Matson, Rosemary.

Humanist, feminist, and long-time lay leader in the Unitarian Universalist Association, Rosemary Matson (b.1917) was a co-founder of the First Unitarian Fellowship (now Church) of Honolulu in the early 1950s. Moving to California to work for the Pacific Coast Unitarian Council, she met Rev. Howard Matson whom she married in 1957. In 1962 he became associate minister at the San Francisco Unitarian Universalist Society while she worked at the Starr King School for the Ministry, fund raising and advocating for women in the ministry.

In 1977 she was instrumental in seeking the passage of the Women and Religion Resolution at the Unitarian Universalist Association's General Assembly. As chair of the Continental Committee on Women and Religion (1977-1980), Matson was part of the movement to rid the denomination of sexist practices, including revisioning theology, correcting sexist language in hymns and readings, and exposing and transforming sexist attitudes regarding leadership capabilities. She was co-author, in 2004, of curriculum entitled Unraveling the Gender Knot: Challenging the System That Binds Us. Matson was active with the United Nations (attending a number of international conferences on women), the Unitarian Universalist Women's Federation, and Humanists of America, among many others. In 2011, she was awarded an LHD from the Starr King School for the Ministry.