the Arno Winard Award was a
statement by trusting friends that I would make this a lifelong
commitment and I am very happy to do so. For those of you who are
inspired to take on that challenge as well, please don't be afraid
to share with us about your work. I think it's better to share to
help inspire others and learn about new resources and opportunities,
than being humble and letting us find out about your good works
during your memorial service. I look forward to hearing about what
you're doing.
Reading:
At Arno’s memorial service, Sydney said, “Implanted in each person
is the faith to overcome disillusionment and despair, the power to
resist evil, the wisdom to use our gift nobly, and the will to
transform chaos and misery into harmony and happiness. When we free
the oppressed, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, bring cheer into
the lives of those in distress, when we strive for justice and the
coming of the beloved community, we invest our life with
significance.”
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