Sweeney: Today is the 12th of August, and we're beginning the third session of the interview with Dr. Moultrie Guerry. Last time we reached a point of discussing race relations in Norfolk. I would like to explore with you your efforts to improve race relations in Norfolk. In connection with this, I'll ask three questions. First, could you tell me your involvement in making the Norfolk Clericus interracial?

Guerry: The word "Clericus" applies only to the Episcopal clergy in Norfolk and Portsmouth. And I don't remember anything particularly about the integration. There were only two black clergymen involved, and it just happened. But what you may have had in mind, and which was more significant, was the integrating of the Ministerial Association.

Sweeney: Could you tell me about that?

Guerry: May I take a running start? When I first came to Norfolk, Brotherhood Sunday was celebrated each year by an integrated service, usually at Freemason Street Baptist Church or Epworth. One year the service of brotherhood and unity was in a white church with a Negro preacher, and the other year it would be in a church, a black congregation with a white preacher.

Well, the white preachers put on a lot of sweetness and light, but when the black preachers came to the white churches we caught thunder. Some were restless about these services not being more effective. I'd been asked to make a suggestion to ODU and Norfolk State, which was then a small college, as you know. When I represented Sewanee at a meeting of educators at Duke and the University of North Carolina, they had a remarkable program at Chapel Hill where two black students gave the biographies of two white people who had made a contribution to the life of the nation and of race relations, and two white students gave the biographies of two black people of real standing and character who had made their contribution. This seemed to be such a positive program that I suggested it to the students here. And they had a very fine program with a big attendance and fine results.

Sweeney: Did that take place at Norfolk . . . ?

Guerry: That took place at Bute Street Baptist Church.

Sweeney: It involved students from both schools?

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Guerry: From both schools, and they did the same sort of thing. So when a committee was appointed to see if we could improve the Brotherhood Sunday program, we set up a panel of four ministers, two white and two black. Unfortunately, for some reason I couldn't be present.

But they had a fine meeting and a big attendance, and everything went very well until, at the discussion, a man who never came to our meetings in Norfolk offered a resolution condemning the governor for some thing or other. And the chairman pointed out the fact that I have mentioned in this interview that a meeting of this kind was not legislative. It had no constitutional power. We were there for brotherhood and not for passing of political resolutions.

We were hotly written up in the paper by letters to the editor who said they were utterly ashamed of us. It happened that the Rev. Richard Martin at our Grace Church on Brambleton Avenue, a fine black congregation, and I were on the committee that prepared the program, and we met to see what we could do to gather up the remains of brotherhood that, came out of that meeting. He made a very interesting comment: "How can we have brotherhood when we don't know each other except in our own denominations or in our own races?" As a result of the discussion in that committee, we began to have a Fellowship. And in your next question, that's just what you want to know.

Sweeney: Okay, this concerns the fact that a group of black and white clergymen met at St. Paul's to have lunch and discuss common problems. And this is the group that came to be known as the Fellowship. And now you were about to tell me about the Fellowship.

Guerry: Well, that's how it started. We had a monthly luncheon at St. Paul's. It finally got 'up to about eighteen in each race. I had an experience when I first came to Norfolk that taught me a lesson. I had given my lectures on "Afro-Americans" at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria while I was at Sewanee. And there was a young minister in town who had heard those lectures and asked me to give a talk on the general subject to the Townsmen's Society, which was a local, it wasn't an international service club.

I had been perfectly innocent of publicity at Sewanee. Our little community, a college town of its own and, of course, out in the country, I never had any publicity. But after I made this talk I found out that the city editor was a member of the Townsmen's Society and wrote it up. He wrote it correctly, but I got accusations in the mail for being a Communist. I did start a friendship by that talk with Dr. P. B. Young, the editor of the Journal and Guide, but I realized that I had

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made a mistake. It wasn't fair to my people to go public on a controversial question until they knew me 'and I knew them and we could trust each other. So one of the things that this Fellowship said was this: we are a Fellowship and we are not out for publicity. If we are going to talk frankly with one another, we cannot talk for the press. So never in ten or twelve years or more were we ever written up. Mr. Meacham of the Pilot, who wrote for the New York Times and the Reader's Digest, came to one of our meetings, along with Dr. Young from the Journal and Guide, and he wanted to write it up as a proof that the South is trying to do things, things that might surprise people in the North.

But we held to the position that if that' publicity went out it might do a certain amount of good but that it would wreck the Fellowship. Some of the people in there were shy on both sides. So we were utterly frank with one another. We brought in some laymen and others who might catch the spirit of integrated fellowship and bring about other movements. For instance, let me tell you one little question that came up: A new member from the black community said, "This is all very well, this fellowship and warmheartedness here in private. But what would happen if we met on the street?" So immediately two or three black members got up and said, "Why, just the other day I met so-and-so at the Hub, right there on Granby Street, and we walked down the street arm in arm."

Another person said the same thing - two or three others. So we feel that something really happened in the way of fellowship. Now this wasn't just confined to us because these friends who knew one another became the key people in bringing about the integration of the Ministerial Association. When they met for the first time, here was a group that knew one another, could introduce one another as friends. Then when the idea of a Preaching Mission came about, this group had laid a good foundation to carry on something that had never been done before. And I mean not only the Preaching Mission when it was all white, but especially the Preaching Mission when it was integrated. And you remember what Dr. Trueblood said about that.

You wonder sometimes how we could get away with a luncheon meeting that was integrated like that every month. I always took things up with my Vestry. And after some discussion one who did not care for this sort of thing made the very generous offer, saying, "Mr. Guerry, you do what you feel you have to do, but don't ask me to vote." So I never had any objections that I knew of from the Vestry or from the congregation.

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We had a Miss Sue Slaughter who was director of the Family Welfare, who was also president of the Women's Interracial Council. And she was willing, to take care of the luncheons, and she got other people in the parish to help her. Some of them were right old, but one of them said a very characteristic thing. "I don't like this, but I approve." 'I've heard people say that the old folks, the old ladies, the old this and the old that hold you back. At St. Paul's it was the older people that encouraged me more than the younger ones. But I would say that I wasn't discouraged by anybody, really.

Sweeney: You say this went on for twelve years? About when did it start? Mid-forties? Late forties?

Guerry: Ten or twelve years, yes. It started in the late forties after my illness was over. And I didn't leave until '57, so that was a number of years. And when I came back eight years later it was still going on. But there had been so many interracial expressions, politically and in civic life and in other ways, that the black members themselves felt that we didn't need it any more. So, as a matter of fact, it continued more like twenty years. It didn't always meet at St. Paul's. After awhile other people got up the nerve to invite us. One or two ministers got into a little trouble about it, but we could go to a black congregation or a white congregation. And it was one of the finest things we ever did.

Sweeney: In those days Norfolk was an extremely segregated city in its residential patterns. Did you become involved in any projects to bring the races together?

Guerry: Especially in connection with housing, yes. This Fellowship that did not want publicity would do things, as I've indicated. And one thing we did was to go two by two through the slums, a black and white minister, and we covered the city. As a result there were sermons, but even where there were not sermons, there was information that the Fellowship spread through their congregations so that there was some support for the Redevelopment and Housing Authority.

I can see why some people feared that if the federal government had control over things of this kind and put in the money that there was going to be some tyranny from Washington. And I sympathize with them. But it seems to me that Norfolk is a greater city without its slums. And we feel we made a contribution there. About this time, in the fifties, I suppose, there was a kind of a riot out at a section called. Coronado; maybe you've heard of it. On one side of' the street there was a Negro community; on the other side there was a white community. Well, one morning white people woke up with the realization that three

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or four houses had 'been sold and blacks had moved in. 'And there was a mob gathered around the houses; bricks 'were thrown through windows, and it was a very touchy situation. After things had calmed down some and we were making these visitations two by two, the Rev. Richard Martin and I went to visit people in Coronado. And he took me into one of his families' homes, and it was a marvelous experience because they told me so vividly, dramatically, how frightened they were when bricks came through the window, and there was the window, broken.

But they told about it with such peals of laughter and such good humor that I was amazed. I was at Grace Church this summer. And after the service was over, a woman spoke to me and introduced me to her daughter that had just gotten through graduate school, and she said, "You remember, you and Mr. Martin came to see us after that riot where we were so scared, and we've never forgotten you." Now wasn't that interesting that after all these years I should happen to sit in her pew? Mr. Martin went with me to one of my parishioners and found out that he was afraid that his life savings had gone down the drain with the drop in the value of his property.

So it wasn't the first time that Mr. Martin said, "You know, it's wrong for me to always think that my people are in trouble. There are other people." He said that one day about the Jews,when we had the Jewish Rabbi play the organ at a communion service that we had for the ministers. He didn't participate in the communion, but he certainly made his contribution with the music. Not as a project of the Fellowship but out of some of the membership, we formed an informal housing committee. The mayor had appointed three men, and it just didn't seem to go over.

There wasn't wide enough representation. But men like Mr. Henry Clay Hofheimer, Mr. Hunter Hogan, some people in real estate, Mrs. Abeles, the editor of the Journal and Guide, Tom Young, the son of the former editor, and ministers from a section in the city where Mr. Hofheimer and others felt that we could build a community for the blacks, who said, "The reason we had to go into Coronado - we weren't allowed anywhere else." I went to Raleigh in '57 before we came to any great conclusion. But when I came back, the editor of the Journal and Guide said, "We laid the foundation for things that have happened while you were away. And so much has been done."

Sweeney: Could you tell me about the Theophilus Club in Norfolk?

Guerry: That's another interesting club. It started in 1926 with about fifteen ministers in Norfolk and Portsmouth who were highly

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intellectual and wrote their own papers and took turns entertaining people in their homes. When I came in in 1938 we met at the Navy "Y" for many years afterwards. But for, the last six to eight years we met at the Freemason Street Baptist Church. Of course, there's no Navy "Y" anymore.

And we've grown to about five from each denomination. We actually elected a Roman Catholic priest, Father Dozier, and he came once. But he was a very busy man, and he didn't come back anymore. We have two blacks in there now, Joe Green from Grace Church and Taylor from the Bute Street Baptist Church. And we read our papers and discuss them. And it just seems to turn out that without any official connection the members of Theophilus were an inner core of the Fellowship, which was the inner core for the wider ministerial union.

Sweeney: I see. That's interesting. The next question: at one time you received a call to Christ Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts which, of course, is a very historic church, but you refused that call. I was wondering if you could give me the details on that?

Guerry: I had a friend who had been the Rector of that church, and he had been a chaplain, and he had been the secretary of college work for our whole church. And he used to gather a number of us chaplains together up in that area, so I knew the church and I preached at Cambridge. But, to my utter surprise, Mr. Garfield, the son of the former President, came down to our church and very nicely introduced himself and asked could he come to our house. So he came.

I was very much amused because Mrs. Guerry asked him more questions than he asked us. So, when he left, I said, "We won't have to worry about Cambridge." But, no, he went back up and soon I got the call. I had no trouble making a decision not to go. I'm a Southerner; my roots and my mission is in the South. Here's where I belong; here is where the University of the South was, where I was educated. Here's where Charleston was; here's where Virginia Seminary was. At any rate, I thought that it was necessary to dig deep and to take time to know people and families in the city and its life and the region. Furthermore, this call came, I believe, before the war was over, and Norfolk was my war front. That's why I declined the call to the Virginia Seminary in 1941.

Sweeney: Would you discuss your work on the Board of Examining Chaplains, which you chaired for some years? What was the function of this Board also?

Guerry: The function of this Board was like a bar examination in the legal profession. A man doesn't just go into ministry without

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being sponsored. He has to have the recommendation of the Vestry and a Rector and the Bishop and the standing committee, which consists of priests and laity. And when he gets through the Seminary, he can't just show the diocese that he's passed; he has to pass a Board of Chaplains that examine him.

Sweeney: So it takes more than just a diploma from the Seminary?

Guerry: That's right. I soon found out that trying to examine men whom you didn't know until they were ready to graduate or had graduated was not good. One black candidate just broke down -in tears under the strain. Another man ought to have been in the hospital with paralysis of his face. And so the Examining Chaplains decided that we ought to know them before they go to the Seminary, while they are in the Seminary, and, if possible, examine them during their course.

Then we could stop those that were unsatisfactory or we could encourage them where they were weak to do something about it. This meant a great deal to the men in the Seminary, as well as to the Examining Chaplains, that we weren't ogres trying to knock them down. We wanted to make their entrance into the ministry a happy and successful one. But to turn a man down after he'd been in the Seminary for three years and apparently was shown that he was in the clear was an impossible sort of thing.

Sweeney: Did you engage in much ecumenical work during your pastorate? And also was this work confined to other Protestant denominations?

Guerry: It seems to me that what we've said in the past answers that question. I would add that I tried to get Roman Catholics to come into the Ministerial Union. And before I went away, I was asked to set up a panel of a rabbi, a priest, and a Protestant clergyman. The priest hedged a good deal and put me off and said he had to ask permission. And I said, "The time is getting awfully close. Do you feel you cannot get per mission to join in this?" And he said, "You'd better go ahead." About that time I felt a greater withdrawing from any inter course.

I tried to make friends across lines that were not Protestant, and I think I've mentioned the fact that when I had Roman Catholics come to me for marriage or for membership, I sent them to the priest. Of course, I didn't get letters of transfer, but I got in one case a certificate of Baptism and Confirmation, I believe, also. But more than that, I got through the person I had sent for consultation the comment of appreciation for the courtesy

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When I come back after eight years away, the situation is changed. As I may have mentioned before, Father Quinlan was a regular member of the Episcopal Clericus when I got back, and we became great friends. And he approved of an article I wrote on the keys of the kingdom. And the pastor at Trinity Church sent it-to two Roman Catholic publications. But since it had been published at my alma mater, they declined to publish it. But it's just marvelous the change that has come about.

Sweeney: Would you attribute that to Pope John XXIII?

Guerry: A great deal. A great deal is due to him.

Sweeney: Did you ever have any desire to be a bishop?

Guerry: No.

Sweeney: Why not?

Guerry: I don't think I want to go into detail there because my father was a bishop and I knew something about the demands on the bishopric. If I wanted to be a bishop, I would have wanted to carry on his work after he was murdered by an insane man who didn't like my father's efforts to educate the Negroes in South Carolina. There's a fascinating story being written by a classmate of mine on Evelyn Wright, a young girl from Tuskegee who started a school over a store in Denmark, South Carolina. And largely with help from the North and the gift of a man named Voorhees of a farm, it became Voorhees School.

But it came on hard times and the interest up North waned, so what was left of the board of trustees asked my father and the dioceses of South Carolina - now there were two dioceses instead of one - would they sponsor the school? And Father not only persuaded his convention to be the sponsor, but he said he would personally raise the money. I think that's what put over the resolution. But this made this man furious, and he attacked Father in public. We saw some of his letters after Father died. He went down to his office to see this man. He wouldn't take any help. He insisted that he have a parish adequate to his abilities.

Sweeney: Was this man a clergyman?

Guerry: Yes. And he had killed a boy that he said was invading his house, but his parishioners didn't believe it. Nowadays

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I'm sure his family would have had him safely in a mental institution. He moved from South Carolina, where he didn't want to be too near Father, to Savannah, but he came up from Savannah and asked for an interview. Father lived five days. All of us had been out of town for some reason. I was on the way to Colorado for a conference, and my brother got me off the train in Chattanooga. So we all went home.

Sweeney: He shot your father?

Guerry: Yes. And one thing I remember Father saying was "How is Woodward? I know God will forgive him because he didn't know what he was doing." The man shot himself. I don't know why I'm bringing that in. It has nothing to do with whether I wanted to be a bishop or not. But to answer the question, I knew the work of a bishop.

And Father ran his diocese from his study, largely by long hand - and one reason, I think that I may have said, that I went into ministry was that while I was teaching English at the College of Charleston, I was typing his letters for him. I saw the correspondence, the appeals for men, and so forth. But constitutionally and otherwise the business of directing a diocese was too removed from my nature and love of teaching and pastoral work.

Sweeney: You enjoyed pastoral work and education more than administration?

Guerry: Yes.

Sweeney: I see that there's one thing that I overlooked here in making these questions up in reference to St. Paul's. And I don't like to pull a question on you without your seeing it, but I think that we should talk some about the committees down there for social work and so forth. There were a number of strong committees, weren't there, at St. Paul's when you were working there?

Guerry: I think the most outstanding committee is the one that I mentioned that was concerned with the Armed Forces and the personnel, and getting some entertainment for them . . . I don't believe we organized' ourselves particularly in the way of committees. Sweeney: Not like they do today, I'm sure. Not the phenomenon of recent years . . Guerry: Of course we had other committees which were busy all the time. The Committee on Buildings and Grounds, was a busy

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one indeed, and there was a special chairman for, the care of the ancient churchyard. There were committees on education and the Sunday School, on the neighborhood groups, on choir and music, and the Good Friday and Easter services.

The words of "The Crucifixion" by Stainer were printed for an overflow congregation with amplifiers set up in the Parish House. This program was sung by the choir for about fifty years, and people of all sorts came, many as an annual habit, from the stores nearby and from Norfolk, and even from out lying towns and cities. The amplifiers were kept for Easter Day. Then there were committees on securing a new organ and one on the purchase and planning a parking lot, behind the Parish House.

In 1953 the City came out with a plan for a Civic Center to occupy all the land from our back wall to Bank Street. This would have choked the life out of the church and was a reason I declined a call to come to Sewanee as a professor of Theology. We protested the threat to this historic church dear to all Norfolk. Fortunately, the City found a better location.

A committee prepared an evaluation of what had been done in the past and set some goals for the future. This may give an idea of some of the committees working out from the Vestry and including members of the congregation. I need hardly mention finance.

Sweeney: Could you briefly describe your work at St. Mary's College at Raleigh after you left St. Paul's?

Guerry: Well, St. Mary's was an old college. It was begun as a boys' school in the 1830's, and it went under in the Panic of 1837 and was begun again in 1842. General Polk's daughter and General Lee's daughter were educated there, and the girls encouraged the soldiers as they went through. We had chapel three times on Sunday - Holy Communion at 8:00 and the preaching service at 11:00, or Communion. And these girls were from all denominations just like the boys at Sewanee. Perhaps only fifty percent of them were Episcopalian. But they were welcome to the Communion.

And then in the evening they had a very sweet Vespers service at which, at the middle of the service, we turned out all the lights except the candles, and the organist, who was a genius, played beautiful meditative music. Often after that service the girls' eyes were filled with tears. The man before me had an assistant in Bible, but there wasn't any for me, and I did it all. I taught a semester in the

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Old Testament, which was required of the juniors, which in a junior college meant freshman college students. So that meant four semesters of forty each; it gives you an idea. Then I had elective courses in the Life of Christ. Then for the high school students I taught my book, The Vine: Education According to Christ, which I had mimeographed; it's not published. I wish it were. And with the freshmen it was largely a one-hour-a-week course based on their questions to give them an orientation into college and into religious thinking. Of course, there was a lot of counseling.

Our cottage was right in the middle of the campus, and the students felt that we were just naturally a part of it. One of the interesting things was, that I'd like to mention, next door was a library where Mrs. Guerry was the main client. And next to that was the auditorium. And we had a remarkable dramatic teacher. And twice a year she'd put on a very fine play. Oh, they were good plays! So I did one of the things I love to do. I studied the plays and preached on the theme, relating the play, the drama, to the Bible and the Bible to the drama, and gave them an interpretation which heightened their appreciation of the play like Our Town, Skin of their Teeth and The Chalk Garden, and Joan of Arc. Oh, my goodness! And I had those sermons, a good many of them, mimeographed for the students who wanted them.

Sweeney: I see that I skipped, over a very important question, and that has to do . . well, let's first discuss why you left St. Paul's when you did and why you came to St. Mary's, and then you can discuss what it was, what work at St. Paul's gave you the most personal satisfaction.

Guerry: Well, let me answer the last question first. All of it! All of it! In fact, I can't think of any time in my ministry that I wasn't interested in everything. Having been a teacher of English at the College of Charleston, I loved teaching at Sewanee as a chaplain. And then, when I came here, the challenges of St. Paul's in wartime and of a great city with a small parish that I could encompass in my heart and mind and energy. I was as perfectly happy here as I was in the fields of South Carolina. And I can't remember anything that I enjoyed more than another. Maybe that's enough, because I don't have to talk about Baptisms and weddings. I'm incurably romantic, and there are times when people's bulwarks are threatened by illness and sorrow.

Sweeney: Why did you make that very important decision, then, to leave St. Paul's in 1957?

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Guerry: One of my Vestry men said early in my career that he thought five years was enough to put up with a minister. But the wars, both the Korean and the World War, kept things moving. I was ministering to a train of people coming and going, something new all the time, something happening. So that when, at the end of nineteen years and a little more, he didn't want me to go. But some of us had met in a conference once, and we were talking about the fact that a lot of men, as they reach sixty, went down. They stayed too long. They needed to do something that they were physically up to, in many cases. So that my roommate at Sewanee, who preceded me in the rural work, rural fields of South Carolina - Sumter County, he went back to those rural fields for the last ten years of his ministry and became the rural parson of the year. Others heard about our discussion, and I got a couple of calls to South Carolina.

There were new churches that were on the outer edge of town that were growing rapidly, and within two or three years they would have a great parish. I said, "You need a track man. You need somebody who's young and strong and vigorous. And I've got a situation here in the city where I can do more good with half the effort I'd have to put forth and, besides, I think I'd like to teach." So in March of 1957 I wrote a letter to the Vestry saying that I thought twenty years was enough, and that the last ten years of my life I ought to teach, that the parish had gotten too big.

They'd have to start a whole new program with an assistant or something of that kind. But I didn't show the letter to them in which I was going to ask for a sabbatical at the end of twenty years, which would be January 1, 1958, thinking that the spring was a little too soon to spring it on them. But the last of May I got the call to St. Mary's, and the more I went into it I saw it was the only opening for an Episcopal chaplain in an Episcopal school in the South.

Sweeney: Had you written to them, or did it just . Guerry: Just came out of the blue. Sweeney: That's divine providence.

Guerry: In fact, the bishop coadjutor of North Carolina was a pro duct of old St. Paul's, and had been one of my dearest friends in the Seminary. He was a senior and I was a new man. He said, "Well, Moultrie couldn't possibly leave St. Paul's." Another friend of mine in that diocese said, "Let's try him." So he wrote me a feeler, and I went down and talked to him. It was hard pulling away, and I took a little while to give my decision. My boy had been in the hospital. My Senior

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Warden had had a stroke. I had to take my wife to Brevard, North Carolina, for our holiday at the last of June before I could really sit down and calculate what this would mean. But the thing that helped most was that letter that I had not mailed which I had reproduced and given to the Vestry. So they couldn't say much in the way of persuading me not to go. So it was a wonderful thing.

It turned out that Mrs. Guerry had an operation soon after we got to St. Mary's, and I could do more with 1600 students that I taught one or more semesters than I could have reached any group of people anywhere else. At any rate, it was a fine experience, and I never regretted it. In fact, I have a letter that I discovered the other day where one of my choir boys, who's now the head of the department of anthropology at Indiana University, James Vaughan, wrote me a letter at that time that he was proud of me, that we've got to look into the future, that changelessness is death. I said, "I wouldn't have had any trouble making that decision if I'd gotten your letter before I made it instead of after"

Sweeney: What role have you played in the church since your retirement and return to Norfolk. And also, why did you come back to Norfolk?

Guerry: Because my son, Judge Guerry, and his children and my daughter, Sally Guerry Rector, and her children were here. I thought I would never go back where I had been. But every body I consulted said, "You can't turn your back on your own children and grandchildren." But I made the decision to come and not be a nuisance at St. Paul's. I'm an ecumenical parishioner. And I have a habit of going to every denomination, including the Roman Catholic and the Synagogue. I preached in Synagogues. And I have taught teachers in Sunday School, particularly Trinity in Portsmouth and Christ and St. Luke's.' I go to St. Paul's and let them know I still love them, but I'm just not there for consultation in any decisions. And I think it's worked out all right.

Sweeney: Have you been a reserve minister of any kind?

Guerry: No, I have not been a supply. I did do some preaching when I first came back, particularly at St. John's, Portsmouth, be cause my good friend over there got sick. But I think the most interesting thing I did was to tutor two black candidates in Grace Church for the ministry, and a number of men whom the Examining Chaplains felt were weak in certain subjects. So I had a number of those men come to me. And my typewriter's been my pulpit, especially after a heart attack.

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I started a Bible class at St. Andrew's just around the corner from my home, and in recent years the lay teachers come to me in my home, and we make out an outline. And I'm there to answer questions in the class, but I don't have to bear the responsibility. I don't know if that's enough of what I've done for the last years of retirement, but it's been wonderful. I might add a few other activities.

I have written and published four major articles. One of them on "A Study of Consequences in the Forsyte Saga and Gone with the Wind" I gave for twenty times in the area, particularly at the Torch Club of Norfolk, at Libraries, for University Women, and churches; and one on "Touching," a study of the encounter movements. I have lectured and taught and preached at First Lutheran Church and in Episcopal churches. In the Diocese of Southern Virginia my main work for several years was on a Clergy Study Leaves Commission to assist ministers in taking two to six months "sabbaticals" here and abroad. A number went to Canterbury, England and to Jerusalem in St. George's College.

I was the "contact" member to interview and counsel prospective clergy regarding their plans. I am still publishing brief articles and helping the historiographer at my University to republish and bring up to date the book I wrote as chaplain: Men Who Made Sewanee. I need not mention assisting at baptisms, weddings, Communion, and conducting funerals for other ministers, etc.

Sweeney: Well, now, you suggested two other questions which I've formulated here, when we talked last time. First, Dr. Guerry, could you tell me about the celebration of the bicentennial of the Norfolk borough church which took place in 1939?

Guerry: That was great. I'm glad you brought that up again. A Methodist minister said he wanted to raise some money to help us put it on in a big way, but our people were rather modest. We did celebrate on St. Paul's Day by a tablet to one of the former Rectors, Dr. Covington, who, when he was Rector there, used to come up to the Seminary once a month on the boat to teach us pastoral theology. And Bishop Brown, who had known him many years, gave a fine talk.

Then during the winter we brought back Mr. Robert Baylor Tunstall, who was very prominent in the work of this church, and his father started the Endowment Board, the Endowment Fund. And he gave a remarkable address on the laymen of the church. It's been printed, and you have a copy of it along with some additions that I made regarding the memorials in the church, the windows and pictures. The big climax was in May when the Council of the diocese, the Convention of the diocese, met in 1939 as a part of this

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bicentennial celebration. And Bishop Henry St. George Tucker was the preacher. He was the presiding bishop of the whole Episcopal Church. He had been bishop in Japan until he had built up a diocese and gotten a native bishop to take over, then he came back to this country and first taught at the Seminary when I was there. Then he became bishop of Virginia; then he became the presiding bishop. So he came and preached a marvelous sermon on the missionary opportunities at St. Paul's in its location.

And that night we had a big supper at the Hague Club, and we had a program there. In addition to that we published a shorter history than the one that was done in 1934, and we included Bishop Tucker's picture and the membership of the church and the members of the Vestry and the Rectors, going back as far as possible. And this was distributed to everybody in the congregation, and all the adults, the Confirmed members of the church. In listing members we said: "Owing to the difficulty in determining the exact membership status in every case, the following list is printed, that the congregation may have all available names connected with St. Paul's." I should have mentioned the fact that during the Diocesan Convention, at the communion service, there was the dedication of a tablet in the chancel to Bishop Beverley D. Tucker, D.D., who had been the rector for 24 years. I think almost all the sons and daughters of Bishop and Mrs. Tucker and their families were present. Two sons were bishops and two others were clergymen, and two laymen were missionaries to China (teacher and physician) 13 all together. Dr. Wallace E. Rollins, Dean of the Virginia Seminary, came down from Alexandria to give the memorial address. After service the Tuckers greeted one another and their many friends in something much removed from whispers!

Sweeney: Secondly, could you relate to me your interpretation of which church - St. Paul's or Christ and St. Luke's - is the "mother church" of the Episcopal Church in Norfolk?

Guerry: I think I'll skip that.

Sweeney: Okay. You said you wanted to give the river theory.

Guerry: I've written something that I thought you would like to have to pass on to someone who is an historian, but if my solution is going to be proposed, I'd like it to be proposed by some one who hasn't been a Rector of one or the other churches. But I will say that my relationships with the Rectors of Christ and St. Luke's have been beautiful, and the two congregations are naturally affiliated with each other. And we've done many

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things together, held united services and one thing or another. And while I was there for almost twenty years, I don't remember ever discussing which was the mother church and which wasn't. I thought that it was more important that we be united rather than divided on some subject.

Sweeney: That makes a lot of sense. Well, thank you very much for this very fine and illuminating interview.

Guerry: Thank you. It was a new experience for me.

(End of Tape)

Previous Guerry Interviews: June 30, 1980 August 5, 1980