Letter – Department of Ministry to Liberal Christian Church (Candidate Rev. Sheffer)
Department of the Ministry: Director, Dan Huntington Fenn – Assistant, Orlo McCormack
AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION
25 Beacon Street,
Boston 8, Massachusetts
Jane 25, 1947
Dear Mr. Bromley:
I appreciate very much your sending me a copy of your letter to Mr. Matson. At the same time I want to include now the suggestion of the other individual with of’ whom I have already spoken. I refer to Homer Sheffer of 113 Cottage Place, Ridgewood, New Jersey. I am enclosing a copy of his biography. In correspondence with Reverend Dale DeWitt, Regional Director of the Middle Atlantic States Council, I have his endorsement of the suggestion. Both of us felt that the point of view which Mr. Sheffer holds, and his general temperament and attitude would be one which would follow naturally and successfully after Mr. Palmer.
He is, as you note, somewhat older than the other men we have mentioned, but with that age has come experience. The fact that he is somewhat hard of hearing, has been successfully compensated for by the use of an excellent hearing aid which makes him entirely capable of functioning with effectiveness. You may wish to follow up this suggestion.
Cordially,
<signed>
Dan Huntington Fenn
DHF:AM Enc.
Mr. Harry A. Bromley, Chairman
Board of Trustees Unitarian – Universalist Church
669 West Peachtree Street, N.E.
Atlanta 3, Georgia
Department of the Ministry
25 Beacon St.
Boston, 8, Mass.
JUNE 1947
HOMER LEWIS SHEFFER
Homer Lewis Sheffer was born in Linlithgo, New York, April 23, 1890 and received his education in the public schools later receiving his A.B. from Rutgers with high honors, and received his Phi Beta Kappa key in 1913. He grew up in the Dutch Reformed Church, and graduated from the New Brunswick Theological Seminary, New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1916. Later, he received his Master’s degree from New York University, majoring in Sociology and Social Psychology.
He was ordained in the Dutch Reformed Church in 1916, and served in churches of that denomination until 1925 when he was deposed from their ministry after a heresy trial which was held at his own request. He has served since 1926 as the minister of Unitarian Churches in Athol, Massachusetts; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Spokane, Washington; and since 1939, at Ridgewood, New Jersey.
He married in 1917, Miss Edith L. Gibney, who graduated from Wellesley College the previous year. They have one son.
In Addition to many articles of theological and sociological subjects, Mr. Sheffer has had a number of poems printed in “Unity” and other magazines. Mr. Sheffer’s special interests are, and always have been, in the field of sociology and in the social application of religion.
Mr. Sheffer has been for a number of years afflicted with deafness, but the use of a hearing aid has enabled him to overcome practically all of this handicap. In spirit and attitude, Mr. Sheffer has kept himself abreast of the times. His approach to all problems and his profession, betrays the vigor of his personality. His alert temperament gives him an immediate appeal to which people respond readily.
Physical Archive: UUCA Box: 26 Folder: 10
Citation: Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta Records, RG 026, Archives and Manuscripts Dept., Pitts Theology Library, Emory University, Atlanta GA