The Bell Tolls No More…

by Richard Creaser

EAST ALBANY — The bell tower of St. John of the Cross Catholic Church rises above the trees, plainly visible from Paul Daniels’ living room window. It has been over a decade since the church last held regular services.  Like a distant cousin, it is available now for weddings, funerals, and holiday services.

The church, like the handful of farms still operating in East Albany, is a stark reminder of a bygone era.  Uprooted by market forces and severed by secularism, modern folks seem to have lost their connection to rural America and no small measure of faith in God.  Completed in 1874, the church ceased to offer regular Mass in January 1995.

Mr. Daniels was determined not to let his cherished church slip away into oblivion.  The Baptist church that stood a thousand feet from where St. John now sits is gone.  The time was ripe to write a book chronicling the life and times of this church and the tiny village in which it stands.

“It was time to set things down for future generations,” said Mr. Daniels.  “I didn’t want it to end up like the Baptist church that we now know nothing about.”

Mr. Daniels devoted the last few years of his life to gathering records and stories about the parishioners who filled St. John’s pews every Sunday morning.  His research took him around the area and beyond, contacting the descendants of early parishioners seeking out their tales and photographs.

“Most people were very helpful,” he said.  “They were very cooperative.”

To read the completed work The Bell Tolls No More To Call The Faithful From Their Chore is not a dry recitation of names and dates.  It is a chronicle of life in rural Vermont through eras marked by momentous changes.  Two world wars, the Great Depression, the nuclear age, and the hedonism of the 1960s all marked periods of transition in the life and times of the church.

“I think Haight-Ashbury did more to change religion than anything else,” said Mr. Daniels.  “Nothing was the same after the 1960s.”

While changes in attitude characterized an across-the-board decline in religious participation throughout North America, the people of East Albany clung to their faith.  When the final Mass was said, fully two-thirds of the pews were regularly filled, said Mr. Daniels.

“Our faith was still strong,” he said.  “The church was in no financial difficulty.”

In a theme to be repeated often in recent years, the reason given for the 1995 closure of the church stemmed from a lack of men entering the priesthood.  Without enough priests to minister to its congregations consolidation became the newest catch phrase of the Burlington Diocese.

If there was one victory in the closure of the St. John of the Cross, it lay in the fact that the diocese agreed to retain the land rather than sell it off.  Though playing host to a mere handful of services a year, it was important to retain this landmark that helped define not only a church but its community as well.

Attending church was more than an opportunity to attend to one’s spiritual needs, it was equally about fostering a sense of community by uniting the disparate farming families scattered around the town.  Many of the stories recorded in Mr. Daniels’ book deal with the adventures, and misadventures, of parishioners throughout the ages.  The recording of these stories was every bit as important as preserving the church itself, said Mr. Daniels.

“Everybody writes about princes and politicians, but nobody writes about the working man,” he said.  “If I didn’t write it down no one would.”

One particularly poignant tale centers on the Boucher family, who traveled eight miles by horse and buggy to make Sunday Mass. In the wintertime it was a journey that required buffalo robes and heated bricks to stay comfortable, this on top of the hour and a half ride necessary to complete the trip.

“That was faith,” said Mr. Daniels.  “No matter the weather, they made that trip every Sunday.”

Now in her nineties, Eveline Boucher still keeps an active hand in the affairs of the church.  With the accompaniment of Mr. Daniels on violin and her daughter Millie Gaboriault on keyboard, she played harmonica during the 2005 ecumenical services held at St. John of the Cross.

Though services have been suspended, Mr. Daniels is confident that the parish has done right by keeping the church intact over these many years.  Annual turkey dinners have provided the funds necessary to keep up on the maintenance of the building.  Avoiding the sale of the property in 1995 was certainly the greatest triumph for the parish, but other tribulations have surfaced over the years.

The parish scored a small victory with the return of its sacred utensils, known as the Stations of the Cross.  These vessels, gifted to the church by descendants of the modern parishioners, disappeared during the 1980s.  They were discovered in the parish of North Troy some years later and returned to East Albany, whence they had come.

“It was important that they were returned because they are a part of this community,” said Mr. Daniels.  “This is where they belong.”

Preserving the spirit of the community is very much what Mr. Daniels’ account of St. John of the Cross is about.  Though welcomed in Catholic churches outside of Albany, there is nonetheless something missing from those Masses.

“Worshipping in someone else’s house is never going to be the same as worshipping in your own house.”

WhileThe Bell Tolls No More To Call The Faithful From Their Chore is certainly of interest to the families mentioned in its pages, it is also a fabulous resource for historians and anthropologists alike.  The story of St. John of the Cross Catholic Church is as much a tale of a small farming community and the sweeping changes brought about by waves of Irish and French Canadian immigrants as it a story of one rural church.

“The book gives people a sense of what their ancestors believed, how they worshipped and a sense of how things were during that period of time,” said Mr. Daniels.  “It’s a place that our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents all worshipped.  It’s tied to the hamlet of East Albany and our farming community.”

Mr. Daniels is confident that the church will again see a revival.  The complacency and secularism of the modern generation is slowly being shaken. Whereas once the Roman Catholic Church sent missionaries abroad, now those nations are sending its priests back to the Americas.

“Everything goes in cycles,” said Mr. Daniels. “Someday the diocese will have need of this church again, and it will be here.”

Copies of Mr. Daniels’ book are available locally at Currier’s Market in Glover, Ray’s Market in Irasburg, the Woodknot Bookshop in Newport, or directly from Mr. Daniels by calling (802) 755-6105 or writing to 231 Daniels Road, Irasburg, Vermont 05845.  The softcover book sells for $25.