No. 14

Dear Diary,

I stopped to photograph the old Baptist Church (1852) in Limerick, Maine.  It has been abandoned now for some time but I looked in the windows and saw the starkly simple pews and unadorned interior quietly waiting.  The light was lovely and I like how the reflection of the adjacent graveyard on the right side of the photograph gives a haunting reminder of those congregants who passed on 150 years or more ago.

Perhaps one of the families buried there owned pew no. 14.  That is how 18th and 19th century churches were paid for.  Local families bought a pew and then paid a yearly fee for upkeep.  They received a deed for it and it was lovingly passed on from generation to generation.  In the little town of Limerick, named after the Irish town because one of the original settlers was Irish and his father hailed from there, there are three old churches within a quarter mile of each other.  Church was the focal point of the community in the 19th century.

That wooden construction on the back of pew no. 14 is to hold the tiny communion glasses.  People didn’t leave their seats to take communion.  The “wine” was a grape juice since drinking alcoholic beverages, even in minuscule amounts, was forbidden.  I remember those tiny glasses very well in my church growing up which was a Baptist/Congregational church.

I loved going to Sunday school.  My favorite teacher was Mrs. DeSantis.  She always had an art project for us to do and she was so gentle and soft spoken.  In the summer we would attend Vacation Bible School for a week.  Our young lives revolved around church back then.  We have become a much more secular society now and I can't help but think we have lost something along the way because of it.