Reality and Radiance: Selected Autobiographical Works of Emilia Fogelklou (review)

Book Reviews69 Taber describes with much greater detail the second separation, between Wilburites and Gurneyites, which took nearly thirty years of wrangling and dissension. This detail is helpful since scholars have written less on this schism. Taber describes it in narrative, biographical, and theological terms, using data derived from Quaker sources. It is how the Friends themselves viewed the division , not how a sociologist might try to analyze it. Perhaps the most valuable part of the book is its examination of the Wilburite culture which flowered from 1874 to 1917 and the distinctive ministry rising from it and nourishing it. The remaining chapters cover how Ohio Yearly Meeting slowly lost some of its isolation and began reaching out toward other Friends' groups and into the twentieth century world. Taber writes as both an historian and an insider. It is a combination which has potential pitfalls which he avoids as he writes with honesty and care. He notes weaknesses as well as strengths with the precision possible only to one who experientially knows the tribal culture and the spiritual fellowship of these people. In the final "Afterward" Taber speaks to a different audience. He turns from historians and other "outsiders" and addresses Friends in general and those of Ohio YM in particular. The latter is now a dwindling, elderly group, concerned that its rich spiritual community and tradition are in danger of perishing. Taber sketches four recent movements or alternative directions in which Ohio YM Friends might move, suggesting the historical parallels and possible consequences of each. These include the intentional community at Raven Rocks, the charismatic movement, neo-Conservatism, and a balanced combination of the three. Taber does not discuss the 1966 joining of Cleveland Meeting with Ohio YM as a possible way to increase the number of members and the Yearly Meeting's influence within the larger world of Quakerism. Cleveland Meeting holds membership in both Ohio YM and Lake Erie YM, an FGC-affiliated group. In some ways Cleveland Friends serve as a bridge between Wilburite and Hicksite traditions. There are family or other Ohio YM ties with the Lake Erie YM meetings in Kent, North Columbus, and Wooster, for example, which could be used to encourage joint YM memberships. While it would take a tremendously loving effort to build connections between the rural, elderly Wilburites and the late twentieth century urban intellectuals, such efforts could spread the "Conservative Quaker life-style and life-attitudes" to new and growing groups of unprogrammed Friends. The book has "Notes on Sources" for each chapter, but no index. It is illustrated with old photographs and charming line drawings by Sylvia Thomas. The end papers consist of a useful "family tree" of Ohio Quaker divisions and an 1826 map of meetings within Ohio YM. Cleveland Heights, OhioMartha J.P. Grundy Reality and Radiance: SelectedAutobiographical Works ofEmilia Fogelklou. Introduced and translated by Howard T. Lutz. Richmond, Ind., Friends United Press, 1985. 189pp. $10.95. We never met, but Emilia Fogelklou has been like a shining hidden presence at the back of my mind for many years, simply because of the way Douglas Steere spoke of her in that somber period after World War IL A person whose radiance can come to another second-hand through conversation alone must be extraordinary. It was therefore with great delight that I learned that Howard Lutz had written a brief account of her life and translated some of her own 70Quaker History autobiographical writing from Swedish into English. This was a labor of love and Lutz's understanding of Fogelklou's life and work show through both in substance of the fine biographical note and in his tender care with words to reflect her shining spirit. Could a feminist/peace activist be a saint? Could a theologian, a historian, a pathbreaking intellectual be a saint? If that person is also Emilia Fogelklou the answer is yes. Born over a century ago in a small Swedish town, she shared with the dawning international sisterhood of women the anguish of finding women's voice and role in a male-dominated warrior world. Her 1916 study, not as yet translated, of the medieval patriarchal transformation of Jesus into Germanic warrior...