Community Building

Sundae Sunday
Jacqui James
Resource Development Consultant
Lifespan Faith Development, UUA
Boston, MA

Years ago, when I was serving as the Director of Religious Education for First Unitarian Church in Pittsburgh, PA we decided to close out the year with a pot-luck picnic and homemade ice cream. Several of the classes joined their efforts and we made three flavors of ice cream, churning it up while the adults were in church. This was some of the best ice cream I've ever had.

I thought of this as I read the following piece from the newsletter of First Unitarian, Dallas, TX:

"According to local legend, backed up by solid historical scholarship, Ithaca was the birthplace of the ice cream sundae. Research by Gretchen Sashse, Tompkins County Historian and the DeWitt Historical Society provide a fairly detailed account of how this wonderful dessert came to be.

"It seems that one hot Sunday afternoon in 1891, John M. Scott, the pastor of the Unitarian Church and one of his faithful parishioners, Chester Platt, repaired to the latter's drugstore for some refreshment and a review of the just concluded sermon. At his store, the Platt & Colt Pharmacy (?), Mr. Platt got two dishes of ice cream, plopped a candied cherry on top of each dish of ice cream and covered the whole thing with cherry syrup, "on a whim."

"What resulted not only looked good, it tasted great! The naming thing came next. What to call such a thing? Mr. Scott suggested "Cherry Sunday" as a gesture towards the day. Mr. Platt, the businessman, liked the name and from then on, his soda fountain featured Cherry Sundays.

"Other flavors followed and soon other soda fountains joined the parade. Cornell University students took the dessert home with them on vacations and their local soda fountains added to the art of the Sundae. The name was also seen as "sundae," "sundi," and "Sundai" as competing syrup makers got into the act of providing the sweet stuff to top local ice creams.

"Other towns have claimed invention of the ice cream sundae over the years, but none have been able to show documentation back as far as the 1890's like Deforest Christiance's eyewitness account that showed up in letter form and newspaper accounts. (Ithaca Journal, April 11, 1892). (Source: The Ice Cream Sundae by Gretchen Sachse, Tompkins County Historian, July 25, 1996.)

"Another notable to add to our list of famous UUs? The verdict is still out."

An ice cream social is a fun way to end the year, begin a new church year, or just have fun in the warmth of spring and summer. And now we've got great story to go with that ice cream.