A Festive Move
UUFR has had many homes over the years. We started out meeting in members’ houses; later we met in rooms at NC State University (then known as “State College”) in Riddick Hall, Withers Hall and the YMCA, then located on the campus. (We later stopped meeting at the Y because of their segregationist policies.) By 1959—when we were ten years old—we had raised enough money to purchase a house at 119 Hawthorne Road in the Forest Park neighborhood (then called Cameron Park). 119 Hawthorne was our home for more than 20 years, till 1981. We used every inch of that house, from attic to basement, but the congregation kept growing and we were so crowded there, despite several renovations and enlargements, that for a time on Sunday mornings the youth gathered on Hawthorne Road, while the adults met at the Raleigh Little Theatre on Pogue Street!
But, at last, we were able to move to a larger, more suitable space. The Wade Avenue lot had been purchased in 1966 with a down payment of $21,000; securing the funding for a building was a long struggle. But, finally, it all came together, and, prodded by UUFR’s first professional minister, Rev. Frances West, ground was broken in October 1980 for what is now Peace Hall. It was completed rather quickly, and on a Sunday in February 1981, the move took place. Our 1999 50th anniversary booklet “Celebrating 50 Years of Fellowship” puts it like this: “‘Moving’ Sunday found the congregation parading from the house on Hawthorne Road to the new building. We carried our banner proudly in front of the procession. Important items such as the wooden replica of Raleigh Raccoon, given by Betsy Cox, and the mummy, left over from some Youth Religious Education project, were carried through the streets. We planted a hawthorn tree near the new building to remind us of our Hawthorne Road heritage.”
And thus we came to 3313 Wade Avenue, and, several major building projects later (we keep growing), here we happily remain.
–Blog by Lynda Hambourger