The noted architect Howard van Doren Shaw designed what is now Quaker House for Bertram Welton Sippy and his wife Mabel Lamberson. While Wikipedia states that it was completed in 1909, “1910” is the date impressed in the ceiling of the dining room.
Van Doren Shaw is responsible for several other buildings close by, including the Quadrangle Club on 58th Street. Shaw was a leader in the American Craftsman movement, best exemplified in his 1900 remodel of Second Presbyterian Church in Chicago. You can see hand-crafted stone decorations at the top of the fireplace nearest the driveway, and above the front door. The front door of the Sippy House is identical to another of his buildings, the Lake Forest Country Club, and appears on a poster of Hyde Park Doors sold by 57th Street Books.
Dr. Sippy practiced as an attending physician at Cook County Hospital from 1900 until 1912, and at Presbyterian Hospital from 1906 until his death. He also taught as a professor of medicine at Rush Medical College and the University of Chicago, from 1906 onwards. He was regarded as one of the world’s greatest stomach specialists for his pioneering treatment for peptic ulcer disease; linking the acidity of the stomach to the severity of the ulcers, he prescribed hourly servings of milk and cream supplemented by other forms of antacids. This treatment revolutionized the healing of the ulcers, but was ultimately superseded due to its inability to prevent their recurrence. It has since been demonstrated that bacteria are the cause of stomach ulcers.
Mabel and Bert had three children, Harold, Bertram and Maude, all born before they moved into 5615 S. Woodlawn Ave. Dr Sippy used his home as his medical office; it included an examining room. The Sippies owned not one but two cars.
In 1940 it was bought for $24,000 to be the chapter house for the Sigma Chi fraternity. During World War II, the building was a residence for members of the Women’s Army Corps, an auxiliary of the US Army. In 1952, the 57th Street Meeting of Friends purchased the building from the fraternity that had lost its charter from the national organization because it pledged a Black student. House prices in Hyde Park were low at this time, as the Illinois Supreme Court in 1948 had struck down the protective covenants which were common between the 1920s and late 1940s, aimed at barring people of African, Japanese, Chinese and Jewish descent from moving into certain areas.
The 57st Street Meeting of Friends is a branch of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), a movement within Christianity that began in 1650s England. Early Friends such as George Fox sought to revive “primitive Christianity” by going back to the roots of Jesus’ teachings around non-violence, simple living, God’s concern for the marginalized, and the immediate and equal access to God’s Spirit. William Penn, after whom the state of Pennsylvania is named, was one such English Quaker.
Our 57th Street Meeting of Friends began its life in the early 1930s, meeting in the Unitarian Church on Woodlawn and 57th Street. 57th Street Meeting was the main unprogrammed meeting (they sit in silence rather than following a ritual procedure led by a minister) in metro Chicago when it started, and it attracted adherents from far and wide, as well as from the local University of Chicago. As an indicator of its size, over 150 people attended the Meeting’s 25th anniversary in 1956.
The Meeting organized the first interracial work camp in 1940. During World War II, conscientious objectors came seeking advice and support; Quakers are one of the Peace Churches advocating Christian pacifism or Biblical nonresistance. After the war, they helped refugees from Europe and Japanese internees with relocation in Chicago.
The house itself was in poor shape when the Meeting purchased it in the early 1950s. Meeting members put a lot of work into renovations, including renovating the coach house into a residence for families who were members of the Meeting. We occasionally have a visit from people who tell us they were born in or lived at Quaker House or the coach house in the 1950s or 1970s; sometimes they bring the ashes of one of their family elders to spread on the property that meant so much to them.
From the late sixties to the mid-seventies, Hyde Park was a hotbed of activity in the draft resistance movement to the Vietnam War, with Quaker House at the center. In 1971 it was home to The Anti-War Training and Action Center, getting people ready for a march to In 1971 it was home to The Anti-War Training and Action Center, getting people ready for a Washington march to Washington that year. I have met people who talked of meetings they attended here during that period.
On Woodlawn Avenue alone, three organizations operated draft resistance and conscientious objector programs: both the Quaker House and the Chicago Center for Black Religious Studies (an adjunct of the Chicago Theological Seminary) provided draft counseling for men seeking to file conscientious objections to the war, while the First Unitarian Church, 5650 S. Woodlawn Ave., offered work for conscientious objectors serving out their enlistment in alternative social service work, rather than fighting. Throughout the neighborhood, activists discreetly hosted AWOL soldiers in their homes, helping them on their journeys to Canada.
During the week of the Democratic Convention of 68, Quaker House housed 70 or 80 people — all of them sleeping here in sleeping bags. An AWOL soldier, Victor Bell, had been given sanctuary in the House. When Bell walked out of the meeting at the end of convention week, two plainclothes Army CID (Criminal Investigation Division) cops grabbed him and pulled him into an unmarked car. People went out and surrounded the cop’s car, deterring it. Staughton Lynd, a noted historian, walked up to the window and said “Officer, these people will not move. They are prepared to die in solidarity with this young man.” Staughton talked them out of running these people down.
But in the early 1970s the intense focus on social justice gradually dwindled, as did the 57th Street Meeting of Friends. By the late 1970s, there were other Quaker meetings that drew off membership from Hyde Park. The Meeting turned its focus inward, towards survival and the quality of its meetings for worship.
During 1970, some of the younger members of the Meeting formed a “commune” in Quaker House, hoping to create a close-knit community with strong ties to the Meeting. Over the years, the Meeting has rented out rooms for events, and certainly in the 1990s, before Sophia Community moved in, there was a residential community as well as guest rooms for traveling Quakers, with paid staff managing the house and cooking for residents and guests. But the Meeting had become very small and elderly, and lacked the energy to manage employees. This was when they started looking for other groups who could make good use of the property, and Sophia Community made its pitch.
Since 2000, Sophia Community has lived in the house and managed the Quaker House guest business on behalf of the Meeting.