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It was a handsome brick building with stone fittings and a tall white belfry. The main altar had been donated by a parish in North Bay and was decorated with one hundred electric lights. There was, of course, a large choir loft for one hundred singers, and beautiful carved wooden pews. Bishop Scollard returned to the site where he had formerly seen only ashes, to see a beautiful new edifice; white streamers decorated every bush and shrub outside the church. After the High Mass in Latin, Father Maynard expressed his happiness that "at last my flock has a place of worship of their own...when they returned from work which sometimes took them far away from their homes, they would have a church to worship in, a church which would always offer them a welcome and one that they could remember on their journeys." Though it would primarily provide for the spiritual welfare of the local Slovak community, early church records show that many other nationalities were represented in the congregation as well. English, Scottish, Irish, French, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Ukrainian, German and Syrian names can be found in the marriage and other registers of the church. In fact, an Italian baby, Maria Alfonzo, child of Anthony Alfonzo and Rosa Sicre, was baptized on January 5, 1908 and Father Maynard recorded in the notes that it was the first baptism performed or "primus baptismus in coal dock." The Slovak word Osada used to describe St.Peter's ,means not just church (which would be kostol) but also "community", and indeed, St.Peter's functioned as the very heart of its people. Photographs of the early days are scarce, but included in every family's album is at least one photo of the weddings, funerals, first communion and confirmation rites, or special events which took place at the church. When St.Joseph's church was built in the same area to serve the needs of the Italian parishioners in 1912, St.Peter's took on an even larger role in nurturing the cultural and social role of its Slovak population. It had an active church council , rosary society and altar society, but was also the centre gathering place for a branch of the Slovak Catholic Sokol, several branches of the First Catholic Slovak Union, and for cultural organizations such as the Krivan dance and theatrical group and the woodwind and brass orchestra. Father Maynard, the much-beloved French priest who was the first pastor of the church left in 1914. The priests who served at St.Peter's in the years following, from 1914 to 1935, were all either Slovak or of Slovak heritage. |
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