Heirloom #15
by Will Frank
The decision of the Rev. John L. Einstein to shift from church work to service to the young men in Hampton Roads who were going to war brought a lingering dispute within the congregation of the First Unitarian Church into the open. From early in Einstein’s ministry in Norfolk, his manner seemed to irritate some members of the congregation. Einstein reported that there were several members led by Mrs. Waring whom he reported as “trouble-makers.” Further, a group of socialists sought to use the church for their own purposes, which added to controversy. Then came the war and Einstein’s new calling. In December 1917, the factional disputes and tensions created by the war reduced the viability of the First Unitarian Church of Norfolk to the point that expenses exceeded income by $30 a month, a significant sum in those days. No increased financial subsidies by the American Unitarian Association could be expected. The Board of Trustees of the church felt that the condition of the church was so hopeless that it should be closed. Yet, many members of the church wanted to keep it open, and in 1918 initiated such an effort. Einstein, busy with his war work and discouraged by the antagonisms dividing the congregation, counseled that the time was not ripe to revitalize the church. Nothing was done.
However, the greatly increased military presence in the region doubled the population of Norfolk, and then more. When World War I ended in November 1918, the expanded military presence remained to permanently change the character of the region and make the goal of a successful Unitarian church in the now burgeoning city of Norfolk, by far the largest of the region, an even more pressing desire. Also, many Unitarians in Norfolk were eager to reactivate the church. Yet the church on Freemason Street remained closed.
John Einstein remained in his war work in Hampton Roads until when such service was no longer needed. His work with enlisted soldiers and sailors gave Einstein a new calling to community service. He went to Chicago to attend a school for community service workers, and then took a position in community service in Roanoke, Virginia. He resigned his fellowship with the AUA as a Unitarian minister.
Yet efforts continued to revive the Norfolk church. In 1919, Frank Burkhart, a member ot the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Unitarian church, who had recently graduated from Meadville Theological School, enthusiastically sought the vacant pulpit. His supporters credited him with a missionary zeal that would overcome the divisions in the inactive Norfolk congregation. Yet, President Samuel A. Eliot of the AUA, who had initiated and supported the efforts in Norfolk since 1912, reflected on the recent history of the Norfolk congregation and reported his discouraged conclusion:
"I do not know whether things are ready yet to revive the work at Norfolk. The little church there split over a personal row in the congregation. If the people who forced that trouble are still in the city, I fear that Simons [AUA ministerial settlement representative] will have to decide that the thing had better lie quiet for a longer time. A new minister would have a mighty mean time if he ran into that miserable squabble."
Here the matter remained, especially since the AUA would have to subsidize the salary of any new minister for some time to come, and therefore could decide when and under what circumstances to fund a renewed effort in Norfolk.
The Freemason Street church was let go. Baptists bought it, leased it during the week to the Davis-Wagner Business College, and the Chinese Baptist Church held it on Sundays. Urban renewal led to demolition of the brick church and all the surrounding buildings in the late 1950s and 1960s.