The uneven, sloppily constructed brick wall is now covered in weather-proof sealant, a battleship gray colored plane rising from the Earth up to the peak of the rear of the old structure.
The elements over many, many decades have played havoc with this wall. Patched by succeeding generations to ensure it does not crumble. But no more. With the latest move, "the people" hope it should last for a long time.
The wall, a metaphorical window to my family's distant past......
Constructed as high and as well as they could by local men, until they
realized they were doing work that was beyond their skills. They were farmers.
Men of the land who struggled against Nature to put food on the table, put aside
a few cents or dollars each year. God-fearing men, men who lived off the land
and could build just about anything, but men who knew they were not brickmasons.
The rear wall of the old country church was constructed with bricks made on site, formed from clay dug from the walls of a nearby hollow. The hollow later used as a church park, and known as "Cozy Dell." The new building, these men believed, would be a strong, sturdy replacement for the wooden structure that had burned some months earlier.
In their time, a place of worship was essential for the success of their community. And rebuilding the church on the site of the old building was thought to be important, for it would ensure that daily and weekly worship would remain adjacent to the burying ground of their kin. Many of whom are my ancestors.
Touching that wall today is like stepping back in time. For me, touching an object constructed or fabricated in the distant past is like touching the past. I was in Washington DC earlier this year and touched the Washington Monument. Knowing that people from history like Abraham Lincoln and others touched that same object back in their day. It takes me back to that time and helps me see through the eyes of people who lived in a distant century. In this case, to see the countryside as they saw it. To see the little red brick church as they saw it.
The church today still closely resembles the brick structure built in 1866. The main church is unchanged, but a small addition -- a community room -- was added in the 1960s. During the past two years, church elders approved for construction a new entrance where the old church and the community room and kitchen attach. Meeting modern standards, and laws, the mostly elderly congregation need no longer navigate stairs to gain entrance into the building where they, their parents, their parents' parents, and their parents' parents' parents have worshipped since the church was founded in 1809. .....200 years ago.
The family ties remain strong. A cousin is president of the church cemetery association. His sister, though she does not worship there, is secretary/treasurer of the association. She took on the post this summer to give a break to the woman who has held the position the past 31 years. An aunt and uncle -- the aunt EnigmaMom's twin sister -- are church trustees. As is yet another cousin, a couple years older than me, the son of EnigmaMom's younger brother.
The rear wall of the old country church was constructed with bricks made on site, formed from clay dug from the walls of a nearby hollow. The hollow later used as a church park, and known as "Cozy Dell." The new building, these men believed, would be a strong, sturdy replacement for the wooden structure that had burned some months earlier.
In their time, a place of worship was essential for the success of their community. And rebuilding the church on the site of the old building was thought to be important, for it would ensure that daily and weekly worship would remain adjacent to the burying ground of their kin. Many of whom are my ancestors.
Touching that wall today is like stepping back in time. For me, touching an object constructed or fabricated in the distant past is like touching the past. I was in Washington DC earlier this year and touched the Washington Monument. Knowing that people from history like Abraham Lincoln and others touched that same object back in their day. It takes me back to that time and helps me see through the eyes of people who lived in a distant century. In this case, to see the countryside as they saw it. To see the little red brick church as they saw it.
The church today still closely resembles the brick structure built in 1866. The main church is unchanged, but a small addition -- a community room -- was added in the 1960s. During the past two years, church elders approved for construction a new entrance where the old church and the community room and kitchen attach. Meeting modern standards, and laws, the mostly elderly congregation need no longer navigate stairs to gain entrance into the building where they, their parents, their parents' parents, and their parents' parents' parents have worshipped since the church was founded in 1809. .....200 years ago.
The family ties remain strong. A cousin is president of the church cemetery association. His sister, though she does not worship there, is secretary/treasurer of the association. She took on the post this summer to give a break to the woman who has held the position the past 31 years. An aunt and uncle -- the aunt EnigmaMom's twin sister -- are church trustees. As is yet another cousin, a couple years older than me, the son of EnigmaMom's younger brother.
A visit to the church cemetery evoked memories long forgotten. The image of the
day my mother's mother was laid to rest. And seeing my aunt turn to EnigmaMom,
and with shock in her voice and on her face, voice these words all those years
ago: "I guess that makes us the elders of the family now." My mother's stunned
silence as she pondered these words speaking volumes on that day. I remembered
making the trek from my Great Lakes home to the distant country church on an
icy, treacherously nasty late November day to carry the body of my aunt to her
grave from the church following the funeral service.
I remember being a little kid and going to Easter services in the country church each year, and the family Easter egg hunt that took place in the sanctuary and the community room later that afternoon.Some might think it odd a family would have their gathering at the church after Easter service, or have enough pull with the pastor to be permitted such. But my family has been tied to this regional gathering place for all those 200 years. One of 10 founding families of the church founded on the banks of a small creek, "my people" have been intricately tied to this place for two centuries now. Having grown up in an urban setting far from the farm fields of my mother's birth, I am not a religious person, though I still ask questions and wonder. I am not as closely tied to this church, but I still feel the connection.
On this trip, new memories were made. The jarring sight of my uncle, my mother's "little brother," slowed by numerous strokes that have afflicted him in just a few months, walking with a terribly stilted gait into the church cemetery. Ironically, perhaps the last time he will go into that place on his own two feet. Most likely, the next time he enters there I will be one of those carrying his casket. His quest -- to show us where he is to be buried. I already knew, for his first wife is buried there. My aunt, tragically taken more than 20 years ago after a long battle with brain cancer.
And on his arm, his second wife, a beautiful person - inside and out - who is divorced from her first husband. My uncle and this woman love each other dearly, but my uncle wants to be buried in the church cemetery. I couldn't help but wonder what his wife was thinking. Will they be buried together? I do not know. It is none of my business.
I drove past the country farmhouse, more than 100 years old, where EnigmaMom was born. Vacant just a few weeks, mom's sister and her husband have gone to live with a son, another cousin of mine, and his wife. The house remains in the family -- still yet another cousin who lives adjacent to the old farmhouse house has purchased it and will use it as a rental for the time being.
I remember being a little kid and going to Easter services in the country church each year, and the family Easter egg hunt that took place in the sanctuary and the community room later that afternoon.Some might think it odd a family would have their gathering at the church after Easter service, or have enough pull with the pastor to be permitted such. But my family has been tied to this regional gathering place for all those 200 years. One of 10 founding families of the church founded on the banks of a small creek, "my people" have been intricately tied to this place for two centuries now. Having grown up in an urban setting far from the farm fields of my mother's birth, I am not a religious person, though I still ask questions and wonder. I am not as closely tied to this church, but I still feel the connection.
On this trip, new memories were made. The jarring sight of my uncle, my mother's "little brother," slowed by numerous strokes that have afflicted him in just a few months, walking with a terribly stilted gait into the church cemetery. Ironically, perhaps the last time he will go into that place on his own two feet. Most likely, the next time he enters there I will be one of those carrying his casket. His quest -- to show us where he is to be buried. I already knew, for his first wife is buried there. My aunt, tragically taken more than 20 years ago after a long battle with brain cancer.
And on his arm, his second wife, a beautiful person - inside and out - who is divorced from her first husband. My uncle and this woman love each other dearly, but my uncle wants to be buried in the church cemetery. I couldn't help but wonder what his wife was thinking. Will they be buried together? I do not know. It is none of my business.
I drove past the country farmhouse, more than 100 years old, where EnigmaMom was born. Vacant just a few weeks, mom's sister and her husband have gone to live with a son, another cousin of mine, and his wife. The house remains in the family -- still yet another cousin who lives adjacent to the old farmhouse house has purchased it and will use it as a rental for the time being.
I recalled stories I had heard of times past, when
my grandmother and grandfather were so involved in the church's goings on that
tradition held the first night a new minister came to oversee the church he
always had dinner with my grandparents. Today we eat chicken because it is
healthy, and because it is affordable. Back then, EnigmaMom had told me,
chickens were for laying eggs. The only time you ate one was if one wandered
into the little one lane road that ran by in front and was hit by the occasional
car that came by.
.....or if the minister and his wife were coming
for Sunday supper.
And there were the more positive memories.
EnigmaMom wanted to visit the church recently for a music festival. In the
photos I made, I found it a fascinating contrast. Young and old, teens and the
elderly, sitting under a brilliant blue sky punctuated by white puffy clouds, in
the shadow of the tiny brick country church, its plain spire reaching toward
those clouds, while the sounds, alternately, of christian rock music and
mountain gospel a capella tunes -- electronically amplified -- bounced across
the farm fields and woods.
Inside, evidence of modernization necessary to invite the curious, and to meet
ADA requirements. But most interesting to me -- and one of those images that
harkens back to an earlier day -- beautiful oak woodwork framing the new doors
connecting the old brick sanctuary to the modern entrance, which connects to the
community room. And oak baseboards. And oak handrails up and down short
staircases.
Church trustees also have installed an elevator to
help older congregants make there way between old and new portions of the
church. The oak accents found everywhere fashioned from lumber retrieved, saved
and stored 50 years ago when the sanctury ceiling was opened up and renovated.
The wood planks were stored in a nearby barn. Saved for some unknown use one day
in the future. In essence, in the late 1950s, members of this congregation were
already recycling. They just didn't know there would be a modern term for it. Of
that such actions would become a movement. To them, it was.. well
..... practical.
In yet another connection to family, another
cousin who is not a member of the church donated the use of his shop and
woodworking tools to turn out all these accent pieces now found throughout the
building. Hundreds of board feet of oak that most surely came from trees felled
on the site when this little brick edifice was erected in 1866, now accent the
modern entry into the old structure.
So I sat in the shade of a huge maple tree, looking around, taking it all in. I
couldn't help but wonder if those men in 1866 laying those bricks as best they
could, the descendents of earlier men and women who raised a little wooden
country church, nestled in a little dell on the banks of a meandering creek,
would wonder themselves of the future. What might become of their efforts?
Might they ever imagine a day when music of a kind so foreign to them would bounce across these fields and hills, echoing against the very bricks they were laying? Fitting them together as best they could just a few months following the end of the War Between the States? That the little brick church would still be standing 40 years after humans first walked on the moon, which along with starlight was the only light shed upon a nighttime farm field two centuries ago?
EnigmaMom was married in this church to EnigmaDad. Mom's mom and dad were baptized in this church. Her grandmother's aunt, Minnie Myrtle, with whom she shared the same initials, was baptized in the church. Well, actually, back then they were baptized in the creek behind the church, but that was another time.
My grandparents, great-grandparents, and
great-great grandparents are all buried in the little church cemetery. My
Revolutionary War ancestor, Neamiah, is buried here, too. As well as a handful
of people bearing the last name James, with whom both I and a certain famous bank
robber and train robber from the late 1880s are both related.
I was reminded recently by a friend of how lucky I am to know family history, and more importantly, that I have so many family members left. Not everyone is so fortunate. Fascinated by geneology for years, I have pieced together many scraps of information about both sides of my family, EnigmaMom's and EnigmaDad's. Like I said earlier, I am not a religious person but I possess many family bibles, most inscribed in the forward pages with line after line of who married whom, who begat whom, and who died when.
I was reminded recently by a friend of how lucky I am to know family history, and more importantly, that I have so many family members left. Not everyone is so fortunate. Fascinated by geneology for years, I have pieced together many scraps of information about both sides of my family, EnigmaMom's and EnigmaDad's. Like I said earlier, I am not a religious person but I possess many family bibles, most inscribed in the forward pages with line after line of who married whom, who begat whom, and who died when.
But the folks who live near and worship in this
building know the history of their community and families even better than I.
The church has remained a centerpiece of the surrounding countryside for 200
years. The little brick structure for 149 years. While kids have so many more
diversions today -- from soccer to X-Box, the congregation, though small, is
energetic. I am related closely, or distantly, to most of these people. And they
are not shirking from the challenge of keeping their church family as vibrant as
possible.
From what I saw on my recent trip there, they are
determined that this building and its mission, set forth in 1866, will be around
for another 100 or more years. And while I am not a part of it actively ..... I still feel the connection of the past 200 years
*******
Time & Change -- Much has changed since I penned these words. The uncle who was an elder of the church has passed. EnigmaMom's little brother has had numerous strokes and sits in a wheelchair, unable to speak. His health declining, I still feel when I look in his eyes that he is "in there." Time & change . . .
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