| Last updated at 10:36 AM on 14/05/07 |
|
Ernest MacDonald, editor and publisher of The Burke Chronicles: The Story of the Beginnings of the Roman Catholic Parishes on Prince Edward Island to 1885. |
|
|
Lost, then found 
After more than a century in relative limbo, the writings of one Island priest detailing the history of P.E.I. Roman Catholic parishes up to 1885 have come to life in a new book
MARY MACKAY
The Guardian
The historic words of one Prince Edward Island priest have been resurrected in a new book that details the early years of more than 40 Roman Catholic parishes on the Island.
After more than a century of virtual limbo, the engaging and informative manuscripts of Georgetown native Fr. Alfred E. Burke written in 1885 now come to life in The Burke Chronicles: The Story of the Beginnings of the Roman Catholic Parishes on Prince Edward Island to 1885.
“It’s a history of our people and what they did, how they started these churches,” says Ernest MacDonald of Charlottetown, who edited and published the chronicles.
Charged by the bishop of the time, Burke visited parishes across the Island in 1885, gathering the history and stories of each.
They were to be published as a historical collection the following year, but 122 years passed before that dream came to fruition.
“So they were sitting there, they were kind of lost,” MacDonald says.
When some of Burke’s manuscripts came to light in 1952, they caught the attention of Acadian historian Henri Blanchard. He typed out some of the original longhand documents, some of which were published in The Guardian in 1953-54.
Copies were also given to the P.E.I. Archives where researchers over the years have had access to them.
“So the historians around knew about them, but they were all sitting there separate in each (individual parish) file,” MacDonald says.
Genealogy researcher George MacIsaac tried unsuccessfully to drum up interest in the publication of the Burke Chronicles. When he died in 2003, his wife passed them on to MacDonald.
But six essential pieces of the P.E.I. parish history puzzle were missing.
On a hunch, Blanchard’s son, Francis, directed MacDonald to the Acadian Archives at the University of Moncton where he hit the motherlode.
“Oh, that was a gold mine because (it) was the original stuff,” MacDonald says.
“And you could tell as you went through it because once you learn to read his writing (it’s easily recognizable).”
The chronicles start with the story of the Mission of St. Augustine’s, Rustico, and wrap up with Mission of St. Michael in Corran Ban, which was in its infancy in 1885 when Burke penned his parish details.
In the Rustico parish, Burke writes about some voices that kept being heard in the church at certain times.
“These people were hearing all these strange noises, weeping and moaning and weird voices, and it would happen to the Acadians and not to the Scots. They couldn’t figure this out,” MacDonald says.
Burke’s chronicles include amazing details of the time and the personalities of the people in the parish, including this one from the Mission of St. Margaret in Bear River.
“A curious story of old times in St. Margaret’s gives some idea of the gratitude which the sons of men should feel towards him who invited Lucifer matches,” Burke wrote.
“Fire was obtained in those days by steel and tinder box. At Nufrage on one occasion, the steel had been lost, it was summer and accidentally every fire in the settlement had been allowed to die out.
“A bevy of young girls were deputed to go to Cable Head, a distance of some eight miles, to bring back the missing element. This they accomplished at much trouble and inconvenience, their only method being to carry flaming brands high above their heads, renewing each as it burned down.”
There are stories like that all through it, MacDonald says.
“This is how our people lived and this is what they had to do . . . ,” he adds. “The other thing is the churches are now talking about what do we do with the old buildings? Do we sell them or (demolish) them?
“This material might give people a better sense of what these churches meant and what they might do with them to keep them alive in some way, not perhaps as churches but as part of the community.”
More chronicles from the past
In addition to the history of the Roman Catholic parishes on P.E.I., the Burke Chronicles, written by Fr. Alfred Burke in 1885, is also filled with forthright tales of the times, such as this one from the Cathedral Parish of St. Dunstan in Charlottetown:
“Father (A.T.) Fitzgerald was quick tempered and very unceremonious and peremptory in his dealings with his own flock, and many laughable stories are handed down to us of scenes in the first St. Dunstan’s when he reigned there as mission priest. His mode of catechizing was surprising if not systematic; for instance, in the middle of a sermon he would stop short, fix his piercing eye on some young girl who might chance to be kneeling near the pulpit and would insist on her repeating the Lord’s Prayer aloud! He waged a violent warfare against curls, ornamental plaits, etc. sometimes going so far as to cut off those offending decorations in the face of the assembled congregation.
“A lady who was present during the occurrence relates how one morning at Mass, Father Fitzgerald espied a young damsel whose locks, of a fiery auburn, hung in bunches of corkscrew curls at each side of her rosy visage. At the close of the sermon the congregation was startled to hear the priest say, ‘Let Ellen Farmer come up to the sanctuary railing at the end of Mass.’
“At the appointed time, poor Ellen, blushing, and trembling, obeyed. ‘What do you mean by wearing those curls,’ asked the priest. ‘I mean to improve a very ordinary countenance your reverence,’ said the damsel. ‘How do you know it improves your appearance,’ asked the priest. ‘I’ve tried both ways your reverence.’ ‘Do you expect to get married Ellen?’ ‘Faix, it won’t be my fault if I don’t your reverence.’ Amused and forced to laugh in spite of himself the priest turned away saying, ‘You can go now.’ And Ellen Farmer wore her fiery tresses until she had fulfilled her destiny.”
The Burke Chronicles is available at the Reading Well in Charlottetown and at various Christian book outlets in Charlottetown, Rustico and Summerside.
mmackay@theguardian.pe.ca
|
