Photo Credit Lee Ann Embrey 2016
The photo was posted with the following comment:
Our own little gem of a jeweler Sunset Hill Jewelers & Fine Arts Gallery decorated her store front after being inspired by the Cartier building in NY. I think she did an excellent job! I ❤️ WC
Ebenezer AME graveyard October 1,2016
So when this nice man contacted me through Save the Ruins and Cemetery of Ebenezer AME Church Frazer PA and said he was going to get Boy Scouts and volunteers in there to clean up AND would get the AME Church to say OK, I was so glad to hear it, but didn’t hold out much hope given how the church had been treating myself and others.
His name is Al Terrell. The Boy Scouts are from the Willistown Troop. And there are others. Bible study folks from Al’s bible study and Lee’s Lawn Service. And more. And this is just the beginning.
Look at the photo above. Taken this morning. October 1, 2016. I have tears in my eyes writing this.
Ann Christie are you watching from heaven?
I learned a lesson here to have more faith in humanity. The good guys do exist and do prevail.
Mr. Terrell wants to get this place saved in perpetuity. And get the church restored.
My faith is renewed. Going to visit today. I have to say hello to my soldier, Joshua.
184 years of history. It does mean something to people.
I will post updates as I have them.
Ebenezer in June , 2016 the day we were there with Kristin Holmes from the Philadelphia Inquirer
After the Inquirer article appeared on the ruin of Ebenzer AME in Frazer, I contacted Rev Dr Mark Tyler via e-email with a few interested folks on the e-mail including local historians.
Three times.
Why email? Because also included was information to help them make an informed decision. I stupidly thought maybe if they could see what we’ve been looking up, and see photos of the spot over the past few years, they would be interested in working together to clean this place up.
When not even a simple acknowledgment of what had been sent to him was received after three attempts, I took to Twitter. Why did I take to Twitter? Because I learned that they respond to Twitter.
But the lesson I learned again is there not particularly nice about anything if you aren’t one of their “flock”.
So I will call the good pastor but I’m not expecting much. Because the continued message I received from any level of this church is they aren’t interested in preserving their history. They also aren’t interested in communicating or speaking with me.
They can pony up the money for fancy bicentennial celebration which must have been super expensive to put on, but they can’t clean up one small church yard and secure one small ruin?
I don’t even know where to go in my head with this.
And what a horrible thing to think about any church. It’s so terribly sad. They all want to speak about and preach about their marvelous history, yet when their marvelous history needs saving they don’t want any parts of it?
I guess they might not want to respond in writing because then they have wiggle room for potential deniability down the road or something?
Wow, what a take away lesson.
I do not like to think the worst of anyone, let alone a religious organization, but it’s been over three years at this point of my trying to get this place saved and it just gets more disappointing for everything of effort I expend.
The phone number is 215-925-0616.
I just phoned and I left a detailed message and who I was and why I was calling. I don’t expect a call back. I don’t expect an acknowledgment.
I really want to save this place but at this point in time I am just thoroughly disgusted. I thought doing God’s work meant you tried to save places like Ebenezer AME. You do it for future generations, you do it for ancestors living today, do it for the history and the fact it’s a sacred place, and you do it because it’s the right thing to do.
Apparently I have been operating under a misapprehension all these years. Is no wonder that people step away from organized religion.
No I’m not disappointed in God, just the people representing him.
Chris Thompson. 2011.
Today I have something sad to share. Someone I know who was a friend who had moved away passed away suddenly from a heart attack in June, and I did not know until today. His name was Chris Thompson. I thought he deserved more than a paid obituary locally so I have decided to write something today. He was a really good guy and extraordinarily talented.
A lot of you would remember him as Christopher Arthur Thompson as the former Director of Land Preservation from 2006 to 2009 at the Willistown Conservation Trust.
Or simply as Chris Thompson who lived in Berwyn. Or as in Chris Thompson who used to own a sustainable food business, a true farm to table venture called Panache Foods.
Celestial Blue by Chris Thompson. Photo courtesy of family.
To me he was just Chris, father of Alexandra and Margaret. He was the former husband of my dear high school friend Sandra Hitschler Thompson (also Shipley 1981). He and Sandra had divorced after their move back to the Midwest around 2011, and at his death he was married to Jennifer Drackley Thompson. To all of them I send love and condolences. The dynamics of couples you know change over time, but that doesn’t mean you stop being their friends or thinking about people and remembering them fondly. Such is how I feel about Chris. He was just a good guy.
Writing about the death of someone you knew and liked is so darn difficult. I liked Chris a great deal and his former wife and daughters will always be close to my heart. When I heard about his passing I thought not only of his career in land stewardship and conservation, but his art. Chris was an accomplished artist and his work hung all over the Midwest and East Coast. His art was powerful and lyrical and always blew me away.
Violet Eclipse by Chris Thompson. Photo courtesy of family.
Christopher Arthur Thompson, 56, late of Three Oaks, MI and formerly of Berwyn, PA Joliet, Ill., passed away suddenly on Friday, June 3, 2016.
Chris in his element, Photo courtesy of Chikaming Open Lands Conservancy
Born January 27, 1960 in Joliet, he was the son of Arthur and Marilyn (Smith) Thompson. Surviving are his wife, Jennifer Thompson; two daughters, Alexandra and Margaret; his mother, Marilyn Thompson of Joliet, IL; two brothers, Jeff (Nancy) Thompson of Joliet, and David (Carla) Thompson of Coal City, IL; one sister, Marianne (Joe) Haake of Joliet; his former wife, Sandra Hitschler Thompson; and several nieces and nephews.
Chris was previously employed by Willistown Conservation Trust, and worked as Executive Director of the Chikaming Open Lands Conservancy in Sawyer, MI for the last five years. Chris Thompson joined Chikaming Open Lands in 2011 at the conclusion of a nationwide search for an executive director.
He was also the former owner of Panache Foods which was based in Berwyn, PA until a move back to the Midwest in 2011.
Panache Foods launch March 2010
Panache Foods offered locally sourced local Chef prepared foods and offered CSA boxes seasonally. Panache had partnered with Kimberton Whole Foods at the time and local Chefs like Chef Francis Pascal (Trzeciak) of the Birchrunville Store Café and introduced me to my now friend Deb Street Davitt of MacDougall’s Irish Victory Cakes. I had actually photographed the launch of this business at the time, and my friend Caroline O’Halloran wrote about it when she was with Main Line Media News.
I mention this business not to diminish any other aspects of my late friend’s career but because this business at the time was at the head of the class when it came to CSA and locally sourced food. The so called Locavore movement was just revving up in our area when this business began in my opinion. There weren’t many businesses like this in existence if at all at the time. There were folks who were offering CSA shares, but not a direct to the consumer’s home business like this. This wasn’t pizza delivery, it was much more and they offered catering connections and introductions as well. It is through Panache I also made the acquaintance of the now very popular Chef Jennifer McCafferty, owner of JPM Catering in Ardmore, PA.
Panache Foods and Chris participating in Foodapalooza for First Friday Main Line in 2011
For 18 years while living in the Chicago area, Chris owned Event Management. He offered many jobs to local youth who helped him with the Food and Beverage at the Taste of Chicago. Those were challenging, but very fun times. That was part of the inspiration later in his life for Panache Foods.
He attended Joliet Catholic High School and received his undergraduate degree in Art and Anthropology, and Masters of Fine Arts degree from Northwestern University.
Chris, as I mentioned, was an accomplished artist. He was the recipient of the Scholastic Gold Key Award, a Scholastic National Gold Medal for painting, the Rotary International Scholarship for Art, the Ford Foundation Arts Fellowship, the Quita Brodhead Memorial Award from the Wayne Art Center, and the Squirrel Gallery Award of Excellence. Now as a related aside, the Squirrel Gallery was the brainchild of the late mother of my friend Averil Smith Barone (also an accomplished artist) named Valerie Lamb Smith.
Chris Thompson in his role as Executive Director of the Chikaming Open Lands Conservancy in Sawyer, MI. Photo courtesy of Chikaming Open Lands Conservancy.
Chris will be remembered for his dedication to preserving the natural beauty of both Chester County and Southwest Michigan and his appreciation for the arts. He was a wonderful husband, father, son, brother, athlete and most of all friend. He loved life and was a warm and welcoming and inclusive person by nature. He was so truly multi-faceted that on some levels he could be considered a true Renaissance man.
Chris was also a Board member of Michigan’s Heart of the Lakes Center for Land Conservation Policy.
Memorials in his name may be directed to the Chikaming Open Lands Conservancy. For information please call (815) 741-5500 or follow their donation and gift instructions on their website.
( related: ChrisThompson notification letter to supporters of COL )
Father, artist, husband, friend, conservationist. Chris Thompson was that and so much more. He will be missed. Rest in Peace, Chris.
Chris Thompson’s cool vintage truck when he lived in Berwyn, PA
This is what the ruin of Ebenezer A.M.E. church and graveyard looks like THIS week as in right now. You see, some of the East Whiteland Public Works folks went by this week to see if there was anything they could do to help those of us interested in saving this piece of history before it is too late. They were so nice to even consider doing this.
They asked how to get permission from the A.M.E. Church (national) to do this.
Good freaking question since the A.M.E. church elders are not overly communicative is a substantive way when you contact them.
Oh the irony that here they are all ready to celebrate their bicentennial in Philadelphia right after July 4th and this is how they value their history and pay tribute to their dead. What a bunch of holy hypocrites.
A.M.E. Church can you hear me now? People are willing to help and you still don’t seem to give a good god damn about these people buried here! Historically important yet everyday people.
What would Bishop Richard Allen who founded your church think? What would Bishop Richard Allen who founded your church do? Personally I think he would have come out himself to help clear the weeds. I also think he would be ashamed and disappointed in you for not being better stewards of history and of the departed.
Shame on you A.M.E. Church, shame on you .
I found a copy of the 1950s publication by Time Life that featured a picture, a glorious picture of Loch Aerie in the 1950s and bought it.
The photo is taken from the rear one there were still the water features out in the backyard and swans.
There were even once roses the climbed up the back porch.
Look how stunning!
#thisplacematters
Praying the right preservation buyer steps up for the auction April 21st.
Loch Aerie at the most recent auction preview last week.
This morning Loch Aerie a/k/a Lockwood Mansion a/k/a Glen Loch is front and center with attention where she deserves to be thanks to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Kristin Holmes wrote a beautiful article and I can’t thank her enough for the time she has spent over the past few months with my friends and I. We pitched her the story of Chester County’s LaRonda starting months ago, and the nature and cycle of news being what it was, only recently did the hard work on the article begin. Kristin told me the mansion’s story would be told again. She is a woman of her word!
Thank you Kristin.
East Whiteland’s Historic Commission ended up featured somewhat prominently in the article with a somewhat dramatic statement from it’s chair:
Loch Aerie will be razed over “my dead body,” vowed Timothy Caban, chairman of the East Whiteland Township Historical Commission
Hope he means it. Oh and he is welcome for the attention that Loch Aerie has been getting in the hopes of attracting a preservation buyer.
A small correction to the article is the misperception that Linden Hall also in East Whiteland is actually saved. It’s not. The developer said they would save it if they could build the cheap looking stick frame townhouses going up around her at Routes 30 and 352, but nothing has been done restoration-wise that is noticeable to residents thus far, isn’t that true? If some restoration has actually begin, it would be nice if East Whiteland’s Historic Commisison would share the details, wouldn’t it?
And yes I drove past Linden Hall twice yesterday. (I will stop harping about Linden Hall when I actually see some restoration and preservation occurring. Until then she is just looking like demolition by neglect.)
There is nothing substantive in East Whiteland Township to save historic structures. That needs to change. What also needs to change is East Whiteland’s historical commission needs to join the modern era and cease operating like a secret society. It should not take a reporter to get a statement out of them. They should be publicly posting agendas and meeting minutes and preservation initiatives and they do not.
Thank you to everyone who cares about Loch Aerie because #thisplacematters . And that includes the auction company. They have been so gracious and I think even they want the old gal preserved.
It will take a village and then some to save Loch Aerie. Holding my breath until it happens.
Thank you again Kristin Holmes for caring and writing a terrific article. Thank you Philadelphia Inquirer for the amazing, amazing placement!
Here is an excerpt of the article and please take the time to read the entire piece and look at the amazing photos he Inquirer took:
News: Squeezed by development, grand Chester County mansion goes on the block.
by Kristin E. Holmes, Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer Updated: APRIL 10, 2016 — 1:08 AM EDT
Before the Sheraton moved in across the road, before Home Depot set up shop next door, Loch Aerie was the bewitching summer estate of a gentleman farmer who amassed a great fortune manufacturing paper shirt collars…..Loch Aerie’s admirers worry for its future.
“What tends to happen with sites like these is that because they are outside the city, they are viewed as only locally significant, when that’s not true,” said Aaron Wunsch, an assistant professor of historic preservation at the University of Pennsylvania. “This house is regionally significant, and we are losing the interesting big suburban houses of that period.”
La Ronda, a Bryn Mawr mansion by renowned resort architect Addison Mizner, was razed in 2009….The two-acre property is owned by the family of Daniel Tabas, who bought it in 1967. With his brother, Charles, Tabas amassed a business and real estate empire that included Mickey Rooney’s Tabas Hotel in Downingtown, Twelve Caesars banquet hall on City Avenue, and the Riverfront Restaurant & Dinner Theater in Philadelphia. He died in 2003.
The family attempted to auction off Loch Aerie several years ago, and turned down an offer of more than $600,000, said Bob Dann, the auction house’s chief operating officer. This time the family will accept the minimum bid, he said…Chester County historian Eugene DiOrio contends that Loch Aerie would easily qualify for the National Register of Historic Places
You have survived so much Loch Aerie. Finger crossed for your future.
Spotlight was the movie we had all heard of sort of, but not really. It wasn’t featuring Marvel superheroes, didn’t have R2D2 and Hans Solo skipping across galaxies far far away, it wasn’t embroiled in Hollywood’s color war. It is a movie so incredibly freaking profound that if you DON’T see it now, you are missing something extraordinary, significant, moving and very, very real.
Spotlight is the story of the Boston Globe Spotlight reporters who did the unthinkable: they took on the Catholic Church in Boston in 2001-2002 over pedophile priests. This dogged team of reporters and an editor who assigned them the story did the unthinkable at the time. They actually took down Boston’s powerful Cardinal Bernard Law.
Cardinal Bernard Law, now retired, much like has happened with these pedophile priests was essentially sent away and not to a life of reflection and penance, just read here:
WBUR Boston
…when critics call for more transparency and accountability, it’s Cardinal Bernard Law they often point to.
Law was forced to resign as bishop of the Archdiocese of Boston after a series of stories by a team of investigative reporters at The Boston Globe found victims and uncovered documents showing that church authorities had protected pedophile priests from prosecution — a story that will be revisited by the release next month of a new movie called “Spotlight.”
But despite the disgrace that befell Cardinal Law in Boston, he found a comfortable and influential second career at the Vatican….
The Globe’s Spotlight team of investigative reporters had revealed that Law and other bishops before him had covered up the priests’ crimes against children, then moved the priests to new parishes and, as it turned out, new victims.
But during that press conference, the cardinal insisted not once, but three times that it was all in the past. Not a pedophile priest was still in service.
“When he made those statements, we knew they were false,” says Globe editor Walter Robinson, who was on the team that uncovered the abuse….Like Nixon, Law said he wouldn’t go. But eventually he had to — a grand jury was afoot and both priests and parishioners were demanding he step down….
A poster boy for the sexual abuse scandal in one country, Law came to another, the Vatican, in May 2004, where protected and assisted by friends and allies he actually became more influential than he had ever been in Boston.
Pope John Paul II named Law archpriest of one of Rome’s four papal basilicas, and its most magnificent: Santa Maria Maggiore, the first church dedicated to Mary….Law, who had only given up his position as archbishop of Boston, was allowed to keep his seat in the College of Cardinals….
Law is about to turn 84 — he’s grown old in Rome, listening to Italian church bells.
Now retired, he can no longer cast a vote to elect a new pope or to recommend the appointment of new bishops. But he still wears a red hat and, by all accounts, lives comfortably in the earliest Renaissance palace in Rome — the Palazzo della Cancelleria, or the Papal Chancellery.
This article, which was a news story September 2015 is long and well worth everyone reading either before or after seeing Spotlight, the movie. And thanks to The Boston Globe, you can now read once again the story behind the ‘Spotlight’ movie.
This movie Spotlight moved me like no other in years, truly. It wasn’t cute or sweet or a date night movie. It was raw and real and while you don’t want kids to see it they almost should.
And I so got this movie.
Why?
Because for years, I lived in a neighborhood in Lower Merion Township loaded with small children and a slightly creepy priest who is now convicted and jailed pedophile priest (now inmate number KL8296 look him up)
After the Boston Globe and their groundbreaking series of articles other major cities in the US with major Catholic Church strongholds started investigating and publishing. It happened with the Philadelphia Inquirer. I believe 2003 was the start. You can’t seem to find that far back on the the Inquirer’s website, but Bishop Accountability has articles dating back from the paper to December 2003.
And it was a Sunday in 2005 that I remember a front page story of all of these priests in the Philadelphia Inquirer and all their photos. That was when a slew of information was released in a grand jury report.
There was the priest from my neighborhood. He had been placed on administrative leave in 2003. Eventually he was de-frocked. But no one watched this guy, he wasn’t on Megan’s List, he roamed our neighborhood. And when both his mother and brother passed he inherited a very valuable apartment building property in our neighborhood and lived there.
He drove a Lexus with vanity plates even while a priest. He was even seem driving through our neighborhood in warmer weather in what we swore was an older gold Rolls Royce convertible in a panama hat.
If you flash forward to 2012, you can find on Bishop Accountability an entire file on this guy written by Ralph Cipriano for the Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog:
“Father Ed” … liked to hang out at Smokey Joe’s and drink beer with college kids. He was into sleepovers with altar boys. He also preferred to spin records as a DJ rather than say Mass….The priest, a defendant in the archdiocese sex abuse case, pleaded guilty last week to conspiracy to endanger the welfare of a child, and involuntary deviant sexual intercourse with a 10-year-old, and faces a prison sentence of 2 1/2 to 5 years. But that guilty plea didn’t end Father Ed’s role in the ongoing archdiocese sex abuse case.
…A psychological examination of the priest concluded that Father Ed had a bi-polar disorder, and a history of alcohol abuse. A psychologist wrote to tell Msgr. Lynn that Father Ed was also “dealing with shame.” It happened after the victim confronted Father Ed at St. John Vianney. After treating the priest, the psychologist wrote Msgr. Lynn that he had “concern about other victims.”
(here is a PDF of a cache of the original referring blog: _The Avery Files_ _ Big Trial _ Philadelphia Trial Blog )
Yup this guy was not only roaming free until he went to prison (which I wrote about on this blog in 2012) but when he went for “treatment” it was to that St. John Vianney Center in Downingtown. I was told this is a quasi-open campus? And is it near schools?
So anyway there is a scene in Spotlight where one of the reporters realizes a “treatment center” for problem priests was around the corner from his home. It made me think of all of this.
I wrote in my 2012 post :
In late October 2009 while at a political event for a potential local candidate from my old neighborhood, he approached me. Why me I will never know, because we weren’t buddies. He was always filed as be polite and keep on moving whenever I saw him. He sat there with a beer in his hand and told me how he was being targeted blah, blah, blah. There I sat with camera in hand not knowing what to do. It was horribly uncomfortable to listen to someone you did not believe for one hot moment with empathy. I remember saying to him his choice of venue to discuss his current events with neighbors and locals was inappropriate at best, and if he was innocent, the truth would will out. Ick.
What I did not write about at the time was later speaking to the person running for office and people volunteering for him asking them if they ever read the newspaper because at that point in time, that guy had already been on the front page of The Philadelphia Inquirer and in a slew of other articles. Would you have wanted this guy at a political fundraiser where kids were actually in attendance? (Again he eventually pled guilty to abuse charges in 2012.)
(Here is a giant docket on the PA Courts website about these pedophile priests in the Lynn trial.)
Flash forward a couple of years and it also brings to mind a conversation I had with a then very pompous and sour Monsignor at St. Catherine of Siena in Wayne a few years back during of all things a viewing before a funeral. At the time, I was planning a move to Wayne and that would have been my new parish had I chosen one. This man was all up in my face about getting married in “The Church.” In March 2011, that parish had a priest removed on suspected abuse charges. And it was the one who had given me a “talking to” as it were.
Once again it made me think about the irony of the Catholic Church being worried about my immortal soul, yet for how long in the greater Philadelphia area did they move pedophile priests around like some sort of twisted shell game or chess pieces on a board?
And when I moved to Chester County I was reminded of even more pedophile priests removed from Chester County parishes. They were written up in an article in Main Line Media News in 2011. They were from St. Isaac Jogues, Our Lady of the Assumption (rectory), and St. Patrick’s parish right in the Borough of Malvern. At the time NBC10 Philadelphia did a great report on this (CLICK HERE).
I will freely admit as a Catholic that I still can’t reconcile what my church and the Archdiocess of Philadelphia did over the years. I can remember when I was in my early twenties when a guy who was dating a friend of mine at the time recounted a story of a abusive priest when he was growing up. The obvious pain when he spoke about it at the time was palpable. Can’t remember the guy’s name – it was too long ago. But I can still remember the pain on his face as he spoke of it and the experience of basically no one much believing him.
These abuse stories have grown and multiplied over the years locally, internationally, and nationwide. They aren’t going away, yet the Catholic Church here in the US really doesn’t want you dwelling on them.
The Catholic Church is by it’s very history a very powerful machine. Politically, socially, religiously. If you speak out about the Catholic church even in a local setting, you are absolutely guaranteed to make someone uncomfortable. In 2014 when a monsignor involved in the Philadelphia cover-up was released from jail, reporter Karen Heller summed it up beautifully she wrote the Philadelphia Archdiocese was prolonging it’s own suffering.
The Pope’s visit to Philadelphia in 2015 once again placed the sexual abuse spotlight back on Philadelphia (as well as placed an interesting spotlight on the very ambitious and often seemingly cold fish Archbishop Charles Chaput.) The Pope’s comments in Washington DC on the topic were criticized and I am sure Philadelphia’s Chaput wasn’t thrilled the Holy Father met with abuse victims.
This month, a couple of weeks ago another pedophile priest (this time from SS Simon and Jude in Westtown) was sentenced to 20 years in prison. (See February 19, 2016 Philadelphia Inquirer article by Jeremy Roebuck.)
And after watching Spotlight, I think everyone should say “thank you” to both the real reporters from Boston who broke this wide open in 2002 but to the actors and filmmakers who told their story so incredibly well. No wonder these reporters won a Pulitzer in 2003.
This also should make us respect and want to keep our print newspapers across the country alive. So many newspapers are essentially on life support. They tell our stories, they risk their own careers and lives to tell a lot of these stories.
Here is what CNN said this morning about the Oscars for Spotlight:
(CNN)“Spotlight” is basking in the golden glow of Oscar….when the last award of the evening was read, it was the little film about Boston Globe investigative reporters digging into a sex abuse scandal involving Catholic priests that was left standing.
“This film gave a voice to survivors,” producer Michael Sugar said. “And this film amplifies that voice, which we hope will become a choir that will resonate all the way to the Vatican.”
It was one of just two awards “Spotlight” took home. The film also won for Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer’s original screenplay.
I will freely and fully admit that it was the Oscar buzz and subsequent win that made me sit and watch the movie “Spotlight”.
I urge everyone to watch this movie regardless of their faith, but especially if they were raised Catholic.
When you are raised Catholic unless you experienced the horror of clergy sexual abuse you have a hard time wrapping your head around the topic. At first. Then you realize some of the accused are a little too close to where you call home. Then you wonder why your Church expects the fealty and obedience of the devout and faithful is so hypocritical. It’s quite a dilemma.
I myself am Catholic. I was raised Catholic. I am still Catholic but have I been to Catholic church in a few years? Except for funerals, no. Do I consider myself lapsed? No, even if some would disagree. I am still a Catholic but I have somewhat lost faith in my church. How have they protected the children with their ongoing cover their ass? How are those actions God speaking through them?
I can’t answer that. Maybe someday I will. Until then, I know where God is and that anyone can speak to him, you just have to believe.
I am sure this post will be a bit heavy for some, and I am sorry for that. But seriously? Spotlight really mad me think about this whole thing again. Go see it and if you live in Chester County support non-profits like Justice4PAKids.
Thanks for stopping by
