History and outreach – and romance –meet at St. Mary’s

Perhaps it was inevitable that a shipbuilding community would bring to life a church that mirrors the hull of a ship.

Well, at least the roof.

“A lot of the people who built the church were shipwrights and ship’s carpenters, because you had that expertise within the area. There was a whole wealth of woodworking and building knowledge here,” explains lay reader Peter Jubb of St. Mary’s Anglican Church in Hillsborough.

Those shipwrights put a unique stamp on the church’s interior. Looked at from the floor of the nave, the roof “resembles the upside down hull of a ship. The structure, the way the struts are built, is exactly what you would find there. The logic was, if a ship can withstand the pounding of the seas, then an upturned ship can withstand the weather of Albert County.

“It has been proven so because it is still strong today.”

The sturdiness of the roof, with its robust central line resembling a keel braced by solid timbers, is offset by the delicacy of the stained glass that graces the sanctuary.

The window was imported from Venice by Joseph Tomkins, the nascent church’s most prominent citizen. He had come to Hillsborough from New York to lead what was at the time the area’s primary industrial concern, the gypsum mine and associated plaster works of the Albert Manufacturing Company.

Tomkins is also believed to be responsible for another of

Continued on page 9 the church’s unusual design features – a fireplace that faces into the vestibule rather than into the main body of the church.

Jubb says, “the original plans in the Steeves’ House Museum show the fireplace facing the congregation. Now, I say this tongue in cheek, but rumour has it that Mr. Tomkins wanted the fireplace facing the other up there since in her memory. He has never come down.”

Haire has been deacon at St. Mary’s for nine years and was a lay reader for 10 years prior to that. St. Mary’s has been linked with other Anglican churches in the area for a number of years, rather than having its own fulltime priest; Haire fills a key role as deacon.

Recalling her call to the furnish apartments, we have helped feed people with groceries, we have supplied Christmas gifts to children.

“We just ask the congregation, ‘we have a need in the community’ and it just seems to be met.” way. His pew was at the back of the church facing the fireplace.

For Haire and Jubb, collaborating with their congregation to provide community outreach isn’t just a parish partnership; it is also a love story.

The two met through St. Mary’s and began dating when they were each widowed – Haire lost her husband to cancer and Jubb his wife to Parkinson’s Disease.

“He also had full access to depart when he wanted. A set of curtains would go across the back and completely block it off, so that if he wished to leave halfway through a sermon he could do so. Or so rumour has it.”

St. Mary’s boasts original features that have been in continual use since 1896, including pews, the lectern, the font, and a hand-worked wooden cross in the sanctuary.

You may not commonly encounter a menorah, an important symbol of the Jewish faith, in a Christian church. One occupies a prominent place in St. Mary’s.

Parish history recounts that, when the church first opened, St. Mary’s and the Baptist church came together to help a Jewish tinker, an Isaac Selig, through that year’s particularly tough winter. The Selig family presented the two churches, during either the 1950s or 1960s, each with a menorah in remembrance.

“We use that menorah on Christmas Eve, which is a service of light, and it ties in with the Jewish Festival of Lights (Hanukkah). We do that to show that different churches can work together, different faiths can work together. For us it is always a reminder of love, care, and compassion.”

And most original of all is the church’s toy Easter bunny, which nestles in a crux of the roof beams.

Recalls Deacon Reverend Barbara Haire, “we had a past lay reader, God love her heart, who we lost a couple of years ago to Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease. She placed Mr. Easter Bunny up there when we gave out Easter treats to the children and that bunny has stayed diaconate, Haire says, “Reverend Rob Salloum was our priest and he encouraged me to study to become a deacon, which I did. I very much enjoy my work here at St. Mary’s” and at St. Alban’s, a sister church in Riverside-Albert, Haire’s home church also presided over by her.

She speaks with pride about the church’s outreach efforts, which have ranged from providing dresses for children after an earthquake in Haiti, in partnership with the United Church and the Girl Guides, to providing meals to those in need closer to home.

“For about 12 years now we have been providing a free monthly community meal because this area has a lot of low-income, single parent, struggling families. We saw the need. It started very slowly but it has grown. During the pandemic we were feeding over a hundred people every month and we still continue to feed 80 to 85 people every month. It takes time to gain peoples’ trust.

“The needs have always been met. We have helped

Remembers Haire, “we were both lay readers at the time. I knew his late wife, he knew my late husband, we both lost our spouses. After being single for six years after I lost my husband, and several years after he lost his wife, he asked me out the night of my ordination.”

Jubb insists that she asked him out after he offered congratulations. “I was so in love with her that I proposed on Valentine’s Day, and we’ve been together now for eight years.”

They agree on the biggest challenge facing St. Mary’s, one they believe the church will meet. Notes Haire, “it is unfortunate that we do not see a lot of our youth coming back to the churches. We grew up in the church and it was very important in our lives … we need to find new ways to reach these young people … we have touched so many people through these outreach programs … we need to reach them (youth) where they are.

“I do believe that the youth will walk back to their faith.”