There’s One Stained Glass Window

Dr. Mary Louise McCarthy-Brandt reflects on the significance of St Peter’s Anglican Church in Springhill (New Brunswick), and the stained glass window that commemorates her ancestors.

Transcription

Close up of Mary Louise McCarthy-Brandt, seated outside in St Peter’s Anglican Church cemetery, with the church in the distant background.

[Mary Louise McCarthy-Brandt] With oral history, we try to take these fragments, and weave a story of actual ancestral… ancestral groundings, and go forward, so, when Sabinah Grant had two sons, George Leek was one of them (George Rexford Leek), and he was a very accomplished… carpenter. And he helped build this church back the first time it was built, which was in 1837. And then I think there’s been progressive additions to the Saint Peter’s Anglican Church… And

[wider view of Mary Louise, seated on the left in St Peter’s Anglican Church cemetery, with the church in the distant background. Seated on the right is Jennifer Dow. On the table between them is a bouquet of flowers]

I was told, and I’m told by oral history, that the stained glass window…

[close up of a stained glass widow inside St Peter’s church, depicting George Leek and his neighbours building the church]

there’s one stained glass window that reflects the Black labourers who built the church, and… it’s quite a unique… stained glass window, because they… it actually shows evidence of Black workers.

[return to a wide view of Mary Louise,seated on the left in St Peter’s Anglican Church cemetery, with the church in the distant background. Seated on the right is Jennifer Dow. On the table between them is a bouquet of flowers]

You know, they have the artist’s representation, they have curly hair, and so… Yes! I feel very very connected to this community in this area.