Church
of the Advent
Ridgetown
Organist:
Churchwardens: Shirley Cudmore (pictured) and Ron
Bolohan (pictured)
Treasurer:
Lay
Delegate to Synod: Shirley Cudmore
Services are
held each Sunday at 11 am. You are most welcome to join us anytime.
The dozen
members of the Men’s Club meet for Eucharist and breakfast on the first Sunday
of each month. Eucharist begins at 8 am at the church and is followed by
fellowship and breakfast at
For our upcoming events and current Sunday schedules (who’s preaching),
see the Announcements page (link to the left, and below).
What else goes on? Here’s something submitted by Allen Ure. He says, “The Church of the Advent, from youngest to oldest prepare to donate to the Food Bank in Ridgetown…”
Drop your contributions off any Sunday!
Our hall –
moved to the site in the 1940s (read all about it below…)
ś
Historical Information
submitted by Allen Ure
The first Anglican service in Ridgetown was held on November 3, 1878. The following Easter, a Vestry was organized and named the Church of the Advent as suggested by Bishop Baldwin. The cornerstone was laid in July 1884 and the Church officially opened on July 5, 1885. Please note that the Church was completed in about 9 months that included the winter. One of the main contractors was William Allen and his son George. There are still descendants of these contractors in our Church today. Do you know who they are?
Morning attendance at the official opening was 400, with 200 at the afternoon service and another 450 at evensong. The Rectory was built in 1900 and the first family to live in the Rectory was Reverend and Mrs. F.M. Baldwin. How many of you have heard or felt the ghost of Mrs. Smith in our Rectory? In 1907, the Church basement was excavated and made into a Sunday School room as well as an all purpose meeting room. This remained the meeting room until the 1940’s when the old gymnasium was purchased from the High School and moved to its present site as our Parish Hall. The first organ was purchased for the Church in 1898 and it required hand pumping. Electric lights were installed in the Church in 1914.
We have had
the children of 5 rectors go on to become ministers in the Anglican
Church. They are: Reginald Scott, Stuart
Brownlee, Howard Hamilton, Derwyn Jones and Robert
Bennett. For the record, 2 of these
gentlemen have gone on to become Bishops in our Diocese as did former Rector
Carman Queen.
Our Church
is filled with many memorial gifts but perhaps the most lasting memorials are
our stained glass windows. In 1955,
Canon John Smith designed a scheme of windows that depict the life of
Christ. The center panel in the East
window depicts Christ Teaching. The
north panel is of
The Church
was first redecorated in 1947 and 1948 and this lasted until 1996 when it was
done again. This time, the walls were
removed and insulation placed in the walls before drywall and painting was
completed.
The first
recorded baptism in our Parish was that of James Presling. The first recorded marriage was that of John
Savage and Fanny Medcalf on December 3, 1884. The first recorded marriage in the Church was
between Charles Bruce Kelly and Lottie Vanderlip on June 4, 1891. The first baptism in the Church was Mabel Irene
Kennedy on August 17, 1886.
Our
ministers up to the formation of the Parish of the Transfiguration have
been: Rev. Wm. M. Shore, Rev. A.B.B.
Burt, Rev. Wm. E. Scott, Rev. Edwin Lee, Rev. F.M. Baldwin, Rev. W.F. Brownlee,
Rev. A.L. Murray, Rev. A. Shore, Rev. T.J. Hamilton, Rev. S.S. Hardy, Rev. P.
Powell, Rev. Wm. Wallace, Rev. Walter Jones, Rev. J. H. Geoghagen,
Rev. Carman J. Queen, Rev. Douglas Henry, Canon J. H. Smith, Rev. Dennis Ewald, Rev. Lewis Dixon, Rev. Wm. Bennett, Rev. Gary Oldridge, Rev. John Marsh, Rev. Stephen Oldham, Rev. Rob Skirving, Rev. David Pickett, Rev. Jim Carr, and Rev.
Heather Robinson.
[Webmaster’s
Note: Other Ridgetown parishioners wish to add to
Allen’s list those members of clergy (rectors, priests-in-charge, associates and
assistants) who have come after the
Parish clustering. Those are the Rev’d Heather Robinson, the Rev’d Jack Beedle,
the Rev’d Dr Greg Gilson, the Rev’d Michelle Collins-Wongkee, the Rev’d David
Fuller, the Rev’d John Latham, Canon Meurig Lloyd and
the Rev’d Stephen Demitroff.]
Home | Ridgetown | Highgate | Dresden | Thamesville | Florence | Aughrim | Letters/photos | Newsletter
(the latest) | Announcements | Report
from Synod | Our
Rectors | Ghost
Chapels |
In
Memoriam | Did
you know? | Contact us