Up the Gatineau! Article
This article was first published in Up the Gatineau! Volume 3.
The Little White Church at Cascades
Lillian (Wilson) Walton
The little white church was built as a school house around the year 1858, and used for church services on Sunday. Two of my uncles, George and Wyman Cross attended this school. Our family went there until the new one-room red brick school was built in 1919. I remember the first grade being dismissed early, and how I ran all the way home, past a grove of tall pine trees that whistled and cracked in the wind. This little girl was really scared! The sounds were so frightening.
My mother, Alice Cross Wilson, was Church Organist for over 40 years at Cascades. This included both United and Anglican services. After we children went to bed at night, she would practice her hymns for Sunday. Through a stove-pipe hole in the large dining-room of the 30-room Peerless Hotel, the music, and heat, wafted up to the bedroom above, where at least four of the younger children slept in wintertime. To the sounds of the organ, and the many hymns we knew by heart, we drifted off to sleep.
We children had our own interpretation of the words of some hymns. “Shall we gather at the river, the beautiful, beautiful river," was to us none other than our beautiful Gatineau River! Another hymn “Jesus loves me," with one verse ending “When at last I come to die, He will take me home on high" was interpreted as going to Heaven in “high gear!”.
There were few automobiles in those days, and when men gathered in the general store much of their conversation was about cars. To make some of those steep Gatineau hills “in high gear" was quite a feat. “Home on high" meant just that to us.
One of my sisters told me that mother had promised her a new coat if she would play the organ on Easter Sunday. She was only 17 at the time. Wanting the new coat so much, she practiced diligently. It was arranged that another sister would sit in the front pew and signal the end of the hymn by closing her hymn book. Everything went well, until the minister had to walk over and ask her to stop playing. Our young organist saw no signal from her sister, who deliberately did not close her book, as a joke! With eyes on the notes, she played on and on. However, she got her new coat!
Both my mother and father were in charge of a Sunday school class. When my father was “courting” Alice Cross, they sat together in church. Whenever the hymn “Jesus Keep Me Near The Cross" was played, he would squeeze her hand!
Not only having her share in looking after a post office, general store, public telephone and the hotel, my mother gave birth to ten children. It was heart-breaking for her to see her eldest son, Delmar, go off to World War I, at the age of 18.
I remember my mother telling me about two church services performed one after the other. The Anglican minister would arrive by bus from Chelsea, preach his service, and return to Chelsea on the same bus, which had been waiting in Wakefield about half an hour. On this particular Sunday the United minister was still preaching overtime when the Reverend E.G. May arrived. After waiting outside with a few Anglicans, he became impatient. He opened the door and shouted “time's up!" The “God be with you . . came in a hurry from the United minister.
I have a ruby glass bowl with gold leaf design, which we called the “christening bow|." This was part of a wedding gift to my parents, married in 1893. The bowl was taken to the church to hold the baptismal water each time a christening of our family occurred.
Wedding dresses of that era were very elaborate in detail, as seen in my parent's picture of 1893. Popular were leg-of-mutton sleeves, pleats, frills and lace trim. The bodice design had a focal point, ending at the slim waist.
There is a small Mother of Pearl “horn of plenty" worn by my mother on her dress. This is a gentleman's watch fob, and would signify good luck or having plenty. The end of the horn has filigree and a small ruby stone set in its centre. Seventy-nine years later, our daughter wore it on her wedding dress in June 1972.
My mother was very active in church and community work. A set of dishes was presented to her in early years for her contribution. During World War I, she also received a silver sugar bowl with sugar spoons. Many of these social events took place at the Peerless Hotel over the years.
Another social evening I remember well in the early 20's. My mother was presented with a set of cutlery as a gift upon her resignation as Church organist. She was so surprised and overwhelmed with gratitude, that she was easily persuaded to stay on. I still have the eight ivory-handled Sheffield stainless steel knives which are in use daily.
My mother lived all her life at Cascades. Her favourite hymn, “Unto The Hills" was played at her funeral in 1948. This particular hymn, a paraphrase of psalm 121, was written by the Marquis of Lorne, who served as Governor General of Canada, from 1878 to 1883. The tune “Sandon" with which the hymn is associated, was written in 1860 by Charles Henry Purday.
The Marquis of Lorne must have been inspired to write this hymn, looking at the beautiful Gatineau Hills from Government House, the very same hills my mother loved!
“Unto the hills around, do I lift my longing eyes..."
George Cross died on 13 May 1962, aged 87 and Wyman Cross died just this year on February 28 at the age of 95.