War refugees are integrated into a small town in Massachusetts

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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From time to time all over New England,

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we gather at our town hall to hammer out the public opinion

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in meetings like this.

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Sometimes the meetings get out of hand,

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and we argue back when the moderator raps for order.

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But we like it that way because we figure we elected him

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to the job in the first place.

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This particular meeting was pretty

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much like all the rest except that the moderator called

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on Joseph.

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Joseph was self-conscious, and I had to persuade him to speak.

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This was Joseph's first town meeting, his first

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and his last.

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Six months before, Joseph had been a stranger to Cummington.

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As Joseph's minister, I felt I had

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come to know him a little better than others had in those six

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months.

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And watching him speak as a neighbor and friend,

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I was remembering the day Joseph arrived with his wife

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Anna and the others.

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I had heard of these refugees at a conference of ministers.

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They needed a place to live.

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My church had a house standing vacant, and I had an idea.

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Perhaps the refugees could have found another place to live,

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and undoubtedly the good people of Cummington

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would have preferred it that way.

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But then that's what gave me the idea.

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The first night, what do people do the first night

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in a strange house?

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Certainly you don't want to talk to anyone, so I said good night

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and went home to work on my sermon for Sunday.

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Sunday was clear, a good day for church

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because we like to make a social event out of it.

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It's a close community feeling we have about our churches.

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We like to stand around and chat before the service.

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That's me with the blind organist.

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Sometimes I think it's too close, almost parochial.

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But maybe that's because originally hundreds of years

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ago, our communities were built around the church.

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First church in Cummington, 1780.

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First house seven years later, 1787.

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Almost before I had begun my sermon,

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I heard a commotion in the balcony

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and looked down to see the refugees filing in.

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Late, of course, as the widow Susanna Archer said.

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I was moved because I knew they came

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from many different churches and denominations--

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Catholic, Jewish, Protestant-- and I took it as a gesture

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to me.

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So I began again taking my text from Leviticus.

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The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one

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born among you, and thou shall love him as thyself.

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I was sure it helped the lonely feeling of the refugees.

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I wasn't so sure about the townspeople of Cummington.

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Only time would tell.

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Toward the end of the service, I noticed one incident

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that gave me some hope.

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[SINGING]

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I guess with the music and all, it was too much for Anna.

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But when I heard about Joseph's visit to the grocery store,

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I began to realize sermons take a while to sink in.

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It seems he ran smack into the old stove

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league, most exclusive club in America and another place

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where the boys carve out public opinion.

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Everyone went right on doing what he was doing,

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and Joseph felt at first like no one knew he was there.

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But that wasn't true because the minute his back was turned,

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they looked up curious as kittens and Joseph knew it.

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I've given a lot of thought to that day,

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and I'm sure the boys were just as self-conscious as Joseph.

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The trouble was no one knew how to begin

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how to make the first move.

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So I realized I'd have to make the first move myself, take

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people by the arm and lead them together.

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Peter, one of the refugees, had been a printer of fine books,

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art editions back in Austria.

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So I took them out to the Cummington Press

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to meet Jim Orchard.

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I knew Jim could understand the old man's desire

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to get back to his craft.

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It wasn't hard to tell that he had been away

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from his work for a long, long time.

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For all his politeness, he couldn't keep his hands

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off the presses.

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So Jim agreed to take Peter under his wing.

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And as I left, Jim was already promising to take Peter over

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to see the collection of books at the Bryant Memorial Library

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across the meadow from the press.

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The great American poet's house has

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been kept as it was the day he died

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with his own collection of fine editions and manuscript.

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