A year or two after Reverend Thomas Ramsey and his wife Margaret retired to a house in Chambly, more than a decade after leaving the parish to serve in the district of Hochelaga, Montreal, he decided to draw a holiday card of St. Stephen’s that evoked its Christmas eve service. At that time, my parents’ list of card recipients ran close to 200 names.
Dad made a large-scale drawing in black ink, which was photocopied to the size of a small greeting card. Then the real work began: he hand-painted each one. For days, the living room looked like flights of paper birds had landed, as he applied watercolours to successive stacks of cards then left them to dry.
Many people commented on the card, which spurred him to make others, including local scenes but also other churches where he had a personal history; Dad worked for years after being officially retired, travelling to fill in at nearby parishes.
When the current rector of Chambly, Reverend Andy O’Donnell, asked me to prepare something for the December issue of The Anglican, he suggested reprinting one of the cards featuring a local church, asking parishioners if they had others. Instead, I dug up all that I have: six local churches plus one from Cap à l’Aigle, where dad preached for several years for a month in the summertime.
I would love to learn if parishioners have any that I am missing. I know that he made one of St. James, Farnham, that I do not have. And I would love to see a coloured version of St. Mark, Longueuil, as mine is simply black and white.
If you happen to have the missing card, contact Nicki Hronjak at [email protected].
