The first meeting of St. Peter’s Men’s Service Club was held on October 19, 1997. In his annual report for that year the rector, Rev’d Allan Brake, wrote:

“I am very pleased that we are able to start a Men’s Service Club in our parish… The men who are presently members are very excited and we can expect to hear much from the Club this year. It seems that the Club will focus on three principles: helping our parish in every way possible, helping the less fortunate in our community, and helping enrich the lives of the members.”

Fellowship is the focus of the club, and through their bi-weekly meetings, visits to Ray’s cabin, and other activities, close friendships have evolved among the members. They plan and/or assist in several fundraising activities each year which support the regular church budget; they directly carry out various maintenance needs; and they support the broader church and community. By working together in these projects, the club members are able to share their skills; they value the bonding and friendships that develop as the members join hands in the kitchen or serving tables. The members contribute $2 at each meeting to cover the cost of special club celebrations like the year-end barbecue and their annual Christmas party.

Over the past 25 years, the Men’s Club has raised $100,000, which has gone to such worthy causes as church repairs, Guatemala/Belize mission projects, PWRDF, CLB and youth programs, and child sponsorship (to name but a few). We believe that every social gathering has helped make our community a more friendly and caring place. Thank you and thank God.

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Two important items that will be researched at the Archdeacon Buckle Memorial Archive in the future will be how and why the sale of the Diocesan Centre was necessary last fall and the transfer of the Archive from King’s Bridge Road to St. Mary the Virgin Church. As Bishop Geoff Peddle said in an article he wrote last year, “This too will pass,” but archives have the important duty of preserving information about “moments in time,” not just to tell a story but to be a reference to help future generations deal with their “moments in time.” 

Thanks to the generous spirit of the Parish of St. Mary the Virgin, a large room was made available to the diocese to house the archive on the mezzanine floor of the building. With the help of many volunteers, all the documents were packed up in January and transported to our new location. Other volunteers helped to set up the shelves and fill them with hundreds of archival boxes. As I write at the end of March, I am pleased to be able to announce that the Archdeacon Buckle Memorial Archive is ready (limited by the pandemic guidelines, of course) to receive researchers.

There is a video on YouTube of the “Dedication of Archdeacon Buckle Memorial Archive” by Bishop Pitman on April 27, 2012. Hopefully before too long, we can have an open house, and a re-dedication of the ABMA. In the meantime, the easiest way to communicate with the Archive is by email at: archives@anglicanenl.net.

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Early in January, a few members of the ACW, having grown restless because of restrictions caused by the pandemic, decided to do some housecleaning in the ACW room. In the process they opened an old trunk that used to be kept in St. Andrew’s ACW room. Among the precious memorabilia was a framed photograph of Mary Ann Kelly, “13 yrs. WA Pres. CEWA.” They had not heard of Mary Ann Kelly, but they immediately knew that this was a valuable piece of St. Peter’s church history. After discussing it among themselves, they decided to give it to the Archdeacon Buckle Memorial Archive where it would become part of the St. Peter’s Upper Gullies collection. 

I am writing about this because I know there are other “old trunks” that contain important historic documents and pictures that help tell the story of our church in Newfoundland and Labrador. There are old vestry minutes and church pictures in someone’s attic or a box of papers that belonged to a church warden or secretary from the past that belong in an archive. The Archdeacon Buckle Memorial Archive exists to safeguard important “moments in time” that help tell the story of who we are. If you have something like this in your home, please consider donating it to the archive where it will be preserved and made available to anyone interested in researching their church history. Just as Bible stories that began with real moments in time continue to inspire us, stories of our recent past reflect who we are and can become soup for our souls today.

Who was Mary Ann Kelly? I have talked with several people and no one was able to tell me anything about her. But with a little research, I learned that she was the daughter of the blacksmith Job Coates of Upper Gullies and his wife Eliza Gilbert of Harbour Buffet. She married George Kelly of Lance Cove (part of Upper Gullies today). Mary Ann and two of her three children (who died under the age of two) are buried in St. Peter’s Cemetery. Take a moment to reflect upon this photograph and give thanks for all that was beautiful and good in Mary Ann Kelly. Mary Ann was much more than president of the WA for thirteen years. What can you add to her story?

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Many of the documents are printed pieces of correspondence relating to Queen’s College, Diocesan Synods, services being held at the cathedral, etc. You will find among them references to restoration of the cathedral following the 1892 fire. There is a partial index containing this letter that I want to read the next time I unwrap the old book—Bishop’s Letter to Clergy about a General Election.

One of the documents (handwritten in ink) is a two-page list of the churches that were consecrated throughout the diocese before the time of Bishop Jones. For example, it records that the first St. Matthew’s Church, in Bay Roberts, was consecrated in 1827 by Bishop Inglis of Nova Scotia. A second St. Matthew’s Church was consecrated by Bishop Field in 1861. At the bottom of the page, written in pencil, it states that a St. Barnabas Church, in Flower’s Cove, was consecrated by Bishop Kelly in 1870, and a St. Paul’s Church, in Red Bay, was consecrated by Bishop Kelly in 1869.

There are also copies of some secular documents from the time of Bishop Jones. Of special interest for us at this time when many are wondering when we will be able to be vaccinated against COVID-19, and others are thinking that they will not be vaccinated at all, is the legislation passed by the Government of Newfoundland in 1871. Anyone refusing to be vaccinated, unless being able to show that s/he should not be vaccinated for health reasons, could be given a fine “not exceeding $2.00.”

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From a report in The Evening Telegram on 2 September 1918, we know that he was in St. John’s in 1918 drumming up support for an ambitious ministry project that is memorialized in the school that bears his name today—Henry Gordon Academy, Cartwright. Encouraged by the support he had received from “several of St. John’s keenest laymen,” most likely parishioners of St. Thomas’ Church, he returned to his Mission of Sandwich Bay.

His journal records that the SS Sagona arrived in Cartwright on October the 20th bringing besides the supplies for the winter, a pile of newspapers and personal letters that was always a delight. On this occasion the news was not good. “Our newspapers relate of a serious epidemic which is raging in Newfoundland and other parts of the world. One hopes that it will not reach down here, but the fact that some of the steamer’s crew are down with it looks ominous.” 

Nevertheless, he set out to visit several communities, and when the St. Helen arrived back in Cartwright on October 30th, he wrote, “Not a soul to be seen anywhere, and a strange, unusual silence. Going along the path to the Parsonage we met one of the Company’s (Hudson Bay Company) men staggering like a drunken man, and from him learned that the whole settlement was prostrated with sickness. It had struck the community like a cyclone two days after the Mail-boat had arrived. …Whole households lay inanimate all over their kitchen floors, unable to even feed themselves or look after the fire. … One seemed utterly incapable of dealing with the situation, the only thing one could do was to see that no one perished for want of food and firing.”

On November 2nd he reported that he himself was “feeling rotten, head like a bladder full of wind,” but the next day he “got up, took a dose of brandy, and buried Howard Fequet at 1:30, then when back to bed again.” 

On the 4th he wrote, “Can’t remember very clearly what happened on these two days. Felt very sick. I knew Mr. Parsons came up to ask me about burying somebody or other. I thought it was myself at the time.” His journal continues describing visiting the sick, chopping wood for their fires, making coffins and burying the dead. His letter to Bishop White on February 18th, three months later, paints a grave picture of the price of a pandemic:

“I expect that you will have heard already of the terrible times which we have experienced down here since last fall. I almost hate to write any more about the subject as the memory is almost too powerful. Suffice it to say that I had to live amid dead and dying for over a month, digging graves, tying up bodies and looking after little orphans. Out of a total population of 320 in Sandwich Bay we lost 69. One could relate many stories that would astonish the outside world but thank God all is now over and it is best to forget it.

I am afraid that I suffered rather more than I was aware of especially in my nervous system which seems all out of shape. I have been able to get through my visitation and am physically fairly fit, but I simply dread the thought of another winter down here without a change and a rest.”

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About fifteen years ago, John Denine of the Goulds traded a six-pack for some old newspapers that were found in a house that was being torn down in Conception Bay South. Thinking they might be valuable to someone he simply held on to them. This past year, he discovered among them this little folded card that he delivered to the church office at St. Peter’s Church in Upper Gullies, and later donated to the Archdeacon Buckle Memorial Archive of our Diocese. He gladly did this with the request that it be recorded as being donated in memory of his 9-year-old granddaughter, Navaeh Denine, who died of neuroblastoma two years ago. Most of us will remember her as the child who raised thousands of dollars for other kids with cancer. I gladly added it to the Parish of St. Peter’s finds at the archive.

This is a good example of valuable documents from our past that lie hidden in old attics, Bibles, or collections of our faith ancestors. Our Diocesan Canons require the Diocese to “provide a secure place of deposit for the archival records of the Diocese” and to have an archivist who would “appraise and acquire (such materials) for the purposes of preservation and research.” All parishes are by Canon required to have an archivist, but the expectation is that all non- current parish registers would be delivered to the ABMA for preservation with copies of these documents being held by the parishes.

This particular document when folded is a little smaller than the Canadian Church Diary you see many of our clergy using, but it provides a bird’s eye view of the church in Conception Bay South in 1926. It helps us see how the work of the church continues and adapts over time as the world changes. Bishop Peddle wrote in his letter to the Diocese on February 28, 2019 that parishes are being challenged to “enter into new conversations about their future together with an eye to fresh missional opportunities.” As we ponder what this means in our day we may find encouragement by the example of Canon Hugh W. Facey, who held a week- long mission in October 1926. From the parsonage in Kelligrews he wrote, “The object of the Mission is the strengthening and confirming of us all in a renewed and consecrated life of love and service for God and His Church.” They had invited Rev. William Turney, who at that time was a “missionary” in Chicoutimi, Quebec, to conduct the “Teaching Mission.” Imagine the planning made in 1926 to bring Rev. Turney from Winnipeg and to have this little bulletin printed. How does this speak to us today?

A good storyteller could follow the schedule of services for the weeklong event, and reading between the lines write a historical novel following the often quoted epigram of the French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808-1890). “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”

Canon Facey was born in English Harbour, Trinity Bay in 1882 where he received his early education. After studying theology in England from 1905-1910, he was ordained and returned to Newfoundland. He served in several parishes and missions remaining in the Parish of Heart’s Content for twenty years. The author of a tribute to him in The Newfoundland Churchman (January 1995) wrote that “in 1961… he was appointed to do missionary work in the outskirts of St. John’s,” but the “strain was too great, even for such a physical giant as he had been, and he retired from active service in 1962.” He died in 1964.

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