In a 1926 newspaper interview, Hess recalled that his father, a hardscrabble mountain farmer, was not an educated man.
[2] Hess expanded his early mountain education with a two-year course of study at Randolph-Macon Academy in Front Royal, Virginia.
Hess also simultaneously took additional courses at Western Maryland College that shared a common campus with the seminary.
[6] Newspaper accounts also indicate that Hess was a teacher at the university and a part-time minister for the Methodist Protestant Church in Morgantown, West Virginia.
At the 1908 Methodist Protestant quadrennial conference, Hess was successfully nominated to serve on the board of governors of his alma mater, the Westminster Theological Seminary.
Hess, however, was unsuccessful in his bid to be secretary of the board for the Young People's Work organization, the denomination's effort to harness youth engagement.
[11] At the next quadrennial conference in 1912, Hess again was successfully nominated to the board of governors of the Westminster Theological Seminary.
Following his one-year assignment in Kansas City in 1909, Hess accepted the pastorate of the Methodist Protestant Church in Buckhannon, West Virginia.
[12] Hess extended his denominational activities to the local level allowing his name to be offered for the presidency for the West Virginia Methodist Protestant Conference.
Hess led on early balloting, but when notified by telegram that his ill wife had taken a turn for the worse, he withdrew his name from consideration.
West Lafayette College, incorporated in 1900, was the newest of the educational institutions maintained by the Methodist Protestant Church.
At the 1916 Methodist Protestant quadrennial conference, the matter was resolved with the decision to consolidate the two colleges to Adrian, Michigan.
[14] Hess remained at Adrian College until he resigned in 1917 to resume pastoral duties at the First Congregational Church of Manistee in Michigan.
“The Reverend Dr. A. F. Hess was a man with a ‘brilliant mind and an eloquent tongue.’ He made patriotic addresses all over the country.
He gave a series of lectures on psychology.”[16] During his Manistee pastorate, Hess was also recognized by the American City bureau as one of America's 100 best speakers in the United States.
What is clear is that in 1925 he departed Fort Worth as well as left the Methodist Protestant denomination when he assumed the pastorate of the First Congregational Church in Beaumont, Texas.
[20] Hess's sermon topics in his inaugural year reflected both his desire to prepare his flock to be Christian disciples and his belief that religion includes the embrace of the human experience.
Those topics include: “The Appeal and Response of Christ's Love as Revealed in Human Relationships,” “Shall We Cease to Think in Matters of Religion or Adopt a Policy of Blind Faith” and “The God of Human Experience.” Hess extended his ministry beyond his Sunday pulpit to what was described in the local newspaper as a “Miniature University.”[21] The Tuesday morning Woman's Lecture Club was devoted to a series of lectures by Hess on the philosophy of religion that explored world religions.
It is emphatically opposed to ignorance, prejudice, religious bigotry, injustice and desecration of human values.”[23] Hess's pastorate in Beaumont ended in 1930 when he accepted a call to the United Liberal Church in Atlanta, Georgia.
The United Liberal Church was the result of a 1918 decision by local Atlanta Unitarians and Universalists to merge into a single congregation.
Additionally, the Atlanta church had long had an active men's and women's organizations that had been well-established venues for social and cultural exchange opportunities.
Hess died at 8 o’clock in the morning on October 27, 1935, of a heart attack in the lobby of the Waldo Hotel in Clarksburg, West Virginia.
Jean Hess continued her active membership in the rebirth of the new Unitarian Universalist congregation under the ministry of Rev.