The Sechler and Hynes Families Unite in Brooklyn

The Sechler and Hynes families came together in the 1920s in Bushwick, Brooklyn where they lived one block apart. Great grandmother Laura Sechler and daughter Ruth lived at 987 Hancock Street while Great grandparents James and Bessie Hynes lived at 1008 with their four children. The Bushwick Avenue Baptist Church, where James was preacher, was another block to the north.

Both families had lived in the neighborhood since at least 1924 (Laura appears on a 1924 voter registration list), Laura and Ruth having lived in various homes since returning to the neighborhood after the 1907 death of husband/father George, the Hynes family having moved there from Freeport in the early 1920’s.

In 1929 we begin to see grandfather Gordon Hynes, at age 21, coming into the limelight as his father’s heir-apparent and a young phenomenon in the Baptist ministry. He was a student at Gordon College north of Boston, a Baptist school. In the summer of 1929 he began making substitute appearances at his father’s Brooklyn church and some Boston-area churches. In the fall of 1929, Gordon took an extended senior-year trip across Europe.

Grandmother Ruth Sechler was also a student at Gordon College, a year behind her future husband. Assuming that Gordon Hynes entered the college in 1925, the two families must have gotten to know each other in Brooklyn in the first half of the 1920s. Mom thinks the initial friendship probably formed between Ruth and the Hynes sisters, Elizabeth (Betty) and Eleanor. Betty was a year older than Ruth (18 months older than Gordon). Eleanor was two years younger. Betty was also a student at Gordon College, the same class as her brother, both graduating in the spring of 1930. Ruth must have followed Betty and/or Gordon to the school, her relationship with Gordon developing in Brooklyn and/or Massachusetts following her initial friendship with Betty.

Following his graduation, Gordon became associated with the First Baptist Church in Freeport, Long Island, where the Pastor, Erwin Dennett, had died in the early summer. This was the same Freeport church that James Hynes had led in 1919 before moving to Brooklyn. Gordon did guest preaching engagements in the summer and by October had been offered the permanent position of minister.

Gordon and Ruth were married the evening of Friday, October 17, 1930 in the Bushwick Avenue church. A brief wedding announcement reveals the odd nature of this wedding service.

Aside from physically taking place in a church, this has all the feel of a City Hall civil ceremony (which surely would have been unthinkable in such a religious family). Some of the rushed nature of this ceremony could perhaps be attributed to the urgency of Gordon needing to move to Freeport and start a new job in a few weeks. However, this does not explain the absence of parents in the church, all three of whom lived blocks away. Mothers Laura Sechler and Bessie Hynes were not present. Father James Hynes does not appear to have been present, let alone involved in conducting the ceremony in his own church.

By November, the new family was living in the Pine Street parsonage in Freeport, next to the church. Ruth never returned to Gordon College to finish her final year of studies. Mom would be born 16 months later.

Whatever circumstances kept Laura from attending her daughter’s wedding service, she was, nevertheless, part of the deal, the bonds between mother and daughter remaining indestructible. Laura moved to Freeport with her daughter and son-in-law and would remain with them for the rest of her life.

When Gordon began his new job as the pastor in Freeport, he had not yet been formally ordained. This was to take place six weeks later at formal ceremonies at the Freeport church.