Innisfree

By TOM RUE

NARROWSBURG - Now in its 38th year the Upper Delaware Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (UDUUF) remains a vibrant and spiritually diverse liberal religious congregation committed to the celebration of human potential and to encourage meaningful connections among its members and outward in service to the community, its website (uduuf.com) says.

The fellowship is open to all who support the aims and programs of the local group and the principles and purposes of the Unitarian Universalist Association (uua.org). UUA was formed in 1961 by the consolidation of the American Unitarian Association, established in 1825, and the Universalist Church of America, which dates to 1793. The UDUUF first met in August 1987 at the home of the late Rev. Ray Pontier then of Narrowsburg (who died 1994). Pontier had then recently retired from full-time UU ministry in Lakeland, New Jersey, when he wrote a letter to the editor of The River Reporter inviting local readers who shared common UU values of justice, equity and compassion in human relations to meet. A handful showed up.

"I believed in the need for a liberal religious group in this strongly conservative region," Rev. Pontier said in a letter the next year. "When I first organized the Fellowship I stated that it would have a future only if enough people really wanted it -- and if it developed the leadership to carry on by itself," he added.

Enough apparently wanted it because the UDUUF is still here. Many believe it still has a future. After that 1987 meeting in the Pontier living room, the group met Sunday mornings at the Innisfree recreation hall in Milanville, use of which was donated by Bud and Ann Rue. On March 13, 1990, they filed a certificate of incorporation with the NYS Secretary of State and soon thereafter officially affiliated with UUA. Later, the group moved to the Beach Lake Community Center and in recent years has continued to meet at the Narrowsburg Union and online.

From its inception, fellowship members committed their collective energy to supporting human services, education, healthcare, in a society where all are welcomed, while emphasizing concepts of bodily and personal autonomy and choice, human rights, and "an atmosphere in which each person will be able to share convictions, express doubts, and explore new dimensions of truth and reality."

When a local parents' group asked for help starting a parent-run Montessori elementary school in 1991, they met with the UDUUF board of directors and negotiated articles of agreement under which the UDUUF gave corporate sponsorship to "The River School", providing the unincorporated parents with exemption from taxation and government regulations for schools to operate, also at Innisfree, for a few years. The fellowship continues to look for ways to support like-minded charities in furtherance of spiritual ideals of human freedom, health, learning, and equality.

The early UDUUF's organizers often met before weekly services for Sunday program planning. Once summer morning, Bud Rue urged a fund-raising effort to benefit local human service agencies. The fellowship resolved to hold a walk-a-thon from Narrowsburg to Milanville, the first of which was held on October 24, 1993. Rue suffered a heart attack during that first walk and died the same day. Members have carried on the tradition of an annual eponymous charitable appeal, currently the Bud Rue Memorial Fund for Social Justice. From 1994 to the present, the fellowship has awarded grants to included a host of local and international organizations.

During the period reflected in these newsletters, Innisfree operated as an affiliate of American Youth Hostels. My parents were the hosts and ultimately the owners. During the 23 years before the 13.7-acre River Road property was sold by Ann Rue (1996) to its current owner -- a professional artist and writer -- thousands passed through Innisfree's buildings and land, creating, recreating, working, learning, worshiping, and living. To the members of the more community based groups than can be named in this small space, all of whom took and left memories at Innisfree, as well perhaps as others, these pages might be of interest. The premises known as Innisfree was purchased in 1970 from Oscar Ropke and Vivian Thomas Ropke whose family had run it for two generations as Hillside Acres or Hillside Farm. The place was engineered and constructed by the labor of Vivian's father, Anthony J. Thomas, and her late brother, Alfred. The Thomas family raised chickens in the outbuildings and took visitors into their home -- a practice Vivian and Oscar Ropke continued until they retired and sold the property to a group of teachers from Montclair, New Jersey who wanted to run an educational program for teenagers and young adults. The property in 1970 included a large dormitory building that was demolished after a fatal fire on August 25, 2002, as well as the large brown structure we called the main house facing River Road (where meals were served to up to 50 campers or residents at a time); a recreation hall with a well equipped carpentry shop in the basement and working forge in the garage; a small cottage behind the dormitory; a garage/chicken coop building which was leased briefly in the early 1970s to Hawkey Candle Co. During the early seventies and eighties, Innisfree was licensed as a summer camp and as a public eating and drinking place, but it was not a typical children's camp. The vision that moved Innisfree's organizers was the idea of forming an intentional community focused on community self-government by consensus and on mindful practice of personal freedom. The program was said to be modeled after Summerhill by A.S. Neill [link]. Click here for my 1997 perspective of A History of Innisfree in Milanville, written shortly after the property was sold to its present owner. I have been asked to speak this summer (2024) on the history of Innisfree at a local historical society. When details are known, they will be posted.