All-One Faith! All-One Soap! Here’s the man behind it all, live from Escondido. By Chuck Fager – Summer 1976 On March 9, 1945, a man named Fred Walcher got himself crucified. In Chicago, on the framework under an el station, after dark. When the cops found him and pulled him down, bleeding and semi-conscious, he … Continue reading Dr. Bronner, Magic Soap & Me
Be honest: Could you say “No” to “the war to end wars”? Turns out that president Woodrow Wilson didn’t coin that phrase, and reportedly only used it in public once. But it doesn’t matter. The phrase, along with one that Wilson did use, “to make the world safe for democracy,” became key pieces of a … Continue reading Progressive & Liberal American Quakers Face World War One
While reading about and “living with” Progressive Friends, I was inspired by several of the memorable personalities I walked with. I admired and learned from all of them, as well as others who interacted with them. But there’s one Friend I identified with especially: Samuel M. Janney. This was something of a surprise. Janney … Continue reading Progressive Friends & That Haunting Face In The Mirror: Hoping History Won’t Repeat — Or Rhyme Too Much
Researching and writing about Progressive Friends took up most of my time from the autumn of 2013 through the spring of 2014. Often this was a paradoxical experience: from one angle, it was a very solitary effort: from another, very crowded. I did this research at Pendle Hill in Pennsylvania, as the Cadbury research scholar … Continue reading Dog Days Diversions: Alone Together: Living With & Writing About Progressive Friends
While she was the wife of a prosperous textile manufacturer, all her affluence and “privilege” did not save her first child, born in 1829, from an early death — or the next four after him: all five died, one after another, in infancy or shortly afterward.
As the fifth one faded, Chace penned a rhymed plea
“Oh! no, it cannot, cannot be;
My darling babe will live.
He must not go away from me,
He is the last of five. . . .
And, much and often have I prayed,
That so it might not be;
That in a little coffin laid
This one I ne’er might see.
“Oh! Father, spare him longer yet,
Our lonely home to cheer.
We’ve often said it was for this
That Thou hast sent him here.”
But it was not to be.