75th Anniversary: Stony Run Friends Meeting
On December 18, 1949, Baltimore Monthly Meeting Quakers filed into the Stony Run Meeting room for their first Meeting for Worship in their new Meetinghouse. The room arrangement had no open space in the center. On the two rows of facing benches, men sat on the right and women on the left, and there were flowers and a Bible on the table in-between. Everyone wore their First Day-best.
Seventy-five years later, siblings Geni Elliott and Chuck Mallonee, share their memories of Quakers in Baltimore and the transition from the Park Avenue Meetinghouse downtown to the current-day Stony Run Friends Meetinghouse on Charles Street.

A Look at the Past
Before the Stony Run Meetinghouse was built, Baltimore Monthly Meeting gathered at a Meetinghouse on the Park Avenue campus in downtown Baltimore City. That Meetinghouse was a beautiful building near the third location of Friends School and the Taylor-Townsend Home for elderly Friends. The campus was situated along a double lane avenue, where the children would play ball. To provide the children with more space and athletic fields on which to play, Park Avenue Friends Meeting purchased 25 acres on Charles Street. Students would take a bus north to the Charles Street athletic facilities, and then the return home would involve several bus transfers.
Over the span of almost a decade, Friends School moved to join the athletic fields on the present site on Charles Street. The first building built in 1929 served athletics, but then became the Kindergarden, and later became the Assembly Room for Lower School students, as it is today. In 1944, the Park Avenue Meetinghouse building was sold to the American Red Cross for $55,000, and education and First Day School activities moved fully to Charles Street. It was here where Geni and Chuck remember their first Quaker experiences.
A Changing Time
A bus would pick the Mallonee family and their cousins, the Felter family, up from their West Arlington neighborhood homes, and then make a stop for those living at the Taylor-Townsend Home for elderly Friends on Park Avenue, prior to bringing the Quakers to Charles Street.
First Day activities took place in what is now the current Friends School Lower School Assembly Room. The First Day program would begin in song at 9:45 AM for both children and adults. Meeting for Worship would follow at 11:00 AM for adults.
Due to the ongoing war in Europe, construction on a new Meetinghouse was not possible until 1949. During the time between the sale of the Park Avenue property and groundbreaking of the new Meetinghouse, inflation took a toll on the sale proceeds. The architectural plans for the Meetinghouse had to be revised–a second floor was removed–to meet the budget constraints.
On April 1, 1949, the first brick for the new Meetinghouse on Charles Street was laid. The classrooms in the current day Meetinghouse were added in the mid-1990s.
When the original Stony Run Friends Meetinghouse was completed, the Baltimore Monthly Meeting renamed itself the Baltimore Monthly Meeting of Friends, Stony Run, as we are known today. The first Meeting for Worship, pictured to the right, took place on December 18, 1949, with the Meetinghouse officially opening in January 1950. Later that year, the Meeting opened to all races.
Memories
Chuck can remember playing on the foundation-in-progress with his Felter cousins in 1949. Geni fondly recalls "a lot of people with funny hats" at Meeting for Worship, as well as building little cardboard houses with paper dolls during summer Bible School, where they served graham crackers and grapefruit juice. Worship was unprogrammed, as it is today. Men and women entered the Meetinghouse through the same door (historically men and women entered through separate doors), and everyone dressed up for First Day activities.
The biggest change Chuck and Geni can remember for First Day was to the First Day School schedule. When Chuck and Geni were young, all ages attended First Day School, starting in song before the children separated. Then Meeting for Worship would follow for the adults. Today, children join adults in Meeting for Worship for 20 minutes and separate for First Day School activities for approximately 40 minutes.

A Lasting Legacy
Stony Run Friends Meeting continues to be a vibrant community, rooted in the principles of peace, simplicity, integrity, community, and equality. The Meetinghouse serves as a sacred space for worship, study, and service. Members are actively involved in social justice issues, environmental conservation, and interfaith dialogue.
As we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Stony Run Meetinghouse, we honor the legacy of those who came before us. Let us continue to build upon this legacy, striving for a future filled with peace, love, and understanding.