[Magdalen] State of the parish

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

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On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 3:16 PM, Jon Egger <revegger at gmail.com> wrote:

> Old Trinity was established in 1834.  A tornado blew away the original
> structure in ~1880.  The baptismal font, which we still used (and requires
> four strong men to lift) was found over a mile from the original church
> site.  Yikes!


"And they built the new church right where that baptismal font landed...."

It's really very very cool to have not only something from that original
structure, but something which has been through that disaster and came
through it.

I was visiting a church where we are pretty sure my great grandmother Emma
Maria Burke was baptized.  Walking up to the church, I saw this Octagonal
slab of rock, about a foot thick/deep, and about five feet wide. It was not
very clean, resting against the side of the church.  It turned out to be
the pedestal for the font.  Emma was baptized above it.  A nice moment of a
feeling of some connection with events so long ago. I took some photos of
it.

James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better
for people coming behind you, and you don’t do it, you're wasting your time
on this Earth.”  -- *Roberto Clemente
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