It’s been a year since the village of Parham experienced a lockdown, following a 10-hour manhunt after a shooting and two fires broke out.
One of the fires destroyed a historic church. Twelve months later, members of the community continue to pick up the pieces.
Historic St. James Anglican church was a landmark in Parham, until one Sunday night in June of 2020 when a gunman opened fire on neighbours in the village, burning down the church as well as the clergy house next to it.
“It’s a feeling of sadness after a year. Any time we drive past the site — any of us — it hits us like it happened yesterday,” said Frances Smith, the mayor of Central Frontenac.
The mayor explains that the 135-year-old church is missed every day.
“It just had such character and it was so visible, and so many people had so many memories of things that happened at that church from wedding to funerals to baptisms,” said the mayor.
“It just has so much history.”
“(It’s) obviously very difficult, painful experience for the whole community and especially for the members of our church where fire took their church from them,” added Alex Pierson, executive director and financial officer for the Anglican Diocese of Ontario.
Pierson explains that another Anglican church will not rise from the ashes, at least on the ashes of the former one.
“The process that we worked through, the folks up there met … and decided as a group that they were not going to rebuild and that there were going to disestablish as a congregation,” said Pierson.
Community members recall the joy that the former church brought to them.
“For a lot of people, it was their life. It was their church, my church. It was a fixture of our community,” said Mark Howes, former St. James parishioner.
Howes is also the keeper the church’s historic bell, and he’s hoping to return it to the site someday.
“That’s our hope, that we can put a memorial of some kind down at the site or in the vicinity of the site as a memorial for the many people who were involved with the church over the years,” adds Howes.
To commemorate the first anniversary of the fire and shootout, a Kingston folk music group called The Gertrudes created a video and shared it on YouTube.
Proceeds of the sale of the single are going to the Canadian Mental Health Association.
Comments