The summer of 1946 found the Unitarian Church of Norfolk (which again adopted the name "First Unitarian Church of Norfolk") still far from calling a minister. Church leaders left the search for a new minister up to the American Unitarian Association, and remained in a caretaker mode until the AUA could find a worthy candidate. The Board did authorize sprucing up of the minister's study, but otherwise just waited. The church year opened in September 1946 with guest speakers in the pulpit, such as lay leader Straughan Gettier from Richmond.
Dale DeWitt of the AUA had been searching through the summer for a possible candidate. Several shied away from the Norfolk pulpit, perhaps out of recognition of a history of lay-ministerial tension and the socially conservative character of the congregation. DeWitt also rejected several names as
unsuitable to conditions in the Norfolk church. Finally on September 11, one name surfaced to be a possible candidate for Norfolk: Douglas Angell.
The thirty-eight year old Douglas Angell was born in Italy to a Catholic family. He came to the United States with his family when he was yet a child, settling in Dayton, Ohio. With a swarthy Mediterranean complexion, he attended Dayton public schools and developed an interest in the social sciences and philosophy. He played the violin from when he was quite young, and became so adept as a musician that he played with professional as well as school orchestras and ensembles. Always shy, he appeared a bit distant and even rigid to those who did not know him. Out of high school in the early 1930s, Douglas Angell developed the skills as an air-conditioning engineer. He moved to Miami, Florida, where he made a good living in that business.
In Miami, attracted to the spiritual and ethical life, he found the First Unitarian Church of Miami, the Rev. Joseph Barth, minister. Doug Angell, out of deep ethical concerns, developed a deep attachment to the Unitarian Church and to Joe Barth, becoming his minister's right-hand man. Despite his success in business, his spiritual and ethical side needed greater scope, and Barth recommended him for the Unitarian ministry. In 1942, Angell journeyed to Chicago to enter the University of Chicago to attain an undergraduate preparation as a basis for entering the Unitarian Meadville Theological School, which was associated with the university. He received his A.A. degree from the University of Chicago in 1943 and his B.D. degree from Meadville in the fall of 1946. In 1943 he married, his wife Celia having a charming and much more outgoing personality. She was a graduate of the University of Georgia and taught school and trained at Northwestern University as a dental hygienist, devoting twelve years to that profession. By the fall of 1946 the Angell family was ready to embark on a new career in a Unitarian Church.
Invited by Dale DeWitt and the Norfolk church leadership, the Angells came to Norfolk in October 1946, Douglas Angell preaching on September 15 and 22. By a well-worn ritual, the congregation unanimously extended a call on October 6, with a salary of $300 per month, $175 of which would be paid by the AUA and $125 by the church. The congregation hoped that this time the minister would make a good fit. Would this elusive desire finally come true? To be continued. Will Frank