FREDRICTON – When a church is deconsecrated, along with the inevitable feeling of loss, there is a lot of work to do. One of those tasks is finding a new home for so much that’s accumulated over the decades.
One highly valued item in many New Brunswick churches is the Roll of Honour – the framed list of parishioners who answered the call to go to war. Such pieces of history have been a part of churches for decades or even a century or more.
Now, the New Brunswick Military History Museum has a special place for them. It is developing a Quiet Room as part of its expansion and welcomes Rolls of Honour from New Brunswick churches. It already has one roll – from St. James in Saint John – and would like to have more.
The museum is located at CFB Gagetown in the town of Oromocto. It is more than 50 years old and houses an impressive collection that tells the story of the province’s military history, from the 1600s to the present day.
The Rev. Peter Gillies, an avid student of history, found out about the museum’s plans for a Quiet Room during a visit last fall. “I was taken with the small collection of the Rolls of Honour they had mounted on the walls. After some discussion, I agreed to pursue reaching out to churches, so here we are.”
He sees the room and its eventual contents as the perfect solution to the quandary of where to send items when a church is closing. “Ecclesiastical things might be a bit easier to pass on, but things like memorials must truly be a problem and a concern,” he said.
The New Brunswick Anglican
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