Tracing History and Memories: The Tale of the UU Lansing Church Time Capsules
Have you noticed the plaque near the Chapin room in the west side of the building (see image below)? This plaque mentions the church founding in 1848, which is different from the 1849 date we used for our recent 175th anniversary celebration. In 1848, the Reverend John H. Sanford formed the Lansing Universalist Society, while in 1849 the First Universalist Church of Lansing incorporated.
Further down on the plaque, there is mention of a time capsule. Merriam-Webster defines a time capsule as a container holding historical records or objects. The one mentioned in this plaque was originally buried on May 17, 1998 (RE Sunday) when the church was celebrating its 150th anniversary on Grove Street in East Lansing. The church newsletter for that week mentions that the RE children were creating objects and writings to put in the capsule, and the newsletter solicited items from the congregation to be added. The plan was to open it in 50 years (2048) for the church bicentennial.
When the church was preparing to leave the Grove St. building, there was discussion about where the capsule had been buried. Emails in October 2015 between Reverend Kathryn Bert, Teresa Putnam, Bob Lovell, Gene Mellen and Dan Dettweiler (Board President) discussed the need to find it before the ground froze. At that time, I found the actual plaque for the capsule in the church archives cupboard with a sticky note on the back; “behind row of ornamental cherry trees in Memorial Garden” and shared this in an email on November 12, 2015 to Rev. Kathryn Bert and the church board. Attempts to find it were unsuccessful.
The weekly email from the church for December 2, 2015, includes a post from Teresa Putnam requesting to borrow a “heavy duty metal detector”. Soon after, church member Alex Villhauer, a geologist, and Teresa were able to use ground-penetrating radar to help locate the capsule. In reality, the capsule was a Rubbermaid tub which unfortunately leaked and a few papers and photographs were lost.
Items in this time capsule included: books, a church directory, an Annual report, two video tapes, orders of service, statements and comments from adults and youth, photographs, a t-shirt, a beanie baby, a youth stole, church documents, and a church timeline of our history.
During March 2016, congregants were invited to bring items with personal significance to add to the time capsule. Rev. Kathryn Bert wrote a chapter in the book “The Spirit That Moves” (2019), edited by Barbara Child and available from the uuabookstore.org, that includes a section about our time capsule. As part of the service on Easter Sunday (March 27, 2016), congregants were invited go to rooms in the Grove Street building that were significant to them. In the rooms, guides helped them find wrapped packages holding sacred objects that had been collected. These were returned to the sanctuary where people shared words about the
contents. These items were placed into the time capsule for the new building. A congregational photograph was taken that day to go into the time capsule as well.
Items added to the time capsule included (but not a complete list): a GA volunteer t-shirt, items made by congregants and youth, the plaque from the 1998 time capsule, a RE Wing Blessing, church documents, the Fall 2016 UU World magazine, Black Lives Matter and Michigan Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence pins, and the orders of service and invitation from the Building Dedication. On October 2, 2016, the church had its Dedication Service and as part of that, the time capsule was placed into the wall near what is now the Augusta Chapin room.
Outside of this room, over the location holding the time capsule, is the plaque written about in the beginning of this story. Church members Bob Lovell and Paul Harker designed the plaque and Paul Harker created it using his home-made computer numerical control (CNC) router. The plaque was presented to the congregation by theresa rohlck, Ministerial Intern, at the dedication of the Augusta Chapin Room on February 10, 2019.
This ends part one of the time capsule story with more to come in part 2. Were you involved with the time capsule in 1998 or 2016? Do you have any photographs related to it? Let me know at uucgl.archives@gmail.com .
Image citations:
1. Plaque outside of Chapin Room, UU Lansing Church, Ed Busch (photographer)
2. Sesquicentennial time capsule plaque, UUCGL Archives
