Benchmark

As an attender at Quakertown Meeting for about two years, I volunteered to digitize old Meeting for Business Minutes. This turned out to be a good project during New Jersey’s shelter in place moment, and also enabled me to get to know earlier members of the Meeting through their thoughts and activities.

One day I discovered an interesting letter dated May 20, 1991 and addressed to Visalia Monthly Meeting in California. The letter began with “At the request of Friend Ernest Sanger, we are sending you one of the benches from our Meeting House to become part of yours and a model for others. We know that meetings are people and not stones or planks, but there can be something in the physical structure itself which adds to the quality of the gathering therein. We trust that some of the love and togetherness which we feel when we are gathered in our Meeting House may have been absorbed by this bench and that it will in its own way add to the quality of yours.” 

Wow, what a beautiful sentiment! The letter went on to give a little of Quakertown Meeting’s history and concluded with “We have sent you these two gifts, Ernest Sanger and the bench he asked for in your name—a good Quaker and a good Quaker bench. Both are built for utility and built to last. Neither has any false pretensions to style. Both can be very comfortable, requiring only an occasional shift in position to accommodate the uniqueness of the design. Both the Quaker and the bench are solid examples of their kind, and represent the best work of their respective Makers. We consider both of them, the bench and Ernest Sanger, good examples to copy, and commend them to your loving care.”

I was eager to know the backstory regarding this so I put the word out to several long time members. I found out that Ernest and Esther Sanger, plus their daughter Beth and husband Bill Lovett were two of the families that restarted Quakertown Meeting in the late 1950s. After his wife died, Ernest moved out to Visalia to be near Beth and her family (more history here).

I went to Visalia’s website and found a photo of the interior of their meetinghouse on their home page. To the right of the fireplace, under the window, sits Quakertown Meeting’s bench, a long way from home but it obviously fulfilled its mission, and it appears happy and settled in with its newfound Friends, benches and people. I want to leave you with a lovely thought that Doug shared in his reminiscences about visiting the Lovetts and Ernest Sanger in California: “The Lovetts had peacocks and the Meetinghouse had one glass wall. We weren't there for Meeting for Worship but were told the peacocks would put on a display during MFW [Meeting for Worship] which rather broke it up.” 

So, if you are feeling down about not being able to get to your Meeting for Worship and socializing with other Friends, think of a humble bench that traveled from one coast to another to spread love and fellowship, and marvel at peacocks spreading their jewel-toned feathers for worshippers to witness while waiting in silence for a message.