The Press., 1921-02-03

day! Ana Cn1S O0pF0SSlOu was uOL of short duration. It lasted during several years of the present admins tratiOn. To save the buildings Father O'Neill was advised to borrow thousand dollars. In his youth he had been an altar boy in Willimantic to
 Father DeBruycker who had built the old church in Stafford Springs. Tie altar boy mentioned to his old pastor the difficulties of making repairs with
 no money, and the old pastor lent
 him 5000 without interest to repair ! the roofs of the church and school.
 On his death bed, a short time after
 wards, Father DeBruycker left this
 5000 to Father O'Neill who in turn
 left it to St. Edwards parish. During
 the six years following, many par
 ishioner worked to repair parish prop
 erty without taking a cent of pay.
 Father O'Neill himself did manual la
 bOr all these years. His efforts were we'll supported by his people. Five
 hundred men, women and children
 helped him with their hands to re-
 model, enlarge and beautify the cem-
 etery. The long vacant treasury had
 not permitted any money to be spent
 on the resting place of the dead. For ! this reason, ground consecrated to be
 Gods Acre had become a wild and shapeless desert. So overgrown it
 was with weeds, briars and bushes
 that parishioners now alive shot par tridges and quails near the hidden
 tombstones. Only few of the taller
 stones could be seen from the rail-
 road. None of the cemetery could be
 seen from West Main street. A lady parishioner told the pastor that she
 had been visiting the cemetery many
 times year for 30 years and did not know there was river near it, nor
 the pretty round hill on which the
 windmill now stands. None but the
 hunters and fishermen were acquaint-
 ed with the hidden surroundings.
 Said pious son of Erin on his death
 bed. to his pastor, Sure it's not hell
 fear at all, father. It's being planted
 in that miserable patch of weeds and
 bushes. Indeed it was easier for
 Pharao's daughter to find Moses in
 the bulrushes than it will be for the
 Angel Gabriel to find Mike in the
 white birches. But may be Gabriel
 has good rabbit dog Good bye, father.' Father O'Neill tells this story
 to depict the popular attitude of that
 period. He would soon bring that
 condition of things to an end. we
 0eed no money. We need only
 muscle" he said. Muscle will make
 the desert blossom like the rose.
 What shame to allow consecrated
 ground to become worse than the
 wild pasture over the fence. Purely
 for Gods sake let men, women and
 children furnish the muscle and the desert is cleared" Five hundred per sons responded. A hundred men cut
 down useless trees and brush and dug up the stumps. A hundred wom- en collected and burned the rubbish.
 More than hundred boys moved long stone walls, pulling wagons and drags themselves. More than a hun dPed girls cleared off small stones, and rooted up weeds. And this the young people did for several days and summers. The boys cut 8 hundred dollars worth of fire wood in one day At the expense of great deal of labor and very little money St. Ed wards cemetery became, in the sec ond year after Father O'Neill's arri- val, "the neatest Catholic cemetery in \ Connecticut" to quote Bishop Tier I ney. In the words of others who had travelled extensively it was "the neatest Catholic cemetery in New En- gland" Without money, too, the boundaries of parish property were extended to embrace over 15 acres more of land. To straighten out lines, the parish exchanged about A of an ! acre near the railway crossing for 5 l or six acres between the railroad and I the river, extending the parish land to ! the bridge. Also, in exchange for a few small trees, when a saw mill was \ near them the parish acquired over 10 acres more along the railway, to the Forestville road. Thus the parish Il now owns about 50 acres of land, half \ of which is covered with wood, care fully thinned out and nursed for rapid \ growth. Father O'Neill was the first ! local pastor to introduce and en- courage perpetual care, and the first pastor in Connecticut to now all lots every week or two, with lawn now CT, whether the moving was paid for or not. His reason was in his own words, because it's consecrated ground" When the church orders a bishop to bless a burial ground it intends that ground to be kept cleaner than the old pasture across the fence AS CLUTCH S(u4 OWLS the 1OCS. The so-called owner simply pays for per mission to bury in the church's holy land. Holy land was not blessed by the bishop to raise weeds and bushes" For Is years Father O'Neill has lived up to that principle. Does it pay? Spiritually it always pays to be con- sistent. Financially it just pays ex-