Dorothy Spoerl was the first woman member of Greenfield Group.

Dorothy Spoerl was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1906. She earned a bachelor's degree from Lombard College in Galesburg, Ill., in 1927, graduating magna cum laude and went on to receive a master of arts degree from Boston University in 1928 and later to receive a PhD. in psychology from Clark University..

In December 1929 she was ordained to the ministry at the Universalist Church in Bath, Maine, where her husband was then pastor. From 1946 to 1957 she taught psychology at American International College in Springfield, Mass. In 1957 she moved to Langdon, N.H., and taught at Acworth Elementary School, serving as both teacher and principal. From 1960 to 1964 she was curriculum editor and was in charge of research in the education department of Universalist-Unitarian Association of Boston. In 1965 she moved to Berkeley, Calif., and joined the faculty of Starr King Theological School and was on the West Coast staff for adult religious education.

She returned to Boston in 1966 and from then until 1969 she was involved with religious education at the Universalist-Unitarian Association. From 1970 to 1972 she was minister of Hartland and Woodstock, Vt., Universalist-Unitarian Churches. She retired to Springvale, Maine, in 1972.

Rev. Spoerl was the recipient of the Universalist-Unitarian Association Distinguished Service Award and the Angus MacLean Award in Religious Education. In 1973 she received the degree of Doctor of Sacred Theology from Starr King School of Ministry and was presented with the Doctor of Divinity by the Meadville/Lombard Theological School.

I am a native New York State Universalist, having been born into the All Souls Church in Brooklyn some years back. I remember little of the church school or the church services (children went to church with their families in those days), except for learning the Five Principles of Universalism [established in 1899 by the Universalist General Convention], which we recited each Sunday morning from a tender and uncomprehending age. I found them comforting, at least the fifth, the final harmony of All Souls with God, and felt fortunate to be a member of All Souls Church. Imagine my surprise, at the age of ten, upon moving to Illinois to find that the Galesburg Universalist Church also believed in the final harmony of All Souls with God, and that it really meant all souls, not just the members of our Brooklyn parish. It was then, perhaps, that I began to learn that interpretation is important, and that the process of interpretation often changes one's understanding of words, phrases, principles, It was an important learning, for I have since discovered that such change is a continuous process. ("We Do Not Stand, We Move", New York Universalist Convention, 1976)

I got a phone call from Ernest Kuebler. By then I had been on the curriculum committee of the Council of Liberal Churches for many years, and had been for a time one of four part time editors for the Council of Liberal Churches. He wanted to know if I would like to come to Boston to do research in religious education and be curriculum editor. I said, "yes" and went. He told me later (half in jest) that I was "the only person he could hire (it was the year of merger) because the Unitarians all thought I was Unitarian and the Universalists knew I had been brought up a Universalist, therefore I wasn't controversial at that point in history." ( As a person I 'merged' long before merger/consolidation.) Whatever his reasons, I enjoyed the work. (compiled by Rev. Helen Zidowecki )