Fifty Years Ago Today…
On July 4, 1976 (or, possibly, on Saturday, but I really think it was after church on the Sunday) as all the months of preparation and celebration for the Bicentennial came to a head, the congregation of Sarah Hearn Memorial Presbyterian Church had a picnic on the lawn. I was 13. I remember it vividly, probably in part because in just a few weeks we were moving away from Erie and leaving behind the church I’d been born in and grew up with.
I took these pictures a couple of years ago on a visit. Looking the picture of the lawn, sandwiched between the church building and the house next door that was then the manse, I realize it can’t have been all that big an event, even taking in the backyard of the house, but to me it seemed like the nicest picnic in the world. The decorations, of course, were red, white, and blue (as were most of the clothes worn by our mothers, and even a few of the fathers), and for some reason I especially remember one old lady’s prize lemonade recipe.
It’s funny to think that all these years have passed and I’m probably nearly as old as that “old lady.” Poor Sarah Hearn is abandoned now, and a great many of the people at the picnic—for it was not, by and large a young congregation, us Sunday schoolers aside—have, as we used to say, departed the church militant to join the church triumphant. I suppose it’s possible I’m the only person remembering that sunny July morning when, it seemed to me at least, we were all so happy, if only for the day.