The old rugged church

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/11/2016 (3252 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba’s historic churches are not just monuments to the endurance and faithfulness of our early pioneers; many are examples of the love and labour of today’s more contemporary, and often smaller, congregations.

The old Anglican church of St. Andrews-on-the-Red nestled along that winding river in St. Andrews, north of Winnipeg, is one such shining example.

“The church was started in 1845 and finished in 1849,” says Barbara Gessner, who has been a member “for 70 years — since I was two weeks old.” An amazing source of historical information on the old church, she is also the people’s warden.

“The parish itself began in 1829,” she adds, with a wooden church built on the site in 1831. However, it was quickly outgrown.

Rev. William Cockran arrived at the Red River Settlement in 1825 from England and designed the church in a style known as Gothic Revival. Pointed windows and arches can be seen on the pulpit, communion rails and elsewhere in the building.

“Rev. Cockran thought this would be a good place,” Gessner says. “In the 1820s when the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Northwest Company amalgamated, a lot of the settlers were living on river lots in the area.”

He picked this land, she explains, because it was high and to avoid the flooding of earlier years.

“The windows came from England and were packed in barrels of molasses,” she says. The large window above the altar is in memory of Rev. Cockran and depicts Jesus calling Peter and Andrew to become fishers of men. Designed by J. Wipple of England, it was installed between 1875 and 1881.

Three windows by the pews came from St. Thomas Anglican Church in Lockport, which closed about six years ago, says Gessner. Another window is in memory of parishioner Frances Ann Hay, who died of influenza. Her father, parishioner E.H.G.G. Hay, was the first leader of Manitoba’s official Opposition in 1870. John Norquay, premier of Manitoba in 1878, was also a parishioner, she says.

Four generations of Gessner’s family, who originally settled in the area in the early 1900s, have attended St. Andrews. “My mother played the organ, my grandmother attended here and now my daughter has started the Sunday school again this year,” Gessner says.

There is just so much history between these stone walls that it truly needs to be seen to be appreciated.

Some would like to see the church open for three days in the summer for tours once again. “We get more than a couple hundred tourists a year here,” says Rev. Karen Laldin who hails from Newfoundland.

The church’s cemetery, too, is worth touring. “We are trying to restore the stone monuments… adding newer plaques and putting them on a granite base so they’ll be there forever,” says Randy Pastetnik, another dedicated parishioner, the cemetery and building superintendent and the rector’s warden.

Sadly, many young children were buried there long ago. “There were a lot of flu epidemics, diphtheria and typhoid,” says Gessner.

For tours, call 204-338-7483 or the church: 204-334-5700.

If there is a place of worship you’d like to see featured here, email girard.cheryl@gmail.com

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