2. Congregation Histories : Wisconsin

Eau-Claire

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Eau Claire

The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Eau Claire has its roots in two other groups: Unity Church of Eau Claire (Unitarian) and the Chippewa Valley Unitarian Fellowship. Beginning in 1888, the Rev. Henry Doty Maxson would conduct Sunday morning services for the Menomonie Unitarian Society and then board a train bound for Eau Claire where he would conduct an evening service. Maxson’s preaching gave rise to Unity Church of Eau Claire (founded in 1889). The congregation met up through the 1920s, at which time their building—located at the corner of Gray and Farwell Streets—was sold. Although we have no direct lineage with the Unitarian, the Universalist, or the Free Religionist groups, which existed in Eau Claire in the 19th century, we are philosophically related in belief and action to all three.

The origin of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Eau Claire is in the Chippewa Valley Unitarian Fellowship, Founded in the late 1940s by the Unitarian missionary Monroe Husbands. The fellowship gathered monthly (on Saturday nights) in members’ homes in Chippewa Falls, Rice Lake, and Eau Claire. Topics for discussion included Unitarian history, Unitarian practice of religion, racial equality, and political campaigns and issues. In the late 1960s, a small number of Eau Claire members with young children initiated a Sunday School, which met in Eau Claire on Sunday mornings.

While the children were in their RE classes, the adults would sit in the kitchen of the building where the classes were held and discuss maters of importance to them. This was the beginning of the Eau Claire UU Fellowship. In 1975, with the blessing of the Chippewa parent group, the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Eau Claire was formed with an active membership of approximately 25.

The group met in three other locations in Eau Claire until 1981, when the former Immanuel Lutheran Church building was purchased by the Fellowship. The present Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Hall stands at the corner of Gray and Farwell Streets, kitty corner from the site of the first Unitarian church in Eau Claire. Our current membership is just under fifty. The Fellowship meets three Sundays and one Friday evening a month. Sunday programs include discussion of such topics as the Unitarian Universalist Merger, the current situation in South Africa, creativity, the Transcendentalists, and, occasional sermons by the minister-in-residence. The Religious Education program currently serves the needs of approximately 8–10 children.

We believe there are many more people in the Eau Claire area that could benefit from being a part of our liberal religious fellowship. We are actively reaching out to these people who may be “Unitarian Universalists without knowing it.”

(Author not noted)