A History of Jacksonville Quakers
“[W]e make corporate witness as we can.” (State of the Society report submitted to SEYM, February 12, 1995)
“We bring quietness.” (2010 State of the Meeting)
“I bring my sorrows and my city’s sorrows and the world’s sorrows into meeting for worship and wait to see what I’m led to work on.” “We continue to learn how to be whole despite the challenges of being a very small meeting.” (Spiritual State of the Meeting report, submitted to SEYM, February 7, 2016)
Quaker presence across Florida actually reaches far back into the past and still thrives today. Jonathan Dickinson, a Quaker from Jamaica, shipwrecked near Jupiter in 1696 and even came into Duval County. William Bartram, an English botanist, spent time in north central and northeast Florida between 1765 and 1774. Currently numerous cities have active Quaker worship groups and monthly meetings including DeLand, Fort Myers, Gainesville, Miami, Orlando, St. Petersburg, and many others. Some of their histories reflect similar paths as ours here in the River City.
The earliest references to Quakers who lived in the Jacksonville area appeared in the Florida Times-Union in 1933 with notices regarding where the group met. So far, the actual numbers of the group elude us as well as the form that the group took, but membership was small enough to meet in someone’s home before moving to St. John’s Community House at 325 Market Street in May of that same year. As the Great Depression progressed, we can use our imagination to ask how Quakers may have been active to help themselves and others. Did they link arms with other denominations or did they cooperate with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) to conduct humanitarian relief? Did they help to feed some of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers who paved the new runway at Imeson Field or built new public housing in Durkeeville? Or were Jacksonville Quakers unable to do more than survive themselves during the difficult times of the Great Depression? Did they share food and other resources with each other? We know few names or what they believed beyond their identification as Quakers. Some individuals had been in touch with fellow Quakers outside the state. For example, Virginia C. Allen of Brooksville exchanged correspondence with George A. Walton in 1935, then principal of the George School located in Pennsylvania, on the sacramental nature of baptism and communion. Further, someone had acquired a copy of Rufus Jones’s essay “The Society of Friends and the Sacraments” published in the June 6th, 1936 issue of Friends Intelligencer.
A robust image of Jacksonville Quakers’ involvement in international and domestic situations emerges through the next thirty years. Regarding alternative service during World War II, Van Cleve Geiger fought fires in North Carolina, cleared trails in a National Park Service Camp in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and worked as an attendant in Eastern State Hospital in Virginia where Calhoun D. Geiger was a director, all as part of several Civilian Public Service units under the auspices of the AFSC. After the war’s end, Van Cleve helped relocation efforts with AFSC European Transport Unit in France and Poland. Alfred Geiger participated in alternative service in Poland and elsewhere between 1947 and 1949, part of that time as one of many “seagoing cowboys” helping to take cattle and other livestock to Europe and Asia to assist in feeding people recovering from the effects of World War II. International concerns continued after World War II. On June 3, 1951, in a letter to the editor, the Jacksonville Journal’s Public Pulse section, Virginia C. Greenleaf called for a cease-fire in the Korean war, supporting Democratic Senator Edwin C. Johnson’s resolution. Jacksonville Quakers also donated medicines to the Korea Project of the Friends Medical Society in 1955. In the same year, Ellis S. Rubin, a Miami attorney and special assistant Florida state attorney general, attacked the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) in a speech at Jacksonville Junior College. He accused the group of possibly being Communist because they opposed some FBI operations. In 1966 and 1967, J. William Greenleaf and Mrs. Henry A. Edmunds sent copies of an AFSC publication, Peace in Vietnam – A New Approach in Southeast Asia to several individuals at Jacksonville University. By this time, Jacksonville Quakers were meeting at Jacksonville University on Sunday mornings.
Through the 1950s and 1960s, Quakers also participated in numerous activities which showed the group’s engagement across our city. In 1952, members helped to clean up and beautify grounds of Boylan-Haven School, “a Negro girls high school with a bi-racial faculty operated by the Methodist Church….” A few years later, Calhoun Geiger and others showed movies to patients at Duval Medical Center, a mental health facility. In 1962, as reported in the Jacksonville Journal, Quakers rented an apartment and resettled a refugee Cuban family as part of a “nationwide effort to relocate exiles.” During the next year, Quakers worked with members of other denominations in ASSIST (Aid September Students in Sensible Transition) to help integration of Duval County schools. Jacksonville Quakers did not always succeed in their efforts to assist others, however. In mid-1965, J. William Greenleaf and Dan Harmeling from Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)’s Freedom Forum exchanged letters regarding possible financial support for five University of Florida students who were taking time away from classes to conduct voter registration in Selma, Alabama. Greenleaf responded that Jacksonville Quakers were in too “frail shape” and could not help, but that he would ask “several people in town who might be interested….” In the next year, several different activities showed the range of Quaker involvement in this city. The United Church Women asked Jacksonville Quaker women to donate clothing to their thrift store and also join the board. Quakers here learned that Volunteers in Service to America VISTA volunteers were “arriving soon” and could be “invite[d] to MFW” if transportation could be arranged. Finally, in July 1966, Greenleaf sent a letter to the editor of the Jacksonville Journal which reported on a visit to Head Start and neighborhood centers which the Greater Jacksonville Economic Opportunities (GJEO) operated. Impressed by what he saw, Greenleaf commented that the GJEO was “probably reaching only a tenth of those who need help.”
Jacksonville Quakers clearly made an effort to stay connected with many Friends from both inside and outside Florida during these decades. Alice Macomber represented the group at the annual sessions of the All-Florida Friends Conference held at St. Petersburg Meeting house in March 1952. Late in the next year, John and Enid Hobart visited from Pendle Hill in Pennsylvania and spoke at the Geigers’ home. Carol and Joan Greenleaf spoke about their work with Quaker Youth Service Projects at Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center in New Hampshire and the Arthur Morgan School of North Carolina from the previous summer. In mid-March 1955, Al Geiger, William and Susan Greenleaf attended the All-Florida Friends Conference in St. Petersburg. Geiger reported on his participation in work camp activities in Mexico and the Greenleafs were appointed to attend sessions of the Five Year Meeting coming up in October. In March, 1964, two major events occurred: Dean Freiday, the chairman of the Wider Quaker Fellowship, came to the city to speak on “Friends, Romans, Protestants,” and Jacksonville Quakers held a discussion about “Christian Love and the Civil Rights Bill.” The 1965 annual report sent to Southeast Yearly Meeting (SEYM) mentioned interactions with the Methodist Community Center, the Council on Human Relations, and the local AFSC in High Point, Florida.
Who our members actually were, what roles they held, and where the group met all became clearer between the 1950s through the 1970s. In early March 1952, Virginia C. Greenleaf, recording clerk, acknowledged a milestone in the annual report presented to the All Florida Friends Conference that “[t]he Jacksonville Meeting has just completed its first year.” So it is possible that the group was not a formalized monthly meeting until this time. Through the next few decades, Jacksonville Quakers developed relationships with Gainesville and St. Augustine Quakers among others, sustained reading groups and First Day school sessions, and buoyed each others’ spirits in fellowship and suppers. By March 1965, Virginia Greenleaf concluded that “It has been a good year for us and we feel greatly strengthened by the increase in the number of attending families.” Between the 1950s and the 1970s, the group met at Swaim Memorial Methodist Church, the Young Women’s Christian Association YWCA in downtown Jacksonville and later at the Nelms Science Building on the Jacksonville University campus. Especially important to note regarding the group’s time at the YWCA is that this building is located near Hemming Park, now James Weldon Park, where the Ax-Handle Saturday confrontation occurred on August 27, 1960. Perhaps Jacksonville Quakers were members of the Jacksonville Ministerial Alliance who supported desegregation efforts then and also met at the YWCA during this time.
The period of the 1970s through the 1990s was a particularly rich time of presence and activism globally as well as here in Jacksonville. Early on, Jacksonville Quakers donated money to the support of “young American refugees” in Canada who resisted military service, counseled others regarding military service at the main branch of the city’s public library, and raised money for books for North Vietnamese children. During the 1990s, the group also opposed global arms trade. Perhaps most significantly, however, was an extensive time of international visitation for Soledad and Jo McIntire who were members of the meeting. They traveled in the Philippines, Hong Kong, Japan, India, and elsewhere, sending numerous cards and letters to the Geigers and Heidi Lowey-Ball during 1992-1993. In one postcard sent from Hong Kong in 1992, they wrote “We hope to have inter-visitation and work on networking action against the ‘flesh trade.’” In 1996-1997, this couple went “on a mission of reconciliation between Evangelical Protestants and Catholics in a rural, indigenous area of Mexico,” according to Debbie Rasmussen who submitted a state of the society report to SEYM at the end of 1996. There was substantial additional communication from this couple early in 1997 as part of their request for a minute of support for their “pastoral mission” from Jacksonville Quakers. “The situation is very delicate and even dangerous….We feel that going in as Quakers on a listening mission might be a way to get into the area [Chiapas] without being perceived as human rights workers or being partial to one side or the other.” https://friendshipassociation.org/sole/ Jo McIntire also travelled to Chiapas, Mexico in February 1997 as an international observer with Peaceworkers and Service for Peace and Justice (SERPAJ) | Encyclopedia.com to support local residents in their efforts to stop PEMEX’s destruction of land and water resources in their oil drilling projects. In 1998, Jacksonville Quakers attended numerous vigils protesting against the bombing of Iraq and other military actions as part of their connection with the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice.
During these same decades, Jacksonville Quakers were active in efforts to stem violence and assist others across the city. For example, during 1993 and 1994 Henrietta Groot and others exchanged correspondence with the mayor’s Crime Commission over potential use of the old Municipal Golf Course as suitable land for park development for children as a crime deterrent. Quakers were members of the Violence Committee of the Interfaith Council, helped with a gun buy back program, and active in the ministry to serve the homeless. The Interfaith Council opposed WJXT Channel 4’s cancellation of their “For Heaven’s Sake” program in 1997 in which Quakers had participated. Certainly one of the most exceptional gifts which Jacksonville area Quakers gave to the region was land for a peace education center. Julia and Al Geiger donated 14 acres to the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice (FCPJ) which had been founded in 1982. Built in 2010, the center is still in operation.
In early 1998, a state of the meeting document commented that “[a]ll members readily serve in many areas where they feel called and it is a testimony to the diversity of our group that they all feel nourished by the Meeting.” Sue Williams and Hans Fletcher began their terms as co-clerks and Heidi Lowey-Ball ended hers as clerk. This report mentioned that Lodrick Harris and Charles Catanach had passed away, the group was continuing to meet in the library on Bartram Campus of Bolles School, the Patch-of-Fog White Lightning Children’s Choir started, the adult forum read works by Thich Nhat Hanh, suggested books to each other, and was active in the global concerns already mentioned above.
Jacksonville Quakers have clearly tried to maintain a Quaker presence in Northeast Florida in every decade since the 1930s. Between the 2000s and 2020s, this focus was especially noticeable, although efforts to continue peace and social activism persisted too, even during the pandemic of March 2020 through May 2023. In 2000, they wrote a minute “in support of same gender marriage under the care of the Meeting.” On November 21st, 2001, S. E. Williams contributed a letter to the “Letters from Readers” section of the Florida Times-Union which spoke against violence after 9-11 and the resulting war in Afghanistan. In a later document, a member wrote that developing this letter had been “a good practice in Quaker consensus-building.” Individuals participated in activities connected with several other internationally focused organizations including the Global Network Against Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, the Great Smoky Mountains Peace Pagoda, as well as the St. Augustine-Baracoa (Cuba) Friendship Association in 2001. Engagement in an Interfaith Dialogue at Episcopal School in Jacksonville, input into the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) lobbying agenda for 113th Congress, [and a] “minuted willingness to join SEYM Quaker youth in effort to convince Publix Super Markets, Inc., to participate in the Fair Food Campaign” all occurred in 2012. In 2014, they noted that collecting clothes for the Clara White Mission, and opening the relationship with the Interfaith Coalition for Action, Reconciliation, and Empowerment (ICARE) had both occurred.
Throughout this time period, Jacksonville Quakers spent considerable energy in maintaining strong social bonds through expressions of mutual support such as going canoeing, holding pot luck suppers, attending interfaith vigils, and sending notes regarding traveling Friends and membership transfers. In 2003, Al Geiger commented in an annual state of the meeting report on an “active email list to exchange info on peace related activities and concerns” and continued membership or affiliation with many of the same groups as in earlier years.
Perhaps you can feel the warmth of this “crackling fire” and the members’ companionship with each other in another of Al Geiger’s statements. “On a chilly Firstday evening [in 2010], Jacksonville Friends Meeting held a worship sharing session to the sounds of a crackling fire at the Geiger farmhouse to reflect on the spiritual state of the meeting for [that] year. Present were the incoming clerk, the outgoing clerk, seven regular attenders and members, Cody-the-wonder-dog, and Bess, the resident good dog. The quiet but notable presence of both beloved pets attested to the peacefulness and joy which pervaded our worship sharing….We bring quietness….Our meeting for worship offers an antidote to the constant bombardment of noise and distractions….We have been supportive of one another in individual ways…–but we have not found common concerns for collective witness. We have experienced inward-directed witness to our Quaker family/community this year, seeking better understanding of each other and better support for each other in meeting challenges of illness, death and other family crises. In this way we are preparing ourselves to witness to the wider world…[w]e ended our worship sharing as Bess the good dog roused from her nap before the fire – telling Cody ‘goodbye’ with a sniff of the noses, she left the room.”
Jacksonville Quakers also reflected on their lack of success in creating social and political change in American society, yet mixed that sentiment with hope. A spiritual state of the meeting document from 2007 revealed “the emptiness we’ve been experiencing the past few years….[over the] election of 2004….We were hopeful that if we spoke out publicly we could turn things around. Then we were stunned ‘they got re-elected.’ Then in ‘05-’06, we lost our steam doing outward activist work, because it was not making political changes we thought it would….[yet] we know we can come to meeting, and we’re waiting.”
Within several years, the Jacksonville group reflected differently on their situation and with renewed energy. “In the past year [2011], we’ve opened all doors and windows….We haven’t experienced the scariness dropping our defenses might mean for us….[2013]…felt like a year of preparing the garden for the year to come….Meeting is becoming more like a body, with members bringing different talents, ideas, beliefs, interests, yet functioning together….” Some members feared the possibility of “our Jacksonville presence” ending “unless we find ways to make space and ministry for young people and families more central….” During these same years, the group maintained its relationship with SEYM through several efforts to contribute to the annual apportionments.
During the period in the 2000s through the early 2020s Jacksonville Quakers faced major challenges and began to operate as a worship group rather than a monthly meeting. Starting in 2018, the group “adopted the advice of the clerk of Southeastern Yearly Meeting and scaled back all activities other than meeting for worship, social gatherings, and Friendly Study. We are operating as a de facto worship group.” Then, on January 18, 2020, Mike Shell sent a letter to Southeast Yearly Meeting (SEYM) which indicated general support for “laying down the formal structure of a monthly meeting and embraced the idea of continuing the community worship and life of Jacksonville Friends by less formal organizational means….[we] remain in contact with St. Augustine Worship Group and several members…are members of Gainesville Meeting….We continue to seek ideas for ways to help our community and were involved in supplying purses and personal supplies through Helpful Handbags program….We did have representation at the SEYM half yearly business meeting….We find ourselves as a new group of seekers who have found a welcoming spirit grounded in community, providing worship opportunities….”
During these decades, Jacksonville Quakers made major changes in where they met regularly. After leaving Bolles School in 2012, having met there for 25 years, the group met in Evergreen Cemetery, members’ homes in Neptune Beach and other locations. In 2014, the group created an initiative to establish a meeting house for a permanent location, although this step did not move forward. Through this entire time period, Wendy Clarissa Geiger proved to be an invaluable Jacksonville Quaker. Not only did she represent the group at numerous SEYM gatherings, but she wrote, produced and circulated an extensive monthly newsletter that helped the group to stay connected with each other for many years. As she wrote on October 16, 2017, “I send newsletters to Jax folk, St. Aug. folk, Golden Isles folk, Friends in distress here and there, most meetings, several (but not all) worship groups…and a couple of Young Adult Quakers in SEYM – trying to keep them in the fold.” She even had plans for “a fundraising cookbook for SEYM” and gathered recipes for it.
This essay sets out some of the information that we know about Quakers’ presence here in Jacksonville since the 1930s, including some details about who they actually were, what activities they involved themselves in, who they partnered with to assist our city’s residents, and what some of their spiritual beliefs were beyond the identification as Quakers. There is much more to uncover, of course, especially regarding the deep threads that connect us with past Jacksonville Quakers. How will we attend to our own place in this historical record
Historical Notes
One historical note takes us back to the beginning of Quakers’ presence here in Jacksonville in the 1930s. On January 22, 1933, the Florida Times-Union published a notice that “[a] tea meeting will be held at the home of Miss Florence E. Ledbetter, 310 Washington Street, at 5 o’clock this afternoon for all members of the Society of Friends in Jacksonville, and any other interested persons.” If you had seen that notice, would you have gone? What would have been on your mind?
Did you know that Jacksonville area Quakers volunteered to help transport and resettle French and Polish citizens as part of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) efforts after the end of WWII? What questions do you have about our shared past as Quakers here in Jacksonville?
Local Quaker Al Geiger was part of “A Tribute to the Seagoing Cowboys,” a film which documented when he and other volunteers took cattle and other livestock to Europe and Asia to assist in feeding people recovering from the effects of World War II in 1947. Can you imagine accompanying cattle and goats on this ship? Or delivering them to waiting families? What would this experience have been like for you? How does that activity help you to better understand Quakerism in the past?
In 1994, Al and Julia Geiger donated 14 acres of land in Hampton, Florida to support the work of the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice (FCPJ). The FCPJ built a peace education center on this land in 2010. Hikers, campers and other groups seek out this beautiful spot as a member of the Florida Trail Gateway Community. Want more info? See https://florida4peace.org/.
Spiritual State of the Jacksonville Friends Meeting” documents, submitted to SEYM, starting about 20 years ago. Here’s an example of some thoughts written for 2010: “We bring quietness….Our meeting for worship offers an antidote to the constant bombardment of noise and distractions….We have been supportive of one another in individual ways…but we have not found common concerns for collective witness. We have experienced inward-directed witness to our Quaker family/community this year, seeking better understanding of each other and better support for each other in meeting challenges of illness, death and other family crises. In this way we are preparing ourselves to witness to the wider world.”
During the 1990s, young members raised money for school supplies to send to Nicaragua. Members of the meeting also traveled to Chiapas, Mexico, as they explained “…on a mission of reconciliation between Evangelical Protestants and Catholics in rural indigenous areas. The situation is very delicate and even dangerous….We feel that going in as Quakers on a listening mission might be a way to get into the area without being perceived as human rights workers or being partial to one side or the other.” How do these activities help you to better understand the history of Jacksonville Quakers?