• Esther Rogers remembers the UUMC of old 
• A look back with Win Gaskin
  

Esther Wadleigh Van Deren Rogers was born on June 13, 1911, and passed away February 26, 2005. She was involved with UUMC for her entire life.

Esther was born in a house at 706 University Avenue, two houses down from Marshall Street. Her mother’s family had every intention of attending First Methodist Church downtown, but after waiting in the cold for a horse car, they decided to join a church to which they could walk. A walk straight down University Avenue brought them to what is now UUMC.

She was three years old when the church burned in a terrible fire on February 16, 1914. The congregation accepted Temple Society of Concord’s offer to use their building until the Chapel could be repaired. This took nine months, and during that time, the Temple would not accept any money for the heat, light, and other services provided to UUMC’s congregation while they worshipped there.

Esther’s first memory of UUMC was attending church services in the Chapel, while the church was being rebuilt. "We sat near the back on the right facing the pulpit. It seemed to me that everyone used the University Avenue Chapel door but our family. We used the west entrance because we sat on that side, but I considered it the back door: When the new church was completed, I remember asking my parents, "Now may we go in the front door?"

The first service in the new church was held on May 29, 1921, and Esther’s been sitting in the same pew since that day. Her father and two other men whose families had all sat near each other in the old church got together and estimated about where those same pew locations would be in the new church and they selected those pews for their families. Esther sits in the 7th pew from the front of the church which was originally the 10th pew.

"I remember him well," Esther said of Dr. Norman Vincent Peale who led the congregation for five years. I attended his wedding, and the day that he announced to our church that he was leaving to go to New York, my mother had him in our home on Concord Place for dinner. I said to him, ‘You had to come to Syracuse to get back to New York,’ because he had come here from Brooklyn."

Although Esther moved long ago from the University neighborhood, she has steadfastly remained a member of UUMC. "We were brought up on the idea that if it was Sunday, we went to church and there wasn’t any question about it," she said. "When my father died and my mother later sold the University Avenue house, she could get a trolley (from her new house on Concord Place) and get down to our church, or I could take her. When I sold the house on Concord Place and moved out to the town of Salina, I just naturally went back to the church because that was my second home."

A look back with Win Gaskin

It was a roundabout path that brought the Winston H. Gaskin family to Syracuse. Originally from Kansas, Gaskin attended universities in Tennessee, Louisiana, and Virginia, spent some time in the Army, taught college chemistry in Florida, and ended up in Norwich, NY after graduating from pharmacy school. From there, it was on to a job in Ithaca, and finally, they arrived in Syracuse, where he came to open a drugstore. Thirty-five years later and happily retired, he is still in Syracuse, where he has been a member of UUMC for over 20 years.

"I've enjoyed  this church more and been more involved in this church than any church I've been a member of," said Win. The reason? "Its inclusiveness. It's a church that speaks to the needs of a diverse community." He then told the story of when he was the church growth coordinator and he received a phone call from a divorced woman with a child who asked if she would be welcome at UUMC. "I said to her, 'The church can't be helpful to you unless we invite you in,' and so she joined."

Win and his wife, Vera, have two grown children and two grandchildren.