Building the Foundation for University Christian Church

Although officially founded on November 3, 1946, University Christian Church in Austin, Texas grew out of a long-standing institution known as The Texas Bible Chair. During the first half of the 20th century, thanks in large part to the foresight of a woman named Mrs. M. M. Blanks and under the direction of Dr. Frank L. Jewett, a Biblical scholar educated at Harvard and the University of Chicago, the Bible Chair had developed into a respected and honored institution near the University of Texas in Austin.

In late 1945 and early 1946, American GIs began returning home from World War II, determined to use the benefits of the new GI Bill that would provide free tuition for their college education. As a state university, the University of Texas (UT) provided an excellent and less expensive opportunity for many Texas residents to achieve that goal. A flood of students – at first led by the GIs – arrived in Austin, seeking guidance in their studies and careers, places to live, and new goals and directions for their lives.

 On the corner of 21st Street and University Avenue, these students – especially those of the Disciples of Christ (Christian Church) denomination – found waiting for them a small, but welcoming, group of people who had been attracted to Dr. Jewett and the Texas Bible Chair. Dr. Jewett, then teaching Bible Courses for credit at UT, attracted up to 75 students each week to attend a free, non-credit, but popular and inspiring Bible Study group on Sundays.  Some of these ex-GI students were older than the average college student. Not all of these returning GIs knew exactly what they wanted, except that – after years of war – they knew that they wanted to help make the world a better place. And a group of people clustered around the buildings on that street corner wanted to help them do just that.

To accurately tell the history of Austin’s University Christian Church, therefore, requires a brief look at the earliest years of the 1900s and the establishment of the Texas Bible Chair, when Mrs. M. M. Blanks, then of Lockhart – a wealthy, energetic and highly motivated woman, became active in Austin. A force in the Disciples of Christ (DOC) denomination, Mrs. Blanks’ favorite annual event was her trip to a national church convention held in Chatauqua, New York.  

In 1903, Mrs. Blanks heard the Christian Women’s Board of Missions had recently implemented a new idea in Ann Arbor, Michigan, that they called a “Bible Chair,” teaching Bible courses at the University. Mrs. Blanks met and inquired of Dr. Herbert L. Willett of the Michigan Bible Chair and Dr. Charles A. Young of the Virginia Bible Chair about how one would create a Bible Chair. Based on what she learned, she invited Professor Wallace C. Payne of the Kansas Bible Chair to Austin for several weeks to advise her how to implement a similar institution at the University of Texas in Austin, then less than 20 years old.

Acting on that advice, on March 1, 1904, Mrs. Blanks deeded a lot she owned at the corner of University Ave and 21st Street to the Christian Women Board of Missions (CWBM) for $1 cash and “other good and valuable considerations.” That she had a Bible Chair in mind was clear: she also donated $20,000 for two buildings – one would be used for classrooms and the other as a residence for the Director of the institution. Professor Payne recommended Dr. Frank L. Jewett, a young minister from Columbus, Kansas, educated at Harvard and the University of Chicago, to the CWBM as Director.

In September of 1905, Dr. Jewett began teaching not-for-credit Bible courses in a location on Guadalupe owned by Central Christian Church. An existing wooden house on the lot at 21st and University Avenue was removed. The lot was cleared and two yellow-clay brick buildings began to rise. By 1908, Dr Jewett’s courses, now accredited by UT, were taught at the new location in the two parallel brick buildings owned by the CWBM. Over time, Dr. Jewett and the Texas Bible Chair became a notable presence on the corner across the street from Littlefield Fountain.

The Texas Bible Chair and University Christian Church

By 1946, after a long and respected career at the Texas Bible Chair, Dr. Jewett wanted to retire. The CWBM and the Bible Chair selected Reverend Paul Wassenich, also an excellent scholar, to carry on Dr. Jewett’s work. In October of 1946, Paul Wassenich with his wife Ruth and their children were settled into the Texas Bible Chair Residence.

By that time, the GIs had begun flooding into Austin where housing was at a premium, so male students most active at the Bible Chair had been allowed to move into the carriage house. Because some of these people were particularly humorous and gregarious young men, the Bible Chair quickly became a hub of activity.

Paul Wassenich had come to Austin expecting to teach, but some students and non-students surrounding the Bible Chair wanted a preacher as well: they wanted to start a church that could help UT students with spiritual and other types of support for managing to get through college. It became clear to the Wassenichs that more support was needed to help provide for the needs of this rapidly expanding “family.” Paul concluded that a church was a good idea, but he didn’t think he could hold down both his teaching and an additional preaching job.

The Founding Members

Nine non-students, most associated in some way with UT, joined with a student couple to form a group of eleven, who were most willing to help. Reverend Wassenich agreed to serve as an unpaid pastor for a short time to get the church started, but it was understood that another pastor would be hired as soon as possible.

Sunday services for the student group (already known as the Disciples Student Fellowship, DSF) had already begun on September 22, 1946. Without delay, University Christian Church held its first Sunday service on November 3, 1946 in a classroom adapted for use as a chapel in the Bible Chair building. Attendance included the eleven founding members, and a larger group of students and friends. Of these, 20 became founding “Student Members.” Sixteen other interested attendees became “Associate Members” – people who maintained membership in their own churches but became active participants in the new University Christian Church as well.

The eleven Founding Members included four UT librarians, and were: Reverend Paul Wassenich, Mrs. Paul (Ruth) Wassenich, Mr. W.A. (Bill) Darter, Mrs. W. A. (Rena) Darter, Mr. Charles C. Sansom, Jr., Mrs. Charles C. (Charley) Sansom, Mrs. Marcelle Hamer, Miss Annie Hill, Miss Le Noir Dimmitt, Miss Lorena Baker, and Miss Annabel Murray (later Mrs. E. C. Thomas).

By December 12, 1946, Dr. Jewett had officially retired, the UCC’s first Board had been elected and the membership’s interest in mission work had been established by starting a “Tillotson College Loan Fund” to help support a nearby black college (later to become Huston-Tillotson University). By January 17, 1947, the Newsletter, now tentatively named “The Caller,” was distributed statewide to DOC ministers and other church leaders. Judge Tom Beauchamp was pushing for the church to start a publicity and fund-raising plan called the “$10 Plan.”  Whenever a student from a Disciples of Christ church came to the University of Texas, Judge Beauchamp suggested, the student’s home church should send $10 to the new University Christian Church to help provide a church home in Austin and support its work among the students.

In 1947, Reverend T. W. “Bill” Sisterson arrived in Austin from New Zealand to take the preaching and church responsibilities off Paul Wassenich’s shoulders. Reverend Sisterson became UCC’s first paid pastor. In September and October the Caller published several first-anniversary articles, celebrating the Texas Bible Chair, the Wassenichs’ arrival the year before, and University Christian Church’s first year. UCC’s average attendance had tripled to 150 over the last year. Average DSF attendance was “up to 50,” and Sunday School had an attendance of 45.

At the same time, the “Women’s Council” – an early forerunner of the Christian Women’s Fellowship (CWF) – was gearing up for the fall, and F. Winston “Windy” Savage, as Director of the Music Committee, held UCC’s first choir rehearsal, founding one of the strongest and most enduring programs of University Christian church – the choir and its “section leaders” or “choral scholars” program.

By mid-November, 1947, the DSF had already selected a mission project, Perry House, described in the Caller as “an East Austin refuge for neglected youth.” The students were active individually. The first official congregational meeting was held on September 27, 1947, almost a year after the Board was elected. The “Frank L. Jewett Library” was named in preparation for its dedication.

By February of 1948, the DSF had designated a “student lounge” on the floor above the UCC and Bible Chair offices in the TBC building and named it the “Tyler Room” after a church that had contributed to the UCC cause. UCC began to discuss a new building to rise on the site of the TBC. A first drawing was made by Robert L. White, Professor of Architecture at UT and was published at the top of each issue of the Caller. In May of 1948, the Caller announced the church’s goal to “make a church rise” on the TBC property. On July 4, 1948, UCC’s first building fund launched.

Apparently, the new church, the group of people, their mission and their ability to make people feel needed made the church attractive to a lot of people.  After his first year Rev. Sisterson received an “urgent call” from a church in McKinney and decided to leave UCC. He had apparently also arrived on his own at the conclusion that he was not the right fit: UCC needed a younger and more energetic minister to keep up with the students and the planned building activity. One of his parting messages to University Christian recommended that they not settle for just any minister that came along, but to actively search out a special minister who could promote the church and help it reach its potential.     

A New Commitment

The church board quickly found the person they wanted in Reverend Lawrence W. Bash, then in a secure position at Wyatt Park Christian Church in St. Joseph, Missouri. After two refusals, much consideration and encouraged by a strong recommendation from his father – Rev. Dr. Floyd Bash of San Antonio – to take the offer, Rev. Lawrence  W. Bash agreed to accept UCC’s offer to become senior minister at UCC and on February 13 of 1949, the UCC Board happily finalized the arrangement and began making plans for his arrival. 

On April 1, 1949, Lawrence and Letha Bash arrived in Austin. The church was growing so fast that a series of expansions were carried out in rapid succession. The church also constructed a second $20,000 parsonage on another site, and the Wassenichs occupied it by Christmas 1949, so that the vacated Bible Chair residence could become fully dedicated to use for the office and teaching space of the Bible Chair and the new church. The church received 52 new members in the first three months after Lawrence Bash’s arrival.