The grand opening of the mini St. Bridget's Anglican Church was held Oct. 7 at the cemetery grounds. The church bell rang a few minutes before the opening. It was a cool, cloudy, windy day, but almost at the stroke of the 3 p.m. service the wind went down, clouds cleared and the sun shone for a little over an hour.
It was 1910 when the first harvest service was held in the old St. Bridget's Anglican Church. At that time the church was decorated with grain sheaves, harvested vegetables and flowers. It was decorated much the same for the mini church. The little church even held the old church organ that had been in storage.
Naedean Mitchell of Battleford, formerly of our area, played a few hymns on the old pump organ. Stanley and Dorothy Mills made up a handout for all attending. Maralyn Wintersgill presided over the service and opening program. Maralyn's daughter Loren presented Edward and Maralyn with an engraved plaque to be placed about the church door in honour of the work they did to build the church. There was a good turnout. The Belands from Denholm, Harvey and Rose Mitchell of Grand Prairie, Alta. attended, besides visitors from North Battleford, Battleford and the local area. There was time before and after the opening to take a walk through the cemetery.
After the opening everyone went to the community centre of a Thanksgiving potluck lunch.
On display at the community centre were a number of posters of old photos loaned to the centre of display and a copy of the old church record book used to record the Sunday services held in the old Baljennie Community Hall after St. Bridget's Anglican Church burned in July of 1952. It was hit by lightning.
Also on display was an old iron plaque of First World War veterans. The plaque hung on the wall of the old church and when it burned the plaque fell into the ashes. It was dug out by a community member. The heat of the fire damaged the plaque, but it was still readable. It was taken to the Western Development Museum in North Battleford and put into storage. It was rediscovered a few years later and was returned to the Baljennie Community Club and had been in storage at a local family farm.
This plaque was erected by the Soldiers' Welcome Aid League of Baljennie. The names on the play are: Roll of Honour 1914-1918 - James B. Arnold, Harry Leech, John Laycock, William H. Megaffin, George Plews, William E Piddington, Frank Saunders and Edgar Wallis.
A big thank you goes out to Edward and Maralyn Wintersgill for taking on the project of building the church replica. Their contribution will be remembered by many people in the future. Stop in and pay a visit. Please leave it as you find it and shut the door as well as the cemetery gates when you leave.
The RM of Glenside held an election at Spinney Hill Community Centre Oct. 24. Wade Parkinson was elected reeve and in Division 5, Robert Greer was reelected. All the other divisions were returned by acclamation. Cheryl Forbes remains as the RM secretary. The RM office is located in Biggar.
Glen and Eileen Peters of Rainbow Lake, Alta. Spent a week visiting in the area, hoping to haul in their hay bales, but the rain and snow ended the hauling.
Also visiting in the area were Kim and Ron Lamont of Kindersley to finish the clean up on their pasture land.
Stanley and Dorothy Mills spent a weekend at Estevan. Stanley took in the small engines and hand made motors and many other hobby machines at the Estevan Model Engineering show held at the Wylee Mitchell Centre. There was a good number of displays to view. Most of them had working machines, lathes and model engines. Display entries came from all parts of Canada and from as far away as the United States. This year was the 25th anniversary of the show.
By the looks of conditions outside harvesting and fieldwork has come to an end for the season. A few farmers were not done combining.
We have had snow in October before and it all melted, but this was so much more and may be the beginning of winter.
