Saturday, we did things at home in the morning, and in the afternoon, we picked up Calvin, met Eliza at the Dummerston Church, picked up hymnals there and drove to the home of John and Cindy Wilcox to do a sing for John. John and Cindy are both pillars of the Dummerston Church. John served as Treasurer for many years, and Cindy has been a deacon and has arranged the altar flowers countless Sundays. John is in Hospice care, but he has been close to death many times in recent years, and has rallied. We sang 8-10 hymns for him, out of the Pilgrim Hymnal. The Dummerston Church uses two hymnals: the older Pilgrim Hymnal (PH), which was published by the Congregational- Christian denomination before 1957, when it merged with the Evangelical-Reformed denomination to become the United Church of Christ (UCC), and the New Century Hymnal (NCH), which was published just before 2000 by the UCC. Both are needed because the newer NCH hymnal either left out or altered the lyrics of some old favorites that are in the PH. At the sane time, the NCH vastly increased the diversity of hymns it included - bringing in wonderful hymns from the black church tradition, and many other ethnicities, as well as more recent hymns. We didn't want to juggle two hymnals so we brought the one with old favorites. But actually, the Episcopal Hymnal would have been the best for this occasion. That's because by sheer coincidence, both John Wilcox and Calvin Farwell attended St. Paul's School, an Episcopal school in Concord, NH, and were there at the same time, in the same house. John was two years ahead of Calvin, and was his Proctor. They both went to chspel every day and are thus steeped in Episcopal hymnody. I think Cindy Wilcox also has an Episcopal connection of some kind. We may go back another time with Episcopal hymnals!
Top: Calvin, Cindy, Eliza, Ellen and John; Bottom: with me instead of Ellen.******************
After our sing, we decided to all go to Eliza's house to see the new addition and renovations in progress. Calvin had never been there at all. The new addition is almost completed, and Eliza and Cliff's son, Charlie, was there putting new pine flooring into a room that will become a kitchen in Sarah's part of the old house. Quite a project!
Top: Eliza and Calvin in a bedroom in the new addition; Bottom: Inspecting the old underflooring and new pine flooring in what will be Sarah's kitchen.
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