In between our Settled Ministers, we have had a few Interim Ministers. In 1984, following the abrupt resignation of Rev. Ed Harris, Board Chair Doris Jones led the Board as a Committee of the Whole in the search for a new minister. In this pre-internet and cell phone era, the committee met at Doris’s home, where there were two landlines. The committee called candidates and checked references, finally settling on Virginia Knowles, then the minister of the Unitarian Church in Redwood City, California.

Virginia received her M.A. in divinity from the University of Chicago and a Doctorate of ministry in 1979 from Meadville-Lombard seminary. Prior to her career in ministry, Virginis was in the U.S. Foreign Service, serving first in Paris after World War II as a code clerk and later with the CIA in Munich running foreign agents working for the liberation from Soviet control of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. She resigned from government service in 1954 but rejoined when her three children were older, working for four years in international education with the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare as a project director of groups in India, Pakistan, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and Africa. 

Virginia preached her first sermon at UUCUC on January 16, 1984 – during a harsh midwestern cold wave in a church whose temperamental furnace had gone on the fritz. She stayed with us through the search for Rev. Will Saunders, our next Settled Minister, who officially joined us on April 1, 1985. 

During her interim term with us, Virginia helped address the church’s problem of being, as she said, “chronically understaffed.” 

From the book, "A History of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Urbana-Champaign, Illinois 1982-2007": “A significant contribution that Virginia made was to help in the reorganization of the committee structure, resulting in renewed involvement of many members. Among the improvements made through the committees were: Denominational Affairs – the church paid its fair share to the UUA, which it had not done in recent years; Membership – thirty-four new members joined, with two welcoming ceremonies; Personnel – the committee wrote job descriptions complete with evaluation procedures for all church employees; Property Council – Virginia helped write building-use policies and contracts for renters; Religious Education – enrollment increased from 50 to 70; Social Concerns – the committee was reactivated, with eight subcommittees; and Finance – the 1983 and 1984 canvasses brought in a substantial increase in pledges.”

As her tenure with us ended, she left us with these words. “You are a strong congregation. If one person goes off on a dubious trip, there are always others who will bring the situation back to sanity. I hope you will not be afraid to look problems in the eye as they inevitably appear. You are securely anchored enough to survive a little conflict.”