ORIGINALLY POSTED IN THE CAPE BRETON POST ON 13NOV2024

LOUISBOURG — When the St. Bartholomew's Anglican Church entered the deconstruction process earlier this year, some parishioners said they were promised items kept in the building. These include plaques, furniture, art and other belongings that have family ties for church attendees, or had an understanding with the church that the items were there on loan.

However, with the Louisbourg church’s deconstruction nearing completion, some churchgoers say that neither the Parish of the Resurrection (the parish governing Anglican churches in Sydney and Louisbourg) nor the contractor have allowed them to retrieve certain items. And other belongings, like Iris Stevens family’s stained glass windows, are nowhere to be found. “It’s such a sad situation,” said Stevens, 91, through tears at her Louisbourg home while looking down at photos of the windows and church.

The six windows were originally placed in the former St. Peter's Anglican Church in Big Lorraine by Stevens’ great-grandparents and other ancestors before her family moved them to St. Bartholomew's in 1967 as St. Peter’s was decommissioned and torn down.
Further, she said the windows date back to the time when the English occupied the Fortress of Louisbourg and the town, when a Church of England church was first established in the area.

“I said, I’ve got to get those windows back. These were put there in memory of all of our people,” she said of the interior display windows. There was also another window placed specifically in memory of her parents for which the family paid $7,000.

Her husband, Earl, visited the deconstruction site almost “every day” she said. Employees of the contractor, Yorks Timberstone, told him they would call once the windows were removed from the site and ready to hand back to churchgoers.

But in August, a minister from the Anglican Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island — which governs Anglican churches in the region — told Stevens she wouldn’t be getting the windows because the church “can’t afford it.” That came despite Stevens offering to pay for the windows’ removal. The items were soon gone from the site — contrary to what a tearful Stevens said she was led to believe by other members of the church and parish.

“Here you have your church, (in) which you were born, baptized, married and buried. These people doing something like this to you, it’s unreal. It’s almost like a bad dream.”

Church under deconstruction

Last year, the church’s congregation chose to deconstruct St. Bartholomew's after it sustained severe damage from post-tropical storm Fiona. Estimates to fix the building were in the $2 million range — a steep bill for the church to foot, especially given the church’s insurer offered just a few hundred thousand dollars for repairs.

The congregation now gathers at the Zion Presbyterian Church across Main Street. As of the end of October, most of the building and steeple have been torn down.

Around that time, Stevens and other parishioners asked around to find out how to retrieve their items. She said one parish warden visited her to ensure the return of her windows. Other members of the church, parish and diocese said via emails viewed by the Cape Breton Post that they favoured the return of the items to congregation members. Some even had their items returned.

Pat Lewis is one church member working to get items back. Alongside other church members, she took stock of items inside the church last November to go back to churchgoers.

Lewis also had a stained glass window placed in memory of the family, as well as an altar lamp belonging to the family. As well, plaques were placed on various items around the church, to note that an object was there in memory of someone.

Lewis said she got the lamp back, but not the window or plaques. Originally, she said approval to receive items had to come from diocese leaders in Halifax, but also from local leaders, making the process confusing.

“If the contractor’s contract said that they were given everything that was in the church, why weren’t we told this whenever they issued the contract? Why were we allowed to be run along up until September thinking we were getting these items, and all of a sudden getting told that we weren’t getting them?”

Lewis said many of the items had been visible inside the church since the roof’s removal, exposing what hadn’t been taken out yet to the elements.

Congregation property, not loaned

In contractor Yorks Timberstone’s business model, it generates revenue through the acquisition of a property’s items acquired through the deconstruction process. Yorks Timberstone couldn’t be reached for comment.

From the parish’s standpoint, said a warden, items inside the church — including Stevens’s windows — were church property because they were considered donations, not loans. “It would be like if I donated two cans of beans to the food bank and then 40 years later, went to the food bank to ask to have my beans back,” said Margaret Fraser.

She said even with this being the case, the parish spoke with congregation members hoping to return some items. But in the case of windows — which have a value of about $500 per square foot — they accounted for more than $100,000 worth of value that the contractor now had guaranteed to them via a signed contract with the parish last winter. Fraser said there “were some miscommunications” between the parish, churchgoers and contractor, but that “everything was done in good faith.”

She said deconstruction — costing in the range of $270,000 according to Fraser — was a cheaper option for the church than a roughly $350,000 demolition. She said the majority of the church congregation agreed on the deconstruction, determined through an “extensive series” of meetings.

“Once a contract has been signed with the company, everything that is in the building becomes the property of the company to dispose of or sell on. That’s how they make their profit,” Fraser said.

The current whereabouts of the windows aren’t clear. But Stevens said should she retrieve them, her family planned to offer them to the Sydney & Louisburg Railway Museum.

“We didn’t want the windows for ourselves. We wanted them for the historical value,” she said.
“Every day, we’re losing part of our history. And this was something else that was going to be here to tell the story of Louisbourg.”
— Luke Dyment, Special to the Cape-Breton-Post