I am giving my life to this work because I believe the world will destroy itself unless it learns the arts of peace and I believe that peace begins with the individual.

Larry Apsey, 1902 - 1997
A Founder of AVP

If there is such a thing as a miraculous change, then I can truthfully say that it was through AVP. I began to grow from a person filled with hate, anger and despair into a person who believes that he, too, is responsible for the protection, preservation and enrichment of humanity."

AVP Prison Graduate
(Robert Martin)

This poem is dedicated to Dr. Lawrence Apsey, mentor, teacher and friend in AVP.

Looking beyond where the sun sets in a profound, spacious way
I've come to know me.
Not the me you claim to see,
but me, as I've come to be.
weather worn, system torn experienced and laden with life's hardships and simple joys
A person of some depth with a surface paved in wisdom
A clown whose face upside down is really a smile of tolerance, in the reality of living,
Whose only hope is based upon the sleepless dreams created to divert the endless chore of making choices.
How else could I be so real?

Joseph Aiken 97 B 2305

TESTIMONIALS

"After being released in 1989, I found myself in need of a new family. AVP became my secondary family. It allowed me to give back to people... to share my experience, my feelings, my life.

AVP is essentially the best support system that anyone can have, especially a parolee coming out of prison.

I would encourage all parolees who are serious about getting their lives together and doing something positive with themselves to join hands with AVP and make it become your family."

AVP Ex-offender
(Richard Cunningham)

Memorial Minute for Larry Soule Apsey

He had a distinguished law career which included nine years with the Antitrust Division of the Untied States Department of Justice. He argued before the U.S. Supreme Court the first successful application of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, against the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA). He later was a corporation counsel for two large U.S. corporations, Raytheon and Celanese.

While the law was his vocation, the focus of his life became directed towards the spiritual realm, which he saw as the source we must tap if we are to resolve the problems confronting humankind in today's world. The achievement of peace was of primary concern to him.

Larry tells of having an experience before becoming a Quaker where "the name of Jesus had been given and I was enfolded from head to foot in a peace such as I have never felt before or since. This was a powerful, vibrant feeling of such utter harmony that I could not imagine any disease or sorrow co-existing in the organism." Looking back later on this experience, he said, "I interpreted it as a kind of instruction that the achievement of peace should be my first concern in life." He was drawn to spiritualism and psychic research, from which he found a belief in the literal truth of the New Testament miracles.

Arriving at the pacifist position was a struggle for him. Feeling a sense of responsibility for defending his country, he enlisted in training as a member of the Officers Reserve Corps. However, in 1931 he decided to resign. Though badly shaken by the rise of Fascism, there was, he has written, "that within me that could not bear to kill." As he struggled, with these conflicting views, he came into touch with the Religious Society of Friends. He attended Friends Meeting for ten years before applying for membership in the Meeting in Scarsdale. Although still not considering himself a pacifist, he was ardently desirous of peace and expressed himself open to new insight on the pacifist issue. He was accepted into membership in 1953.

His connection to Friends, the awakening brought about by his acquaintance with Gandhian philosophy, and the effectiveness of Martin Luther King, Jr., in nonviolent resistance to the evils of racism restored Larry's faith in nonviolence as the way to peace. For him it drew together the threads for the direction he wished to move for the remainder of his life.

Larry's vigor and commitment to nonviolence as a way of righting the wrongs of this world led to many activities which are now having an impact worldwide. Principal among these were his leadership in developing the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) and Children's Creative Response to Conflict (CCRC).

Both CCRC and AVP grew from and replaced the Quaker Project on Community Conflict (QPCC) in which Larry was deeply involved as administrator and participant. QPCC also initiated many other activities. Among them were the training of marshals to help keep nonviolent the demonstrations against the Vietnam war, and training programs directed at improving police/community relations. Larry was also involved with other peace efforts such as World Peace Brigades, Mississippi Church Re-Building Project, and Legal Assistance for Blacks.

The most striking and far-reaching activity and the one in which Larry was most deeply involved was the Alternatives to Violence Project. The force behind this work he called "Transforming Power," interpreting Romans 12:2. AVP started with a single workshop in 1975 at Green Haven maximum security prison where Larry was on the facilitating team. Larry was also part of the Quaker Worship Group at Green Haven that started the following year. He is remembered and loved by prisoners all over New York State. Many people, in and out of prison, see him as the agent through whom their lives were transformed. And since that beginning in 1975, AVP has spread throughout this country and abroad. It is his major legacy.

Larry is the author of two books describing his life's goal, "Transforming Power for Peace," published in 1960, and "Following the Light for Peace," published in 1991.

Larry and Virginia Whittingham were married in 1927, the same year he graduated from Law School. They had two children: Peter, born in 1939, and Margery, born in 1942. Larry and Virginia had a long and close partnership. He lived with the sense of her presence even after her death in 1988. They were both active in Friends work in the local meeting and in the Yearly Meeting. After Larry's retirement in the early '70s they moved to Red Hook, New York, to be near their daughter. Her death in 1974 as the result of a drunken driver smashing into her car was a devastating blow. The love and care they gave to Margery's children helped ease the pain for both generations. For several years in Red Hook they opened their home to neighborhood children who needed after-school activity. For a period of time at Bulls Head Meeting, Larry brought a message each week directed at the younger attenders. These were sometimes true stories, often from his own youth, or they were his original parables about "little lamb." Some children of that time have later spoken very positively of these messages.

Larry was a good listener. He was always ready to see the best in a person, and was not put off by anger, or opposing opinions, or unfamiliar backgrounds. We always saw him in good spirits, optimistic about the world. People often found him stubborn, persistent in the work he felt right.

Larry died in his sleep November 30, 1997, shortly after his 95th birthday, in Fresno, California, where he had moved to be near his son. He is survived by his son Peter and four grandsons, Curtis and Louis Apsey, and Mark and Keith Moulton.

Approved by Bulls Head-Oswego Monthly Meeting, 2-8-1998. Karen Snare, Clerk