Bruce Maxfield Clary was born in Berwyn, IL, on July 30, 1939, to Bruce H. and Jane (Maxfield) Clary.  Clary graduated from Central High School, Tulsa, Oklahoma and went on to attend the University of Tulsa in 1961 where he earned degrees in Philosophy, Religion and the Fine Arts. Subsequently, he received a Bachelor of Divinity degree at Meadville/Lombard Theological School at the University of Chicago, where he studied under Paul Tillich.  Upon the completion of his coursework Clary interned at King’s Chapel in Boston after which he returned home to Tulsa to be ordained by All Saints Unitarian Church on June 14, 1965.  After ordination, Clary was called as a settled minister sequentially by the following congregations: First Parish, Unitarian in Bridgewater, MA, First Unitarian Church of Oklahoma City, OK; First Church in Barre Universalist in Barre, VT, First Parish Universalist Church in Stoughton, MA, and East Shore UU Church in Mentor, OH. Concurrently, Clary volunteered to serve on multiple UUA committees and boards, including the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee Board, the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association Executive Committee, the Church of the Larger Fellowship Religious Education Committee, the Liberal Religious Education Directors Association Board, the Ballou Channing District Religious Education Committee, and the Unitarian Sunday School Society.  Clary married Dottie Moore on the 16th of April in 1978.

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Bruce and Dottie Clary moved into the parsonage on Dedham’s High Street in the autumn of 1996, following his call to become the 24th “religious teacher” of First Church, thereby commencing a productive 9-year-long ministry. Specifically, during Clary’s tenure, First Church congregants engaged in a rigorous planning protocol that contributed to new membership and expanded member participation in church affairs, broadened financial support for church operations, and improved church facilities. To support these efforts, under Clary’s leadership members created a more technologically sophisticated, inclusive, and holistic Church media.  And Clary collaborated with Reverend Betsy Stevens and church committees to fashion engaging, instructive, and community-building worship, RE, and adult learning. Consequently, at the end of his Dedham ministry, Clary could contemplate the fact that most of the initiatives he undertook or supported had a positive impact on First Church’s growth, culture, and financial stability.

In the first year of his ministry, Clary informed First Church leaders about his positive planning experience with the UUA’s Decisions for Growth program as minister in Menton OH. Accordingly, the Parish Committee contracted with UUA facilitators to conduct four all-day workshops in the 1997-98 church year with, it was hoped, a majority of First Church members to explore church history, congregant culture, and member leadership so as to shape a long-range plan for growth.  As a result of this year of planning, several initiatives were undertaken that affected church membership, finances and facilities. As for membership solidarity, in following years Clary and church leaders addressed member individual needs and passions by the founding of small interest groups like Newcomers Group, Mothers Group, Social Action Committee, Faith in Action Council, and Covenant Groups. Next, in order to address membership cohesion writ large, Clary encouraged the staging of creative celebrations like a Medieval Winter Feast, the Square Dance Hoedown, Robert Burns birthday party, a Gala Irish Night, Mardi Gras; and a Sock Hop at the Soda Shoppe. Moreover, to deepen member mutuality and identification with Unitarian Universalism, Clary organized outings to UU sites, like Hingham’s Old Ship Church, First Parish in Concord, Schoolmaster Hill, and Star Island.

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Clary was also supportive of church member efforts to grow First Church finances and enhance its facilities. At the inception of Clary’s ministry in October 1996 the Parish Committee recalibrated First Church’s fiscal year so it would parallel the church year, i.e. September 1-August 31, so as to allow for a more leisurely spring (as opposed to a high-pressured fall) pledge drive. During Clary’s tenure, this pledge drive was reframed from a canvass whereby fundraising committeepersons would visit members to discuss their gift to the church to a stewardship campaign which focused on members’ sense of identification with the legacy, goals and spiritual mission of First Church. In addition, during every pledge drive Clary wrote a series of essays for the Parish Record column “Subjects for Claryfication” that considered such topics as determining the size of one’s pledges, how budgets address church mission, and the significance of generosity. And he was quick to follow-up these essays with sermons that saluted the spirit and substance of First Church stewardship.  As for facilities renewal, Clary was very fortunate to have in his congregation distinguished preservationists and architects like Andrea Gilmore and Steven Cecil to address First Church facilities needs. In 1997 Gilmore, the Director of Architectural Conservation at Building Conservation Associates, wrote a grant that won $150,000 from the Massachusetts Historical Commission to restore the exterior of the Meeting House.  In 1997 Cecil, an urban designer and landscape architect, headed the Building Assessment Committee that identified the basic deficiencies in First Church structures, and came up with ideas about how building needs could be resolved via a long-term building program.  Nevertheless, with Reverend Stevens’s retirement as Minister of First Church Religious Education in 2003, her long-championed plan for the construction of a dedicated Children’s Chapel was eventually scrapped.

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Clary was likewise fortunate to have talented congregant assistance in his efforts to make First Church communications more participatory, comprehensive, and technologically savvy.  Shortly after Clary’s ministry began, Mel Chaplin became editor of the Parish Record and she was immediately effective at reorganizing the format of this publication to make it more all-encompassing and collaborative. Thus most editions featured a front page “Sundays at Church” column wherein the minister described upcoming sermons, followed by “In Our Church Family” with news of congregant life milestones and rites of passage, and “Odds and Ends in the Church Community” which provided news about church events.  The Parish Record also published columns written by church members and committee chairs. For example, “Alliance News,” written by Women’s Alliance leaders, would inform congregants about the activities their organization sponsored and “News from the Chair” kept congregants abreast of the doings of the Parish Committee.  A third function of the Parish Record under Chaplin’s editorship, undoubtedly at Clary’s urging, was to keep congregants informed about UU local and national news, such as a March on Washington to support gay marriage and the issues to be deliberated at annual UUA General Assemblies in both the “In the Wider Community” column and the appended Mass Bay District Link newsletter. Important messages by UUA presidents John Buehrens and William Sinkford were also occasionally published in Parish Records.  Yet another First Church communication media was under development during Clary’s ministry. In the September 2001 congregant Joel Sklar, a technology consultant organized a team of First Church members to begin design a website at dedhamuu.org with history, UU Links, and RE pages. In closing, not only did First Church messaging become more sophisticated and effective; it also benefited from the irreverent humor, pungent insights, and historical knowledge especially conveyed in Bruce’s bimonthly “Clarifications” essays.  

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Lastly, Clary oversaw the fashioning of engrossing, instructive, and communal-bonding worship services, children’s RE, and adult learning in collaboration with Reverend Betsy Stevens and multiple church committees and organizations. A glance at some  1996-2005 service titles, namely Duke Ellington Jazz Service, Day of the Dead Fiesta of Joy and Remembrance, three Kristallnacht Commemorations, a recitation of A Child’s Christmas in Wales, a celebration of the Bicentennial of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s birth, and Ice Cream Sunday according to The Gospel of Ben and Jerry, hints at the inventive whimsy, engaging content, and impressive erudition of Clary-crafted worship experiences. It should also be mentioned that many of Clary’s services were conducted with the participation of First Church committees. Specifically, Clary worked annually with the following committees. i.e. the Committee on the Ministry, Music and Worship Committee, Membership Committee, Budget Planning Committee, Music Committee, and Stewardship Committee, not to mention the Women’s Alliance, to stage services at First Church.

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On the topic of First Church’s Religious Education program, Clary was very fortunate to partner with DRE Betsy Stevens.  When Clary arrived in Dedham, Stevens had already served First Church for eleven years as Minister of Religious Education. By 1995 Stevens had also become eminent as a denominational leader, serving as a designated legal resident for LREDA, MRP advisor, and MRE Focus Group convener. Thus during Clary’s tenure Stevens was highly qualified to direct children’s religious education, coordinating the three-year cycle of K-8 course about world religions, the Judeo-Christian tradition, and Unitarian Universalism. Moreover, Stevens led multiple yearly intergenerational services, such as the Holiday Pageants, Coming of Age ceremonies, and special commemorative services like a Puritan/Wampanoag Thanksgiving dialogue. Furthermore, during her watch she facilitated social action projects like the mitten tree, the heifer fund collection, the Walk for Hunger, the Arlington Street Cooking program, and the Friday Night Supper Program, as well as officiating at diverse weddings, and memorials. In addition to directing a First Church RE program that served over 80 children, Stevens organized parent learning opportunities, such as a book group focused on Mary Pipher’s Saving Ophelia and a course for RE parents titled “The Wonder of Boys; Raising Resilient Children” sponsored about Charlis River Acres Nursery School.  Plus, Stevens was an articulate advocate of children attending intergenerational services with their parents because “when children see adults meditating, speaking and singing together, they get a true sense of the power of religion.” Clary, often with Stevens’ aid, taught four plus adult education courses a year, such as Our Unitarian Universalist Journey, Our Faith in Action, The Portable Church, The Sacred Images Project, What is Marriage For?, Understanding the World’s Religions, and Evensong. It should also be noted that Clary thought of Parish Player shows like Godspell and Fiddler on the Roof as extensions of First Church’s RE program. Accordingly, he publicized, cheered for, and sometimes even directed nine intergenerational productions.

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Bruce M. Clary and his wife Dottie concluded his First Church ministry in June 2005. After retiring, Bruce and his wife Dottie moved to Tulsa and continued to spend summers in Wareham, MA, maintaining friendships across the country. Clary had always loved painting and, upon retirement, pursued art "with seriousness.”  Besides painting, his interests included photography, writing, cooking, community theatre, antiques, nautical history, and Native American arts and rituals. Rev. Clary was predeceased in death last December by his wife, Dorothy and passed away on September 15, 2011. Clary is remembered by former First Church congregants as a wise, kind, creative madcap of a minister, adept in all dimensions of his calling and graced in Dottie with the love and support of a caring, collaborative pastoral partner.

 

Bibliography

Bruce Maxfield Clary - Butler-Stumpff & Dyer Funeral Home & Crematory
In Memory of . . . Bruce M. Clary (1939-2011) - UU Ministers Association

Parish Records September 1996-June 2005: First Church and Parish
uurmapa.org/dorothy-moore-clary/