Hierloom #22
by Will Frank
When the Rev. Harry Lutz gave his first lecture to the Unitarian congregation being renewed in Norfolk on January 26, 1930, conversations among Unitarian officials had already earmarked the clergyman from Maine as a likely candidate as the revived church’s first settled minister. (See the photo of Harry Lutz in the 75th Anniversary photo display in the far corner of the social hall. Harry Lutz’s grandson, Roger A. Lutz, Jr., a member of UCN in the 1970s and 80s, became the custodian of his grandfather’s archive, and generously provided me material from which this sketch is drawn.)
Harry Lutz was born on September 9, 1870, to Samuel and Ellen Lutz, a farming family, of Whistler, Ohio. His forebears were German immigrants who arrived in Pennsylvania in the early 18th century and whose descendants fought in the American Revolution and included farmers, lawyers and Lutheran clergymen who then moved westward with the young nation. Harry attended public schools in Ohio and then Waynesburg College, where he attained a classical education. There, prompted by a religious orientation, Harry was active in the Y.M.C.A. and served as a lay preacher and led Bible study in Presbyterian and Methodist churches. After graduating from college in 1894, Harry Lutz studied law and passed the bar, establishing a law practice in Circleville, Ohio, while continuing to preach. Ever present was the religious call.
In 1897, Harry married Mary Emma Smith, a school teacher whose family included medical and educational professionals who could not ignore people whose lives might be improved by a helping hand. Too often the young couple saw people in trouble failing to readjust their lives, and lives wasted was a haunting image to them. They could not see people in trouble and just pass by. In addition, their intellectual development led them to question traditional religion. The bonds of established creeds could no longer contain their inquiring minds. Thus it was that the pull of conscience and reason led them toward liberal religion. During this period of searching, the Lutzes received suggestions that Unitarianism might be the path they were seeking. Inquiry led to conviction, and in 1898 Harry Lutz entered Meadville Theological School to prepare for the Unitarian ministry. The next year he transferred to Harvard Divinity School, and in 1900 was ordained by King’s Chapel, Boston, Everett Edward Hale officiating. It had been a hard struggle to make ends meet with loans and meager savings, and with a new mouth to feed when their first son was born, and then a second. Despite difficult times, the call of service saw them through.
Starting in 1902, the Rev. Harry Lutz served churches in Belfast, Me., Billerica, Mass., and Newton, Mass., Harry and Mary both working for their churches and social service organizations. They loved Maine so much that in 1912 they bought an island on Megunticook Lake near Camden, Maine, accessible only by canoe, on which they built a primitive cabin and enjoyed peaceful times of solitude and reflection. Yet the larger world interjected itself, especially the horrors and the destruction of lives and the spirit in Europe in World War I, and U.S. entry in 1917. Ever a practical pacifist, Harry Lutz was active in organizations to put an end to war, and following the war was a strong supporter of Woodrow Wilson and his hope for a new world order of peaceful settlement of international disputes through a League of Nations. His Newton congregation, however, was largely isolationist and opposed to joining the League of Nations, leading to divisions in the congregation over his ministry. The League of Nations controversy led in 1921 to Harry Lutz’s resignation. Forsaking the cultural attractions of Boston, the Lutzes returned to Maine, Harry accepting the pulpit of the Sanford church (which our minister, Paul Boothby, has also served), where he continued to preach on God as love, the aroused conscience, and world law and order. After nine active but peaceful years in Sanford, Norfolk beckoned, and a new challenge lay before Harry and Mary Lutz.