The Rev. Elinor Artman

The Rev. Elinor Artman, parish minister, passionate advocate for gender equality, ardent reader, skilled pianist, cat lover, adept cruciverbalist, fearless world traveler, beloved religious leader, and “a minister’s minister,” died at age 87 on 16 March 2014 after brief illness and a stroke.

Elinor was ever in pursuit of knowledge, learning to read at age three and remaining a voracious reader her whole life. Her apartments always had countless bookshelves, and when they overflowed she parted with older books to make room for new ones. From early in her ministerial career, Elinor embodied honesty in sermons on controversial matters. One of her ministerial colleagues recalls hearing Elinor preach in 1982 on the still much-closeted topic of sexual abuse: “I was a very young adult, and her courage freed me from my own isolation and shame and gave me back my life. She took some grief for [that sermon] back then, but I’ve been grateful for many years that she took her stand and ministered to the rest of us.”

As a pianist Elinor loved playing duets. She was an inveterate knitter, touting her productivity as a good rationale for all of the television she watched. She had a cat, ravens were her spirit animal, and she read the New York Times daily—her hometown paper. Not caring much for cooking, if pressed she would bring deviled eggs to a potluck meal. In her last home, she kept a bowl filled with paper cranes on a table by the entry. She had been inspired by the story of the Japanese girl who made cranes, and it was her practice to send all her visitors home with at least one.

Elinor McHale was born on 30 January 1927, the only child of Walter and Hildegarde McHale. She grew up in White Plains, New York and earned the distinction of high school valedictorian. She was graduated summa cum laude from St. Lawrence University in 1948 with a B.S. in chemistry and elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In the spirit of adventure, Elinor moved to Colorado for graduate study in chemistry, where she met and married fellow chemist Neil Artman, meanwhile learning to ski and to climb mountains. Neil’s work and PhD study took them to Delaware, then Texas, and finally to Ohio in 1955 for long-term employment with Proctor & Gamble. By 1961 the couple had five children and was living in the conservative Cincinnati suburbs.

In an atmosphere of heavy-handed corporate pressure to conform to patriarchal conventionality as “a P&G wife,” Elinor rebelled. She organized a group of wives who read Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. When her oldest child was asked by his public schoolteacher where his family worshipped on Sundays, her search for a very “un-P&G” religious alternative led her to the First Unitarian Church, where her children grew up in the church school and she became an increasingly active lay leader. When First Church seeded a new congregation in the Cincinnati suburbs, she helped launch the Northern Hills Fellowship.

With her mind continuing to stretch and yearn for knowledge, her UU activity led her toward deeper religious study. In the mid-1970s, with the death of her son Chris, a marriage strained to the point of divorce, and her youngest daughters still in high school, she began taking courses at United Theological Seminary in nearby Dayton. Though later denying to colleagues that she had ever experienced “a call,” Elinor eventually realized she was close to having enough credits for an M.Div. She lamented to her daughter Sarah that if she did that, she would be 52 when she finished. Sarah wisely said, “You’re going to be 52 anyway, so you might as well do it.” And so she did, earning her degree and in 1980 receiving ordination by her home church in Cincinnati.

The newly Rev. Ms. Artman first served as Extension Minister for the UUA’s Ohio Valley District from 1980 to 1983. She moved to parish ministry at the UU Fellowship of Kokomo, Indiana (1985-87) and then to her primary settlement at the Heritage Universalist Unitarian Church of Cincinnati (1989-2001), including a once-a month pulpit supply for the briefly existing UUs of Northern Kentucky (1994-95). The Heritage congregation named her Minister Emerita in 2001. She was known for her skills in conflict resolution and often facilitated groups in need of guidance. She became a certified instructor in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and often used this tool with church boards and congregations.

Elinor Artman lived out her professional commitment and service to the wider UU movement in manifold ways. She contributed importantly to the courses Cakes for the Queen of Heaven and Rise Up and Call Her Name, curricula for exploring feminist theology. She served twice as board member of the Unitarian Universalist Women’s Federation (1971-73 and 1991-93), facilitator of Unitarian Universalists for Right Relations (1991-93), member of the UUA Task Force on Congregational Responses to Clergy Misconduct (1992-94), member of the UUMA Executive Committee (1996-99), liaison to the UUMA’s CENTER Committee (1998), consultant to the Mountain Retreat and Learning Center Staff (2000-05), board member of the Women’s Heritage Society (2006-09), and chaplain of the Unitarian Universalist Musicians’ Network for eight years. In 2010, she was honored with membership in the Unitarian Universalist Women’s Federation Clara Barton Sisterhood, and in 2013 she received the Distinguished Service Award for the UUA’s Southeast District. In retirement she lived in Highlands and then in Asheville, North Carolina, a member of the UU church there.

Her daughter, Martha, remembers how passionately Elinor “wanted to see women equally represented” and described her habit of scanning through magazines to count the relative numbers of female and male contributors. In her 80s, Ms. Artman began working on a book about women in Unitarian Universalism. In the introduction she wrote:

It has been a half century of great change. The Women and Religion Committee in the 70’s and 80’s was very active in helping us understand that women were not yet equal—both in the culture and UU circles. Decades of active consciousness-raising has helped remedy that. Women ministers were but a handful in 1975, but by 1999, over half of our ordained ministers were women.

Completion of the book by friends and co-workers is planned.

Elinor Artman is survived by her son, Linus Artman, daughters Martha Griffin, Sarah Artman, and Vanessa Fox, and three grandchildren.

Celebration of life services were held on 6 April 2014 at the Heritage UU Church of Cincinnati and on 26 April 2014 at the UU Congregation of Asheville, North Carolina.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Asheville, 1 Edwin Place, Asheville, NC 28801, or to the Religious Institute, 21 Charles Street, Suite 140, Westport, Conn. 06880. In addition, her Heritage congregation has established the Elinor Artman Memorial Fund (c/o Heritage UU Church, 2710 Newtown Road, Cincinnati, Ohio 45244), to which contributions are welcomed.

Notes of condolence may be sent in care of Sarah Artman, 1495 Teeway Drive, Columbus, Ohio 43220.