Louisa Alger had been a schoolteacher. I never knew much of her personal history beyond that, and she didn’t seem interested in talking about it. Part of that was no doubt her native New England reserve. But another part, I believe, was also likely a veil over a personal story that had its compelling and tender moments, and probably loss and pathos as well.
I knew Louisa first more as a model of no-nonsense devotion to Cambridge Meeting, and concern to keep it productive in practical, undramatic ways. One of them, I learned, was beneath our meeting room in a large open basement. In it she ran a quiet but substantial clothing repair and redistribution operation, with numerous volunteers.
But she also had a watchful, and one hopes discerning eye. It was she who came up to me one First Day morning in the spring of 1969 after meeting had concluded, shook my hand, and then fixed me with a steady gaze. She was looking up, being shorter than me, though her straight carriage and dignified mien, not to mention her spiritual stature, made her appear taller. Perhaps she was in a simple dress with a subdued floral pattern and a lacy collar, something a 1940s schoolteacher might favor. Or if it was still cold, a beige suit; she was not unacquainted with tweed.
In any case, Louisa eyed me unsmilingly, and then said, “Charles Fager” (this was Quaker formality; though by testimony, as others had taught me, Friends shunned titles, being addressed by one’s full name indicated that a conversation was not mere banter), “don’t thee think it’s about time thee wrote the meeting a letter?”
And that, Friends, was my Quaker “Come to Jesus” moment. No fervent preaching, no invitation to tread the sawdust path, no altar call or emoting at the mourner’s bench. Instead, a brief, prim summons to write a letter, which was how one applied for membership.
And why not? St. Augustine heard a nameless child singing outside his window; a total stranger spoke to some Galilee fisherman; John Wesley listened to someone reading from Luther. Top billing in the annals usually goes to the blinding light, the talking jackass, or a burning coal to the lips; but they are neither required nor typical.
I thanked Louisa and mumbled some noncommittal reply; but then went home and wrote the letter. It was hardly a masterpiece; but after receipt, an ad hoc committee met with me, and on its favorable report, I shortly became officially a Quaker.
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