The following is a brief history of the Church of Our Lady, a little church that came into being through the determination of a group of immigrants who had come from England and found themselves in a strange land. These people had a strong desire for a church of the faith of their fathers.

The families of Percy Tonge and Ernest Chapman and several of their neighbours constructed the church. In 1924 the first Church of Our Lady was built by volunteers. It was to be a High Anglican church.

The original church was built out of unpeeled logs; the bell in its belfry had been donated by the CNR after it had been salvaged from a train wreck in the late teens or early twenties. The pews and pulpit had been hand-carved.

Approximately 10 years after the church was built it was slowly deteriorating due to water seeping into the unpeeled logs, causing them to rot.

In the winter of 1935-36 the Church of Our Lady was rebuilt out of pine logs, and the entire community turned out to help, including a gentleman from the U.S.S.R., who was perhaps remembering that all houses of worship in his homeland had been closed by the communist government and the ministers and priests imprisoned. He came with his axe to help peel the logs.

The Church of Our Lady is a beautiful little church and it should be protected and the necessary renovation done. Muskoka has lost two churches: (1) the Smith Church on Muskoka Road 13, a cement block structure erected in 1932 collapsed due to neglect in the late 1990s. Vandals had been busy in the late 1970s and I saw the damage that was done; and (2) Christ Church in Port Sydney was burned down by a vandal.

We can’t afford to lose any more houses of worship. The village of New Holm renovated their Trinity Church and it was in a sad state of disrepair when the townspeople went to work and made the church look as though it had just been built. Does the Church of Our Lady deserve to be so badly neglected? My answer is “No!”

The Church of Our Lady is the house of God and should be treated with respect. This church reminds me of a beautiful country gospel song recorded by the Carter Family about the time that the church was rebuilt, “A Church in the Wildwood”:

There’s a church in the valley by the wildwood

No lovelier place in the dell

It’s bell so sweetly is calling

Oh come to the church in the dell.

Chorus:

Oh come, come, come to the church in the wildwood

Oh come to the church in the vale

No spot is so dear to my childhood

Than the little brown church in the dell.

How sweet on a clear Sabbath morning

To listen to the clear ringing bell

It’s tone so sweetly is calling

Oh come to the church in the dell.

I am thinking now of my loved one

Who is sleeping where the wild flower bloom

When the farewell hymn should be chanted

I will rest by her side in the tomb.

Please help to save the Church of Our Lady from destruction.

Audrey Thompson

Kilworthy