By Bonnie Withers

Not so long ago, there was no internet to allow you to easily hook up with church services remotely. What could you do when you lived too far from an established UU congregation to attend services? One resource available to those “out of reach” continues to be the Church of the Larger Fellowship, where you can receive all manner of material and can connect with other like-minded searchers. For this critical arm of outreach, we can thank Sallie Ellis, born March 24, 1835. Sallie was born in Cincinnati and was introduced to Unitarianism at an early age. At age 20, after she had left school to nurse her mother through her last illness, she joined the church and became an avid student of the minister, Abiel Abbott Livermore. 

After a time in Chicago, Sallie’s family returned to Cincinnati, where she became seriously ill with a set of symptoms, including deafness, which would keep her severely disabled for the rest of her life. Despite her weakened state, Sallie went to the minister, George Wendt, asking to be of service. After a period of simple clerical work, Sallie asked to become a Unitarian circuit-riding missionary, but her health did not permit travel. She was put in charge of the book table where she began to distribute sermons and pamphlets. Soon, she was carrying on correspondence with folks seeking clarification of Unitarian beliefs. Her reputation as an astute and learned source of theological information lead an out-of-town minister to call her project the “Post Office Mission.” Across the nation, other denominations adopted the idea which, among Unitarians, eventually grew to be called first the “Unitarian Church of All Souls”, and finally, in 1944, to the name we have today, the “Church of the Larger Fellowship”.

In the four and a half years preceding her death in 1885, Sallie Ellis “received 1,672 letters and wrote 2,541 in return. She distributed more than twenty thousand tracts, sold books and subscriptions, and loaned by mail hundreds of books from the church’s circulating library.” (UUDB.org) Let us remember Sallie Ellis for her intrepid will to battle through debilitating illness to share knowledge of her deeply held faith.