by Mark Penwell
When Helissa and I arrived in Sacramento in August of 1967, Subud Sacramento consisted of three men and three women. Latihan was held in the home of Ernie and Maulina Pendergast in a small room upstairs. Ernie and Maulina were an elderly couple who had been involved in the Gurdjieff movement. They were in Combe Springs, England when Bapak was invited there by John Bennett, who was the leader of a large Gurdjieff group there. As I recall, this became the first introduction of Subud outside of Southeast Asia, and Ernie and Maulina were opened then.
Right after Combe Springs, Bapak went on the first of his many world tours, preceded by John Bennett to prepare for Bapak’s visits. San Francisco was an obvious place for Bapak to visit, but after that, he came to Sacramento. So Bennett came, then Bapak, after which about a hundred people were opened here in Sacramento. However, by the time Helissa and I arrived, most had moved on.
The two other men in Sacramento didn’t come regularly and eventually disappeared. For about a year or more, it was just Ernie and I, and the three women and Helissa. Eventually some Subud members from other places moved to Sacramento. At one point when we had about 12 members, it became difficult to do the latihan in that small room. Ernie had been a member of the Odd Fellows Fraternal Order in Sacramento who owned a very large, multi-storied building in the downtown area. The Odd Fellows organization was no longer active, but they were renting rooms and halls in the building. Ernie still knew the person in charge of that, so we worked out a deal for the group to rent two of the halls twice a week. We did latihan there for many years.
We didn’t, during that time, function as a Subud Center in the manner of having a committee, business meetings, etc. I collected the donations and paid the rent. Helissa and I went to Council Meetings and Congresses. We also visited the San Francisco, Marin, and Berkeley groups often, and got to know their members. Because of that, some moved to Sacramento, having learned that we now had a “group” instead of just a couple people, and a large place to do latihan. In addition, Sacramento was much more affordable than the Bay Area.
In 1987, the Odd Fellows had to sell the building and we ended up in a small, prefab building at a park that was just an open room. We had to have simultaneous latihans, since there was no place for people to wait while others did latihan. There was a floor to ceiling curtain that could be pulled across to divide the room, but the men and women could hear each other during latihan, and this disturbed some.
In 1994, someone found a building in East Sacramento that belonged to an Interfaith organization that had a large room for latihan and a smaller one where people could wait. While we were at the Interfaith building, we began having meetings discussing the possibility of finding a building of our own. We had a small but stable membership, and it seemed like the next logical step to take.
Next installment: Sacramento finds a house
About the author: Mark Penwell was opened in Sacramento in 1967 and is still part of the Center. He became a helper in 1975. Over the years he served as treasurer, vice chairman and chairman of the group. He and his wife Helissa attended many National and Regional Congresses, as well as two International Congresses: Cilandak in 1971 and Toronto in 1979. He still attends latihan once a week, but became inactive as a helper in 2004 upon retiring from his career as a school psychologist.