What a thrill today. My friend Pam and I were looking for a place to take our first kayak trip of the season, once the weather breaks and the ice turns into water that can be navigated. Actually, I should back up a bit and say we started at 7am by serving breakfast at the Salvation Army in Adrian. From there, we were looking for a church in Toledo on Locust Street that we never found that has a Latin mass on Sunday mornings. Neither one of us speaks Latin, but we wanted to experience that.
After finding a really fun looking place to launch our boats in the spring, we were reading about the historical significance of this particular area along the Maumee River. One of the three original buildings left was St. Patricks Church. Our luck had us drive right by it on the way home and find people in the church removing their Christmas decorations. We were talking to some of the parishioners of the church and as we left they were nice enough to bring us a couple of historical books about the church. One was from their 100th year anniversary and the other from the 150th. The plaque on the outside of the church and the books refer to land donated by Peter Manor, 40,000 bricks made in a nearby kiln, and 5,000 feet of black walnut lumber to help with the building project. The foundation of the church measured 30'x50', although what we saw was greatly expanded.
The stained glass in the main body of the church was simple but colorful. According to the records I was given, the windows were installed in 1894 and donated by a number of people. Reference to the artist and origin of the windows is not given. The glass used was pastel and let a lot of light in, which would have been important back in 1845 when the church was first used.
I was personally intrigued by the stained glass window shown at the bottom. Make note of the reflection of the glass on the windowsill and bible and the closeup of the stained glass. Although a simple idea, what appears to be a rolled rag method of painting around the border adds a lot of character to the piece.
The words at the bottom of the plaque outside the church read: "Through the grace of God, this little church stands today, the oldest in continuous use in the Toledo Diocese. It survived the town fire of 1846 and the cholera plague of the 1850's that eventually caused the demise of Providence, Ohio."
If you get the opportunity, take the time to stop by this great little historical church. A link to them is below.
Pat Deere
LINK: St. Patrick's Church, Providence, OH
