The Treble Wore Trouble (The Liturgical Mysteries) Read Online Free
Author: Mark Schweizer
miracles occur, if not with regularity, at least every few decades or so. The church had been founded in either 1842 or 1846, depending on which faction you believed — the Winslow Coterie or the Entriken Cabal. Actual records don't exist any longer for reasons that will soon be made clear.
Two of the matriarchs of St. Barnabas are Wynette Winslow and Mattie Lou Entriken, both now in their seventies, and, although they have been fast friends since childhood, they have differing narratives as to the founding of St. B.. They are both lifelong members of the parish, as were their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents before them. In matters of church history, their collective memories are relied on almost exclusively, and in almost all cases their chronicles tended to jibe remarkably well. Except when it concerns this one thing.
Wynette Winslow and her coterie have held that the church was founded by Father Alastair Crawly in 1842. She has made this assertion because she had in her possession a letter that had been passed down through her family, a letter written to her great-grandmother by the very same Alastair Crawly who, in 1862, had been captured by the Union forces in Virginia and sent to Alton Prison in Illinois. In this prison letter, explains Wynette, Alastair Crawly declares his longing to return to his beloved town and "take up the reins of that great work so eagerly begun those two decades past."
For Wynette, the math is simple. 1862 minus two decades puts the founding date at 1842. This, and the avowed attestation by her sainted forebears, is enough for Wynette.
There are three problems, according to the pundits, with Wynette's dating of the founding using the aforementioned correspondence. The first is that Alastair's "great work" written about in the letter didn't actually mention St. Barnabas Church. Therefore, the reference might be to his fledgling ministry, with the actual founding of the church to have occurred later. Secondly, "two decades," although specific in one sense (the meaning to be taken as exactly twenty years), is vague in another. "Two decades" could be easily be construed to mean "about twenty years, give or take a few on either side."
The final problem is that there is no letter. No letter she can produce anyway. Wynette lost it or misplaced it, but she is adamant about the contents.
Mattie Lou Entriken (as well as the rest of the Entriken Cabal) dismisses Wynette's great-grandmother as a floozy who was always trying to cause trouble. She can say this with certainty because Father Crawly was Mattie Lou's grandmother's uncle and Mattie Lou's Grandma Gertie had said that Wynette's distant relative, known to the Entriken clan as "Betty the Blue Ridge Bombshell," had no business writing letters to a married man whether he was in prison or not.
Mattie Lou's proof consists of a printed bulletin from 1896 that advertised, in the "announcement" section, a need for firewood, a plea for prayers concerning Arthur Ackerman's cow, and an announcement about the upcoming celebration of the Golden Jubilee. Mattie Lou's math is as exact as Wynette's, setting the founding date for the congregation as "St. Barnabas Day, 1846." Unfortunately, her proof has the same drawback as Wynette's. That is, it can no longer be found.
"It's here somewhere," said Mattie Lou. "When I'm dead, y'all can go through all this stuff and find it if you want."
Adding to the problem was the fact that Wynette's mother and the Winslow Coterie were in charge of planning the centennial celebration, and so the church commemorated the event in May, 1942. The sesquicentennial followed in 1992. This cemented the 1842 date.
All bickering aside, clearly the community of St. Barnabas formed just about the time that St. Germaine itself became a township. The old wooden church survived the Civil War, when many of the town's buildings did not, by serving as headquarters for Colonel George Washington Kirk. Kirk had been charged with
Two of the matriarchs of St. Barnabas are Wynette Winslow and Mattie Lou Entriken, both now in their seventies, and, although they have been fast friends since childhood, they have differing narratives as to the founding of St. B.. They are both lifelong members of the parish, as were their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents before them. In matters of church history, their collective memories are relied on almost exclusively, and in almost all cases their chronicles tended to jibe remarkably well. Except when it concerns this one thing.
Wynette Winslow and her coterie have held that the church was founded by Father Alastair Crawly in 1842. She has made this assertion because she had in her possession a letter that had been passed down through her family, a letter written to her great-grandmother by the very same Alastair Crawly who, in 1862, had been captured by the Union forces in Virginia and sent to Alton Prison in Illinois. In this prison letter, explains Wynette, Alastair Crawly declares his longing to return to his beloved town and "take up the reins of that great work so eagerly begun those two decades past."
For Wynette, the math is simple. 1862 minus two decades puts the founding date at 1842. This, and the avowed attestation by her sainted forebears, is enough for Wynette.
There are three problems, according to the pundits, with Wynette's dating of the founding using the aforementioned correspondence. The first is that Alastair's "great work" written about in the letter didn't actually mention St. Barnabas Church. Therefore, the reference might be to his fledgling ministry, with the actual founding of the church to have occurred later. Secondly, "two decades," although specific in one sense (the meaning to be taken as exactly twenty years), is vague in another. "Two decades" could be easily be construed to mean "about twenty years, give or take a few on either side."
The final problem is that there is no letter. No letter she can produce anyway. Wynette lost it or misplaced it, but she is adamant about the contents.
Mattie Lou Entriken (as well as the rest of the Entriken Cabal) dismisses Wynette's great-grandmother as a floozy who was always trying to cause trouble. She can say this with certainty because Father Crawly was Mattie Lou's grandmother's uncle and Mattie Lou's Grandma Gertie had said that Wynette's distant relative, known to the Entriken clan as "Betty the Blue Ridge Bombshell," had no business writing letters to a married man whether he was in prison or not.
Mattie Lou's proof consists of a printed bulletin from 1896 that advertised, in the "announcement" section, a need for firewood, a plea for prayers concerning Arthur Ackerman's cow, and an announcement about the upcoming celebration of the Golden Jubilee. Mattie Lou's math is as exact as Wynette's, setting the founding date for the congregation as "St. Barnabas Day, 1846." Unfortunately, her proof has the same drawback as Wynette's. That is, it can no longer be found.
"It's here somewhere," said Mattie Lou. "When I'm dead, y'all can go through all this stuff and find it if you want."
Adding to the problem was the fact that Wynette's mother and the Winslow Coterie were in charge of planning the centennial celebration, and so the church commemorated the event in May, 1942. The sesquicentennial followed in 1992. This cemented the 1842 date.
All bickering aside, clearly the community of St. Barnabas formed just about the time that St. Germaine itself became a township. The old wooden church survived the Civil War, when many of the town's buildings did not, by serving as headquarters for Colonel George Washington Kirk. Kirk had been charged with
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