Quaker History #14: Buffalo Friend Corwin Matlock

In 1961 Peter and Corwin Matlock gave their family home in Buffalo at 72 North Parade Avenue to the Buffalo Friends Meeting as its new permanent home. Up to that time the Quaker Meeting in Buffalo, after rebirth in the mid 1940s, had been meeting in various temporary places and most recently at the Buffalo Counsel of Churches’ home at 1272 Delaware Ave. This generous gift from the Matlock brothers provided Buffalo Meeting a permanent home for the next 44 years.

What, one might ask, caused these two gentlemen to make such a gift? This house had been their familyhome since 1911 when it was built, and Corwin, theyounger brother, was born in this new home that very same year. Dorothy Matlock, widowed mother of the brothers, had recently passed away so the house was then vacant and Buffalo Meeting in 1961 was actively looking for a new home. Perhaps by giving the building to the Friends Meeting it would secure for the brothers an opportunity to remain close to their family home. Corwin had expressed hopes that this permanent dwelling place for the Meeting would eventually serve as a Friends Center representing Quaker interests and service in the Western New York environs. Both Corwin and his wife Helen were then members of Buffalo Meeting, which gave the offer a certain logical sense. But I think that it was given to Buffalo Meeting for even deeper reasons, and to shed light upon that fact I wish to share some background history about both of them.

In 1942 both men were drafted for the war effort, and both registered as conscientious objectors (COs). They were sent to Civilian Public Service Camps (CPS) to work there for the remainder of the war. Neither of them were Quakers at the time they were drafted so how were they able to obtain the “CO” status? Their heritageon their mother’s side was German and they grew up attending a German Evangelical and Reformed Church, which was recognized then as a “peace church.” Also Corwin, who had graduated from Brown University almost a decade earlier, had allegedly signed an anti-war pledge while on campus, and may have become a fully convinced pacifist at that time. Corwin was sent first to a CPS camp in New Hampshire until that camp closed in 1943, and then he was transferred to a camp in Ames, Iowa for the remainder of the war. While in Iowa, Corwin met a young lady, Helen, who later would become his wife. Peter Matlock was sent to Williamsburg, Virginia to work in a mental hospital until the war ended and since he was already married his wife, Lois, went with him. She volunteered at the same hospital teaching drawing and art to the patients.

When the war was over both brothers returned to Buffalo, and eventually ended up working and owning amen’s clothing store on Genesee Street called Peter Young Men’s Clothing. Corwin and Helen began to look around for a church home for the growing family. They eventually found the Quaker Meeting that was worshiping in the Kenmore YMCA at the time, and then, in 1954, joined Buffalo Monthly Meeting of Friends. Corwin very soon became treasurer of the Meeting and continued in that capacity for the next 30 years. His other committee activity was largely with the Peace and Social Concerns Committee and in that area his dedication was unequaled. A listing of some of his concerns and efforts follows:

1. On behalf of Buffalo Friends Meeting from the 1950s until 1968 he maintained personal contact via letters with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (See attached.)

2. In the late 1960’s he participated in a Buffalo Friends Meeting sponsored project funded by a Ford Foundation Grant to improve relations between the Community and Buffalo City Police.

3. The Buffalo Friends Meeting reached out into the wider Buffalo Community with spring and fall one day conferences that featured speakers supplied through the American Friends Service Committee. Corwin, as a member of Buffalo Meeting’s Peace and Social Concerns Committee, was instrumental in bringing to Buffalo several noted peace and social activists including the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Bayard Rustin, Dorothy Day, Ammon Hennesey, Norman Whitney, Stephen Cary, and Muriel Lester.

4. He led efforts against the nuclear arms race including coordinating a visit to Buffalo by the “Hiroshima Maidens”. They were a group of 12 Japanese women who as girls were survivors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

5. He was a founding member of the Western, New York Peace Center.

6. During the Vietnam War he was the main local organizer for New York Yearly Meeting’s huge Peace Bridge Walk, where hundreds of people walked across the bridge to Canada to deliver medical supplies for warvictims in both North and South Vietnam.

7. He was a founding member of HOME (Housing Opportunities Made Equal) and its treasurer for more than 15 years.

8. He and his brother Peter owned a men’s clothing store on Genesee Street near Jefferson Ave. It was a store founded by his grandfather in 1882 when that area was settled mostly by persons of German heritage. Following the war and all through the 50s and 60s most of the Germanic population moved out as people of color began to move in. Corwin and his brother, unlike most other businessmen did not move the business to the suburbs, but rather remained dedicated to serve the new clientele. During a large racial and social upheaval in Buffalo in the fall of 1967 the store was vandalized. Determined to keep the store open Peter and Corwin were supported and encouraged by their many local customers in the Genesee-Jefferson area, who posted signs in the store front that said “Soul Brothers.” It was a testimony to how integrated the store was with the black community.

9. While the store was still in business Corwin was visited several times by the FBI, who wanted to know if he knew he was associating with communists in some of his anti-war and peace work. He did not alter or cut back on any of his peace work. Many years later one of his grandsons obtained his personal file from the FBI. It was highly redacted but nevertheless a testimony of how much the FBI was involved with surveillance during the time of anti- communist hearings.

10. He was very involved in the Draft Counseling Center that was at the Meetinghouse during the Vietnam War years. Besides counseling the young men he would very often drive those, who wanted go to Canada, to the Peace Bridge. Interestingly he stopped doing that after one of the young men lied to a Canadian Immigration officer. Corwin commented later, “that it was one thing to resist immoral government actions, it is another to be dishonest.”

11. When Corwin retired he and Helen remained active members of Buffalo World Hospitality through which they hosted visitors from around the world from 1959-1989. They were also founding members in 1982 of the Agape Shop where they volunteered for many years. This shop was a non-profit store sponsored by the Mennonite Central Committee to promote self-sufficiency in developing countries by selling the handcrafted merchandise of artisans from those countries.

The above episodes in Corwin Matlock’s life give further insight as to why he and his brother Peter may have wished to provide a permanent home to the Buffalo Friends Meeting. Peter and Corwin kept their men’s clothing store on Genesee Street specifically to serve those customers who then lived in that area. Likewise, the place where Corwin worshipped was also now firmly planted in a community he deeply cared about. If ever there were persons who could throughout their lives fully live up to the old Quaker saying, “let your life so speak”, Corwin Matlock must certainly be counted among them.