Olympia Brown and the Laundromat

Unitarian Universalist Service

Peter and I attended a Service at the Olympia Brown Unitarian Universalist Church in Racine this morning, as we are Unitarian Universalists from Redwood City.  It was the 175th anniversary celebration of the founding of the church, originally it was Universalist and called the Church of the Good Shepherd.  In 1988, when just about all of our churches changed to Unitarian Universalist, they renamed it in honor of Olympia Brown. This is more than just an honorific in honor of this pillar of our church history; Olympia Brown was the minister here from 1878 to 1887, before she went to become a leader in the Suffrage movement.

The Service honored many of the leaders of the community who had been members of the church and the “Share the Plate” offering, which was half of the collection plate for an entire month, was to be divided among the five schools in Racine that are named for leaders who were Universalist members of the church.   The readings were from former members.  Most of the hymns were written by former members.  The minister, Rev. Tony Larsen, though no one calls him anything beyond “Tony,” has been minister for almost 40 years and is retiring at the end of this year.

The sanctuary is bright and cheerful, lined with huge stained glass windows and a Shepherd’s Crook is on the roof where a cross would otherwise be located.  Music is provided from a pipe organ at the front of the dais, piano, and a trombonist who played every hymn.  It is easy to find the church; we found it the day before while not even looking, by the huge “Black Lives Matter” banner across the front.  They are very proud of their activist history and current efforts relating to Social Justice.

It all works.  When we looked up the service time we learned that there are two services; at 9:00 and 11:00 AM.  The service itself ran an hour and a half; no one complained. The two services are identical so no one gets to go to the “good service” and miss the other one.  There appears to be no social hall, at least on the main floor.  Coffee, between services, is in the sanctuary.  The room was almost full to capacity.  Their service itself has some very different elements.  Tony is informal in his approach and the congregation laughs and applauds readily.  He was asking for “newcomer introductions” when we came in, so I introduced us, and said that we would enjoy talking with people between services.  Several people came up to talk after, we spent quite a bit of time with one man.

Listening After the Service:
>> Retired Electrician

Kenneth came up to ask, “Why are you in Wisconsin, what could be interesting about here?”  I told him that we were there to listen to him!  It turned out that he was well worth listening to.  Born on a farm in the far north of the state, he had never been more than ten miles from home until he was 17 and enlisted in the Navy.  He was totally surprised by the size of lake Michigan and never went back to live on the farm.  When he was a child the family farm had about 20 cows and which they milked twice a day.  If they needed to buy a car, or new farm equipment they had to go to harvest trees from their small forest to sell for the money.  His dad was unable to keep up with the required improvements in processing and sanitation and died without ever retiring, at age 69, of a heart attack.  His mother continued to run the farm for three years.  None of his siblings are farmers.  The dairy that is located where his family’s farm was has 6000 cows and brings in feed from several counties.  Some of his family members work for the dairy, but don’t have an ownership interest in it.

He was an electrician in the Navy and found a job as an electrician after he left.  While he did not start in a Union, he joined one and moved up through the ranks, eventually becoming President of his Local.  He had, and has, a great deal of pride in Union workmanship and quality.  When we asked about the “open shop” laws he said that he was surprised when inspectors insisted on being strict on Union work, but were pretty lax about non-union work.  They have changed the laws so that a person with a license does not need to know as much as a Union man.  He worked for a non-union supervisor who thought that the “green wire” was supposed to be “hot” rather than ground, as anyone who knows anything about it knows.

He said that the big non-union construction companies insisted on union journeymen when they built their own headquarters, and then went out to build with non-union labor elsewhere.  Kenneth retired at age 63 with a Union pension; he did not want to work until he died as his father did.

We asked how he found the Unitarian church and he said that he met a woman when bicycling and eventually went to her church.  He was raised Lutheran. He likes the idea of living one’s values and feels that Lutherans and Unitarians both subscribed to that. He has not joined the church; “there is no pressure to do that” but attends very regularly, coming up from Kenosha, a long drive.  He feels that Tony’s services are well worth it.

We ask if his siblings have similar political views: "I can’t figure out why my siblings voted the way they did," he responds.

>>Retired Middle School Principal

We also talked with the trombonist who is a retired middle school principal.  This is the first service for which he has provided trombone accompaniment and he is enjoying this phase of his life.  He stood up during joys and concerns to say how upset he was with the Las Vegas shootings and is generally concerned about violence.  He also told us of breaking up a fight at school when one girl reached into her purse, pulled out a pocket knife, and cut the other girl severely.  After it was over he went to the office and pulled the discipline file on the knife wielder and learned that the girl had none; she never was in any trouble at school before.  He concluded from this that it is very hard to tell when someone will go over the edge and do harm to others.  He also felt that if guns were more regulated the damage from someone like the Las Vegas shooter might be just as bad, but he was certain that something had to be done.

Paul Ryan's office: Olympia Brown in distance

Paul Ryan And Olympia Brown
After the Service was over we took a walk down to the lake.  What a beautiful, clean place on an amazing fall day.  We found that the Paul Ryan Constituent Service Headquarters is about a block from the church, and that the area is almost deserted on a Sunday.

Queen Laundromat and Market

Then we went to do laundry.  The closest laundromat was in a heavily African American neighborhood, the proprietor, who also runs the mini-mart, connected by an interior door, is Sikh.  It was a classical urban neighborhood.  There was a young African American woman finishing her laundry.  She had on her Packers gear and was wearing a medical boot on her left foot.  Both of these gave us a chance to talk.  Her son, age 14, does not respect her at all, and does not even respect his grandmother.  This gives Brenda a lot of heartache.  I had a chance to show her the photos that my daughter had sent yesterday and, of course, Lilly and Ellen look a lot like Brenda.  This opened up the conversation a bit more.  

When asked if she had lived in Racine all her life she said, “yes.”  Then she paused and said, well, mostly yes, though I went to Milwaukee to live once, “but I had to get out of there.”  I asked “why” and there was a pause.  I suggested job?  Relationship?  She said, “No, I was robbed.  It’s not safe there.”  I asked if Racine was safe and she said “yes, it’s more family.”  Then she said,  “Racine.  No matter how hard you try to get out it just keeps sucking you back in.”  At this point someone else came in and we just couldn’t follow up with the obvious questions about “why do you try hard to get out?”

I raised the issue of politics and Brenda said that she does not follow politics and has no interest in it at all.  She said that there is no point in voting because “they” have already decided who will win. Then she said that her brother had been elected Alderman and was the youngest Alderman in the City.  She is quite proud of him and mentioned that he had gone to Marquette.  He was elected because he outworked everyone else, attending every rally and meeting that he could.  “He is going someplace.”

I don’t think she saw any inconsistency in her view of voting, her disdain of politics and the pride she has in her brother.

I helped her carry the basket of laundry out to her car, to the apparent dismay of several onlookers outside the laundry who did not at all know what to make of me, and she asked about our tour.  I gave her a card and she asked whether I would remember her if she referenced the laundromat.  Of course I would.  Then I mentioned that we had started in Antigo and that it was almost entirely white.  She screwed up her face and said that she would NEVER want to go there.  She does not like it when everyone stares at her, and is suspicious of her.  She had to leave then in order to watch the Packers game.

-- David