“The year just ended has been one of unprecedented stress and anxiety and of ceaseless calls upon our time, our strength, our sympathy and our money for the sake of the country and of righteousness.” This is the opening sentence of the Annual Report of the Woman‘s Auxiliary of St. Mary’s by the Sea, Jan 1918 - Jan 1919. I thought it would be interesting to see what records I could find from the period of the Spanish Flu, and the briefest search yielded old record books, recording the minutes of all their meetings. In November 1918 the meeting had to be postponed because of a prohibition on gatherings. In December they met wearing gauze masks. Other than these notes, there is little news of what was going on in the wider world. The women met monthly, hearing about missions around the world, praying together, taking up collections to support foreign missions and charitable organizations close to home.
I don’t know what I expected to find here. I hoped for more “news,” I guess. Maybe there are other records at the church that would be more satisfying in that regard. But I am struck by the faithfulness of these women, gathering monthly in homes, in the Guild Room, or in the Parish House, in support of the Church’s wider mission in the world. I am also struck that every entry ends, “there being no further business, the hostess served tea and a social half-hour was spent.”
The pandemic we are facing now is unprecedented. But ours is not the first era in history to experience unprecedented times. And it will not be the last.
Perhaps a lesson from the women of St. Mary’s 100 years ago is that in unprecedented times, we need to continue to gather, using whatever means is available to us, to pray together, to learn together, to serve together. Also, that tea always helps.