Between the establishment of the Universalist Church of Urbana in 1859 and 1898, the church had eleven pastors and uncounted supply ministers. On some occasions, we defaulted on the minister’s salary, once taking six years to complete the payments. As a church, we were usually small, often broke, but never spiritually impoverished. The records show that between 1860-1867, though we had no settled preacher in those years, the church met “at least quarterly” and “the deacons regularly served communion to the group who met in various halls in the community and in houses of members from time to time.” 

In 1898, the church was solvent and determined to stay that way. Our elders would not go into debt and would not call a minister unless he could be paid, an attitude applauded by the officers of the Universalist State Convention. In the fall of 1898, the State Convention sent us as a supply minister a young graduate from Lombard College. The Reverend Edna MacDonald preached on October 30 and November 6. On November 20, she was formally heard as a candidate for Pastor. She was asked to come back again on December 4 and December 11, and finally called as the settled minister on December 11, 1898. The State Convention subsidized her salary by forgiving $100.00 per year of her scholarship obligation. 

On December 3, 1899, her one-year contract having expired, the trustees of the church decided they couldn’t afford to lose her. They reached out to the congregation for additional funds, and were able to retain Rev. MacDonald’s services with a 20% increase in salary for the next contract year. In November 1900, this time before her contract expired, the church again increased her remuneration and granted her eight weeks’ vacation. It may be instructive to note that at that time, two of the three Trustees, the Treasurer, and the minister were women. Rev. MacDonald resigned when she married Frederic G. Bonser on August 17, 1902.