The Greater Philadelphia Choral Society is coming back to sing their beautiful Christmas songs and lead us in a carols. Last year’s event was breathtaking, with beautiful music resonating throughout the 200 year old meetinghouse. We keep the wood-burning stove well lit and provide sweets including mulled cider, brownies, and an assortment of cookies. Come enjoy the holidays with Cropwell Friends!
Sunday, Dec. 22 3:00-5:00pm Caroling in the Meetinghouse. Light refreshments to follow.
Cropwell Quaker Meeting is a small-but-growing Friends community in Marlton/Cherry Hill NJ. Come join us for public worship every Sunday at 10am. At Cropwell we treasure our friendliness, our desire for a community grounded in the Holy Spirit, our in-person worship, and our genuine desire for new members. We try to have special events every month, such as introductions to Quakers, speakers demonstrating Quaker faith in action, or all-ages crafts. Learn what to expect if you visit.
On Sunday, January 26, 2025, Cropwell Quakers in Marlton NJ will host a discussion about Quaker activities at the United Nations. The program will feature Sarah Clarke, director of the Quakers United Nations Office (QUNO) in New York and Bo Méndez, QUNO’s communications and engagement lead. Together we will reflect on the ways that QUNO fosters relationships with diplomats and UN officials, creating change and new initiatives needed to build a more peaceful and just world. This is a free public event; no reservation is required.
Sunday, January 26, 2025 10:00 Silent Quaker Worship 11:00 Speakers Sarah Clarke, with Bo Méndez 12:00 Community Potluck (bring a dish to share)
Since 1948, Quakers and their values have been represented at the United Nations through the Quaker United Nations Office. With locations in Geneva and New York, QUNO brings together perspectives from the worldwide Quaker community in order to strengthen the global commitment to lasting peace and justice.
Sarah Clarke leads QUNO’s engagement with the UN, diplomats, and civil society representatives, bringing Quaker practice and insights to the work of the UN system. Sarah holds a master’s degree in international political economy from the London School of Economics and has worked in the field of peacebuilding and conflict transformation for over 20 years. Previously, she served as Quaker Representative at QUNO from 2002–2014, before undertaking work with a variety of peacebuilding actors in Myanmar, including the UN. In her work, Sarah brings a passion for building inclusive dialogue between stakeholders, and strengthening engagement between non-state actors and international policy makers. Sarah is originally from Canada and is a member of Ottawa Meeting. While working in New York, she resides with her family in Philadelphia.
Cropwell Quaker Meeting is a small-but-growing Friends community in Marlton/Cherry Hill NJ. Come join us for public worship every Sunday at 10am. At Cropwell we treasure our friendliness, our desire for a community grounded in the Holy Spirit, our in-person worship, and our genuine desire for new members. We try to have special events every month, such as introductions to Quakers, speakers demonstrating Quaker faith in action, or all-ages crafts. Learn what to expect if you visit.
About thirty Friends came together at Cropwell Friends on Sunday, November 3, to hear about miracles from Diane Allen. Allen is well known as a former Philadelphia TV anchor and for long service in the New Jersey State Senate. She is also a Quaker who worships at nearby Mt. Laurel Meeting. Cropwell Meeting is a Friends community in Marlton/Cherry Hill, N.J.
Diane Allen told the audience she sees miracles as “signposts to God” and shared a survey that said 70 percent of Americans believe in miracles. She then told stories, roughly divided into sections.
Early Quakers were also involved in healing. Allen told the audience about George Fox’s Book of Miracles, a collection of stories about the founder of Quakerism that was later suppressed and lost and which survives only as fragments. One is the story of John Banks, who suffered paralysis of the arm and hand until he had a dream concerning Fox. Another concerned a traveling companion of Fox’s who was thrown off a horse and apparently killed until Fox held him up by the head and brought him back to life (both stories are told in a recent Friends Journal article by Marcelle Martin.)
Diane Allen then turned her attention to more modern miracles, many from a CBS television program she produced in the 1980s. These included stories from the Knock Shrine in Ireland; Lourdes in France; the remarkable healing of Cheryl Prewitt, who suffered a disfiguring automobile accident as a child but recovered so completely that she was crowned Miss America in 1980; astronaut Jim Irwin of the Apollo 15 mission, who heard a voice that helped him diagnose a mechanical failure in the lunar rover; and healings associated with Mother Katherine Drexel.
Finally, Allen told her own story of being diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer in the head and neck. Doctors told her that necessary tongue surgery meant she would never be able to talk again, a particularly horrible prognosis for a TV anchor and politician, but one that paled with the sadness of her no longer being able to read stories to her grandchildren. Resigned to her fate, she decided to pray and “give it to God.” Upon waking from surgery she learned that doctors found that the cancer didn’t need as extensive surgery as expected. After some speech therapy Allen recovered her voice completely. Her doctor had no explanation for this and told her that this was his “own miracle.”
The audience was rapt throughout the talk, alternatively laughing and gasping as Allen told her incredible stories. As is Cropwell’s tradition, Diane Allen was given one of Earl Even’s handmade wooden cutting boards as thanks. Friends then retired to the next room to share a bountiful potluck meal and fellowship and to share their own stories of miracles to one another.
Many members from Mt. Laurel Meeting attended the worship, talk, and meal. It was one of the most special aspect of the day and there was much discussion of doing more visiting between the two meetings.
Publicity:
Most of the publicity of the event happened over the usual channels of Facebook and the Cropwell website. About half of the audience came because of announcements at Allen’s home meeting of Mt. Laurel.
This Sunday, Cropwell Friends Meeting, a Quaker community in Marlton and Cherry Hill, N.J., hosted a Halloween party from 1:30-3:00 p.m. Around 45 neighbors visited and enjoyed pumpkin decorating, games, snacks, a truck-or-treat, and tours of the meetinghouse.
Publicity before the event including flyering the neighborhood behind the meetinghouse, hanging posters in local establishments, and creating an event page on Facebook. When asked how they heard about the event families mentioned all of these. Inquiries revealed that the information on one of the print flyers was shared on a parents’ group text associated with Sharp Elementary, a public school in the Cherry Hill School District around the corner.
Most of the visitors came from the neighborhoods surrounding the meetinghouse and had always been curious about the building and graveyard.
As always, tours of the meetinghouse itself were popular. Visitors enjoyed the roaring fire and the historical pictures in the social room, especially one from 1909 that was full of carriages and Quakers all dressed up (it was the centennial celebration of the meetinghouse). Lots of questions were asked about Quaker worship. Many families said they planned to come back for the Dec. 22 Christmas Caroling, with a few signing up for the meeting email announcements list.
After the last families left meeting members wished an early happy birthday to Earl Evens, who more than anyone else is responsible for the recent rebirth of the Cropwell community.
Cropwell Friends Meeting attended the popular “Marlton Day” event in town for the first time this Sunday, letting the town know we exist and are growing. Only a few years ago Cropwell Meeting had dwindled down to two regularly attending members. Through concerted effort and the help of Friends in nearby meeting, it has grown in size (today’s worship, for example, had thirteen people, pretty typical for us these days).
Marlton Day is sponsored by the Marlton Business Association and takes place every June on Main Street, just down the road from the Cropwell Meetinghouse (a modern highway interchange blocks the direct route). It is one of two annual festivals in the town and features entertainment, local businesses, and area nonprofits.
To prepare, we purchased a canopy tent (the Crown Shades 10×10 foot pop-up) and had a tablecloth made up that said “CROPWELL QUAKER MEETING” with our web address below and peace doves on the side. We made a poster of some Quaker values (though not in the SPICES order). To bring in passersby, we had a tray full of bags of fish crackers and pretzels, and beside it had a tray full of magnets with uplifting spiritual messages.
For literature we had stacks of newly-purchased pamphlets from Quakerbooks of FGC. Additionally, we recently discovered a whole box full of outdated hardback copies of Philadelphia Faith and Practice and offered them to anyone who seemed interested. We had a sign-up list for emails and did get a few. (The PYM blog has a recent article all about the nuts and bolts of tabling of an event like this.)
We’re looking forward to repeat our tabling at the Evesham Township Harvest Fest in September and also plan to host a second Truck or Treat in October.
On May 4, members of Cropwell and Medford Meetings gathered with around 40 other participants to conduct a ground blessing ceremony with elders of the Lenni Lenape at nearby Black Run Preserve. Many of the Quakers there were extended members of the Evans and Wills families, among the earliest English settlers in Evesham Township (home of Cropwell Meeting).
Ty Gould-Jacinto of the Nanticoke Lenape Nation invited people into the circle, burning herbs and welcoming elders of each constituency. Quaker family elders included Larry Klotz, Connie Evans, Sue Evans Ashton, and Alice Andrews.
In addition to being a member of Cropwell, Connie Evans is also vice president of the Evesham Historical Society. Remarkably the original deed of purchase between Thomas Evans and Lenape leader King Himolin still survives. She told a more-modern story of Quakerly responsibility for the common good, the choice of her father to have the family land go to the township for public purposes (both the Marlton Middle and Cherokee High Schools are situated on this land).
A high point of the ceremony was the return of the trove of Lenape artifacts that have been found by members of the Evans and Wills families over the past 300 years. These included arrowheads and axe heads. These will become part of the collection of the Cohanzick Nature Reserve in Bridgeton, N.J., a center of Nanticoke Lenape culture in Cumberland County, N.J.
Cropwell Meeting members Sue Evans Ashton, Lila Cleaver, and Earl Evens examine the returned Lenape artifacts.
Black Run Preserve is a remarkable 1,300-acre wooded landscape saved by Evesham Township from developers in the early 2000s. The site of old Quaker-run cranberry bogs and an abandoned airfield, it is a maze of wooded trails and beaver ponds just minutes from busy shopping corridors and housing developments. The Friends of Black Run Preserve were hosts of the land blessing; their founder and chairperson John Volpa MC’ed the event.
There were a remarkable number of constituencies represented int the ceremony. In addition to the Lenni Lenape and Quakers, participants included former members of the Evesham Township Human Rights Advisory Council as well as the district superintendent and students of the local high school.
At the end, Ty Gould-Jacinto led participants in a social round dance (fortunately it was a two-step and even Friends managed it well). The event was truly a blessing for all of these people of different backgrounds to come together to dance for peace and reconciliation.
Bonus: Ty Gould-Jacinto recorded the event and uploaded it to YouTube channel.
Rick Bushnell of ReClam the Bay gave a presentation on his environmental group’s activities to a small group at Cropwell Meeting in Marlton, N.J., this past Sunday. RTC grows and maintain millions of baby clams and oysters in the Barnegat Bay Watershed, which helps increase biodiversity and shoreline stabilization and restoration.
Bushnell started off by explaining how everything is connected:
The water in the estuary, like the water around the globe, is connected. We’re an environmental group. I’m a sailor, sail many parts of the world. I wanted to know about the water I was next to after moving to Long Beach Island.
Cropwell Meeting is on the edge of the Pinelands Natural Reserve. Bushnell explained how the Pinelands act as a “great big filter that brings water into the estuary, where the salt and fresh water meet. It’s shallower so warmer. Ninety percent of the things that live in the ocean live in an estuary in their juvenile state.” The Pinelands are protected by the state and federal government.
Pollution in the water going into an estuary causes a number of environmental problems. Excess nitrogen from car exhaust and nonporous surfaces create algae blooms which make the water cloudy. Sunlight doesn’t get to the eel grass (which Bushnell called “natures nursery”), a critical habitat for juvenile creatures to hide. Bushnell reported that we’ve lost a shocking 85 percent of eel grass in New Jersey estuaries.
Reclam the Bay is using clams and oysters to stabilize the shoreline and clean the waters. Oysters are inner tidal; they like to be dry sometimes. Clams stabilized the sea floor. Ribbed mussels filter a lot of water. By stabilizing shoreline we increase biodiversity. Just 15 feet of marsh cuts back 50 percent of waves. A lot of the work is done by volunteers.
As per Cropwell custom, Rick Bushnell was presented with one of Earl Even’s custom-made cutting boards after the presentation. A potluck lunch followed.
A very special guest gave ministry to Cropwell Meeting in Marlton, N.J. this Sunday. It was Quaker abolitionist John Woolman, looking good despite having recently celebrated his 300th birthday.
The part was really played by Charles Bruder, of the John Woolman Memorial, who dressed in period garb to share ministry taken from the Journal of John Woolman. Originally published two years after his death in 1774, it has remained in print for the past 250 years. The Journal is included in The Harvard Classics along with William Penn’s Fruits of Solitude and Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography. Woolman lived in nearby Mt. Holly, N.J., and frequently traveled in the ministry with Joshua Evans, a member of Cropwell Meeting’s Evans’s family.
Charles Bruder as John Woolman, holding a copy of William Penn’s “No Cross, No Crown.”
Clockwise from left: Bruder talks with a visitor after the talk; about sixteen people were there for the presentation, including eight first-time visitors to Cropwell; Friends assembling for the talk.
Before beginning the presentation, Bruder explained that John Woolman was a spiritual person and interest in the spiritual well-being of his Quaker meeting. He asked everyone to imagine that it was the year 1770 and were sitting together in a Quaker meeting for worship. “John Woolman has just gotten up to speak” he told us as he went into the eighteenth-century minister’s persona.
“I believe God wants me to walk [on his religious travels] so I can understand the condition of the poor and oppressed and enslaved and be an example of humility and lowliness. Walking in obedience to God is agreeable to my state of mind because I know it is God’s will. I am uplifted by the sight of birds in the bushes and the sheep and the cows in the field because I know they are also being obedient to the will of God.
“When people are practicing and participating in the corrupted spirit of this world they are trading for God’s Light. Seeing this has cause me in many occasions to suffer from an inward spiritual poverty. You know the part in the Bible about loving God with all your heart and all your soul? Well, God really meant it. And you know when you’re supposed to live your neighbor as yourself? God really meant that too.”
In persona, Bruder told the audience that one of Woolman’s favorite books was William Penn’s No Cross No Crown and shared some insight from it. His Woolman character left us with a prayer “that your children and your children’s children will inherit a world free of war and crime and racism.” Releasing himself from the Woolman character, Bruder asked us now, in 2024, “to look around this world” and tell him “how that prayer worked out.”
Afterwards Friends gathered for a particularly bountiful Cropwell potluck lunch.
On Saturday Cropwell hosted the gathering of Haddonfield Quarterly Meeting. “The Quarter” is a group of 9 Quaker Meetings in Burlington, Camden, and Atlantic Counties that meets four times a year. Around two dozen Friends scrapped off the effects of a small snow storm the night before to travel to Marlton, with some coming in remotely via Zoom on a screen we installed for the event.
We began with half an hour of worship, then a period of open worship sharing on Rex Ambler’s pamphlet Living in Dark Times. The Quarter had delivered a small supply of copies to each meeting. It was also available as a YouTube of the original speech (see below).
After a pizza lunch, the Quarter came back for its meeting for business. A treasury report from Steve Willis of Medford Meeting led to an approved budget for the next year. An environmental report from Ruth Darlington outlined a number of initiatives taking place in the yearly meeting and quarter. We also had an update on the Faith and Play initiative, a project to expand children religious-education programs in meetings (Cropwell is participating in this and hopes to offer some First-day school classes in the near future).
Almost 60 people came to Cropwell Meeting this past Sunday to welcome Christmas at our second annual sing. About a third of them were featured singers from the Greater Philadelphia Choral Society (GPCS).
The meeting was happy to be joined by a carload of visitors from Barnegat (N.J.) Meeting, another small South Jersey meeting with a passion for outreach. Cropwell was also .delighted to learn that some of the GPCS singers were residents of Medford Leas, the nearby Quaker retirement community where some of our members live.
Greenery and wreathes were hung around the meetinghouse:
The singers began with breathtaking solos:
Perhaps the most tender moment was the entire group singing “SilentNight” together. The sounds reverberated through the meetinghouse, as if the walls themselves were humming along:
After the concert, everyone enjoyed sampling from two large tablefuls of sweets, from mulled cider, to brownies, to an assortment of cookies. One Cropwell attender made beautiful pine cone Christmas ornaments to give away to visitors (they were all different too, some with bells, others with berries!).
It is important to have regular events advertised and open to the public. As usual, Cropwell Meeting publicized the concert on local Quaker calendars, Eventbrite, and Google listings. We also gave flyers to all of the households in the Marlton Village homeowners association adjacent to the meetinghouse.
This last year at Cropwell has brought about some very large changes. Our beloved longtime clerk, Earl Evens, has decided to retire from his clerkship duties. Earl’s tenure has seen a rebirth of a meeting that had dropped down to two regular members. Six new members have joined in the last 18 months and former regulars have been returning. Earl’s gentle and steady guidance about the form and role and content of Friends’ worship has helped create something special on Sunday mornings. A life-long Quaker who attended Cropwell Meeting as a child, Earl will continue to be an integral part of our spiritual community.
I’m one of the new members, transferred from another meeting, and I’m humbled that you all are letting me serve as incoming clerk. Earl’s shoes are big ones to fill!
In a world full of turmoil and lives full of surprises and challenges, Quaker worship and the calm, unadorned space of our historic meetinghouse provide us with solace and comfort. As we look ahead to 2024, we renew our commitment to our beloved Cropwell community.
I’d like you to consider supporting Cropwell Meeting this year. As Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians, “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
I love the image of the cheerful giver! An annual donation of $500 from members and attendees (less than $10 a week) would help us better share the good news we’ve found at Cropwell with even more neighbors. We’ve got a lot of ideas on our wish list, from providing children’s education, to fixing up our kitchen, to making the fellowship side of our meetinghouse more useful for programs and social events. Arrangements can be made for members who may wish to donate monthly, quarterly, or semi-annually.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns. I’d love to hear your dreams for our meeting!
Two dozen Friends came together at Cropwell Friends Meeting today to honor Earl Evens and his retirement as Cropwell clerk. Friends don’t typically celebrate a rotation of clerks but Earl’s tenure has seen a rebirth of a meeting that had dropped down to two regular members. He has been particularly excited for the six new members who joined last year and for former regulars who have been returning. Earl’s gentle and steady guidance about the form and role and content of Friends’ worship has helped create something special on Sunday mornings.
We were especially pleased to have Friends from Haddonfield and Mt Laurel Meetings coming by for this special occasion. We introduced incoming clerk Martin Kelley and wished him well.
Cropwell loves its community and rich conversations took place over a lunch, a blend of catered food and potuck offerings.
More picture by our dear friend Linda Lotz:
Memory lane: some pictures of Earl over the last few years:
On Sunday, longtime Quaker and traveling Friends minister Chris Stern came to speak to Cropwell Meeting in Marlton, N.J. about the center of Quaker faith. The talk was titled “What Are We Waiting For?” He was accompanied by Joe Stratton, a second generation Quaker farmer. They are both members of Middletown Meeting in Delaware County, Pa.
Chris began by expanding on some of the ministry that had been given during worship: “We can’t do it all by ourselves. That’s the starting point. We need help both in our individual and in our meeting community. We feel it’s all up to us to straighten out our lives or our partner’s lives, our meeting’s life, the town’s life. Somewhere along the way we realize we need help—divine help or others’ help. It’s often the little things.”
Audience members
He told stories of growing up as a teenager in Rockland Meeting in New York State.”I didn’t like silence. I didn’t feel I was a good person. I was searching for the kingdom of God out there somewhere. Even changing my beliefs wasn’t changing what was happening inside. I really felt lost trying to navigate the world.”
Eventually he started to read the Journalof George Fox with a Friend from meeting and felt a kindred spirit in the Quaker founder’s tales of youthful religious seeking. Chris told us he realized he had been “looking for something on the outside that could change the inside. but realized that maybe if it’s coming from the inside it will work better.” He started reading more historic Quaker journals to understand what early Friends saw as the center of their faith.
Chris said part of the answer came from Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” He said this is what early Friends were waiting for: “All of the practices and rituals didn’t have any meaning any more. They started waiting because Jesus had said he’d show up. Early friends were averse to doctrines but had a recognition that there was something inside urging them to connect with God and urging them connect with each other—urging them to love. They realized that this was Jesus.”
A lively discussion followed. There’s a Cropwell tradition that guest speakers are presented a cutting board made by meeting clerk Earl Evens. Cropwell has a special love of community and had a conversation-filled potluck meal together following the talk.
Chris was featured last year in a Quakerspeak series:
It’s all very fine having websites and social media accounts, but it’s even better to have signs for curious neighbors passing by and for visitors trying to find the meetinghouse building. It took many emails, phone calls, design mockups, and vendors quotes but we’ve recently installed new signs by both entrances to our driveway.
A big shout-out to Stephen Jones of Back Door Designs in Mount Laurel, N.J., for helping us to look so good!
Over three dozen local history enthusiasts came to Cropwell Meeting this Sunday to hear a presentation by Paul W. Schopp on antebellum free Black communities in the Marlton area. Schopp is a historian who has been researching historic Black South Jersey towns for over three decades. He has identified 140 “fugitive slave enclaves” in the southern counties of the state. Milford, New Jersey (later renamed Kresson) was one such town, whose residents enjoyed longstanding connections to Cropwell Meeting.
Schopp set up the history: in 1776, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting decided that no members could hold slaves. With slavery ended in the Religious Society of Friends, Quakers in Southern New Jersey began lobbying the colonial—and later state—government to allow for easier manumissions and total abolition. [A law for gradual abolition passed the state legislature in 1804.]
The woods of free South Jersey began attracting Africans in bondage, especially from Maryland. As the number of free Blacks grew, enclaves attracting fugitive slaves began to develop. Schopp stressed that these enclave towns were not “stops” on the Underground Railroad (temporary resting places before travel elsewhere) but “terminals”—towns where escaping enslaved people settled. Timbuctoo outside Mt Holly served as a template for these communities. These settlements were often on the margins of White communities or in rural districts, usually on sandy land with only marginal productive use. The men often worked in local brickyards; the women as house servants.
Schopp finished by regaling the audience with heart-stopping stories of slave catchers who kidnapped whole families and the White abolitionists who went back into slave territory in disguise to negotiate for their return to South Jersey.
The audience was fascinating mix. The meeting had publicized the the talk among local historical societies and African American history networks. The talk attracted members from area Quaker families; a member of Milford’s Truitt family (whose grandmother worshiped at Cropwell in the early twentieth century); a docent from the African American Museum in Philadelphia; sisters who had grown up in Milford/Kresson decades ago; as well as a number of local history buffs.
Many of the attendees came early to attend Cropwell’s worship service. The meeting’s clerk made sure to go around the room welcoming everyone in turn and inviting them to share where they were from and why they had come. A number of attendees said it was their first Quaker meeting for worship.
At worship, the clerk asked a member to read from a 1966 memoir, Answered Prayers, by Paul S. Lippincott Jr., a recorded minister and lifelong Friend at Cropwell. Here is part of that reading:
With this background of the Society of Friends, which is more or less mystical religion, it would probably account for one of the early experiences I had when I was in my late twenties or early thirties. I had been reading some religious books before retiring for the night, and after a short period of prayer it became very clear to me that I should go out and gear up the horse. Not having any car in those days, or any electricity, I lighted the old kerosene lantern and went out to the stable and harnessed the horse. It was very clear to me as I went out the lane that I turn settlement about 2 miles west of Marlton, known as Milford. Since there was a Milford in North Jersey the name was later changed to Kresson. In this settlement was a little country store which was still lighted on this particular evening. Without any preparation at all it seemed to me that I should stop at the store and purchase some staple items of food for someone. Until that time I had no idea where I was going to take this food, but after purchasing some canned food and staple items that could be kept for a few weeks without refrigeration, I remembered an old colored lady named Margaret Worthington, who lived in a cabin by herself. I had never met her but I felt that I was to drive in that direction. In about ten minutes I pulled up at the little one room cabin where there was a light through the window, and as I went to the door, I heard her voice praying for help and food. I was there under unusual circum stances to answer the fervent prayers of a believing soul. I left the food and that was the beginning of an unusual friendship.
1885 map showing Milford (Now Kresson), NJ. Via boydsmaps.com.Mary Truitt Jackson home in Milford (Kresson), N.J. Left: Members of the Truitt Family purchased land from Cropwell Meeting’s Evans Family as early as 1834. Photo from “Unearthing Evesham’s Forgotten History,” a talk sponsored by Evesham Township on Feb. 23. An interactive slideshow from this event is available here. The scan is attributed to the “MATM Collection,” copyright 2019; we’ve cleaned it up. Schopp says it’s from the collection of Patti Colston.
Two Truitt descendants, Damon Truitt and Patti McGee Colston, were featured in the Roots Less Traveled TV show last year, much of which was filmed at Cropwell Meeting. Damon came to Cropwell for the event.
World War 2 war vet and Quaker George Rubin came to Cropwell Meeting this Sunday to tell how his first-hand experience of the horrors of war turned him into a Quaker pacifist.
George told the audience how excited he was to leave Brooklyn as a teenager for the chance to see the world through combat. Assigned to a B-17G Flying Fortress, he found himself at the age of 19 stationed in England and flying regular bombing raids over Germany. In the winter of 1944-45, the U.S. began targeting civilians in order to break German morale. Some of Rubin’s crewmates had decided they wouldn’t fly these missions; the others stayed up in their quonset huts debating whether they would stand with them, an act of defiance that would certainly bring on a court martial.
George with a model of the plane he flew on.
The next day they were sent on a mission to Munich. Anti-aircraft flak was the biggest danger to aircraft going into 1945 and at 30,000 feet, on a beautiful Sunday winter day, they were hit. Two engines gave out and the plane was riddled with 270 holes. George Rubin’s leg was seriously wounded but he was tasked with lightening the load by jettisoning the bombs so that the crippled plane might make it to neutral Switzerland. Going into the bomb bay in negative 28° degree weather, he made sure to put the Carter pins back into the bombs warheads so they wouldn’t explode when they fell on the towns below.
They crashed in Germany, in a field next to a camp of Nazi Youth Training Corp and were about to be executed when a German officer stopped the proceedings and they became prisoners of war. They were marched to Nuremberg and south of Germany and endured the battle as General Patton’s army liberated the POW camp.
George Rubin came out of these experiences knowing he would never fight again. “Human beings are too precious,” he told the rapt audience at Cropwell. A decision that started in a Quonset hut in England and finally made on the road to Nuremberg.
The Cropwell Meeting audience was captivated by George’s storytelling.
Back home in Brooklyn, George’s wife Margery found Quakerism and they had a community that supported their new pacifist views. George has served Friends in many capacities, including as clerk of New York Yearly Meeting. He is a member of nearby Medford Meeting.
George has continued to work for peace over the almost eight decades since that fateful winter. He told the Cropwell audience that there is a behavioral center for Veterans a few blocks from the meetinghouse. He meets with other vets every week. “I’m the antique of this bunch,” he told the meeting, explaining that most are vets there from Vietnam and Afghanistan and Iraq. “They all have PTSD. This is what the ‘good war’ does to all of us.”
He told the audience of the scene at the Philadelphia VA Hospital, where so many vets are there for drugs because they’re suicidal. “We sent them to fight and then forget about them. We don’t know the devastation we’re doing to each other.“
Marjorie Rubin was there documenting the talk with her ever-present camera.The Cropwell potluck table.
Many years later, George Rubin traveled to the German town where his plain crash landed and met with the mayor and former German soldiers. The crash site is still a field, protected from development and the mayor confirmed that none of the bombs George jettisoned out of the plane that freezing morning exploded.
Toward the end of the event, two sisters in the audience rose to tell the story of their father, who had also flown bombing missions over Germany. They recalled the PTSD that kept him from ever talking about that part of their life with them, and showed family memorabilia of his military life.
George Rubin ended his presentation with a reading of “Prayer for Peace,” written by Norman Corwin and dedicated to his brother LT. Alfred Corwin. It was originally written for a radio broadcast in 1945 called “On A Note Of Triumph.” (A documentary on Corwin can be watched here).
More:
You can read more about George’s pacifist positions in his 2015 article for Friends Journal magazine, “A Letter from a Warrior.“
On Sunday, March 12, University of Pennsylvania associate professor Roberta Iversen presented a talk at Cropwell Meeting about the challenges of today’s labor market. She shared what working people in many different fields been saying about their work and what does their job means to them? She told us about major industry shifts in the 1980s?
Dr. Iversen brought 40 years of stories, research & analysis, as well as an innovative proposal for its future. She is author of the new book What Workers Say: Decades of Struggle and How to Make Real Opportunity Now.” Through these stories, Iversen put a human face to the labor market and tracked its evolution.
Cropwell’s infrastructure got a big upgrade this week. Thanks to a generous gift from the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Granting Group, the building’s electric was rewired, and fire safety upgrades and security lighting were installed. The work was done by Front Line Electric of Glendora, N.J., who were prompt, professional, and courteous.
The Cropwell Friends Meetinghouse, built in 1809, was very much in need of work. The last known update to the electrical wiring took place in the 1920s. The type of wiring used at that time was “knob-and-tube,” which does not have a ground system for safety. This doesn’t necessarily make the wiring unsafe to use, but it does rule out important safety features and leaves appliances and sensitive electronics vulnerable to damage from power surges.
Exterior lighting was also installed for safety and security purposes.
Electrical work inside the meetinghouse.Safety lighting installed outside meetinghouse.
Stewardship and Community
The work on the meetinghouse spoke to the stewardship and community testimonies of Friends.
The current Cropwell Meetinghouse structure was built in 1809. It is on the historic registry but like all old buildings, it has needs and those needs have price tags. It is our responsibility to be good stewards to maintain the structure for current and future members.
Cropwell has a small number who attend regularly, but there is cohesion and commitment which has increased in intensity over the past year, and there is an openness to increasing and strengthening that community. We have received letters requesting membership from four individuals within the last year and have received loving support from members within Haddonfield Quarter.
On Sunday Peggy Koenitzer came to Cropwell Meeting in Marlton, N.J., and gave about a dozen participants introductory lesson on chair yoga. Breath in, breath out, and stretch!
Practice yoga poses to strengthen and stretch your muscles while sitting in a chair
Learn to use a chair for support in standing or balancing poses
Discover the benefits of coordinating your breath and movement to calm your mind and let go of stress
Release tension and restore energy in a deep relaxation at the end of your Chair Yoga practice
Peggy teaches yoga as Release and Relax yoga at the Lake Pine Colony Clubhouse in Medford, New Jersey. Learn more at Releaseandrelaxyoga.com.
