Main Brook 'disgusted' with vandals

They were more than windows.

The stained glass of Main Brook's United Church was a fragile link to the community's past, to parents and grandparents now gone and to a more vibrant time.

Now it's broken - and suspicion focuses on Main Brook's own youth, a betrayal by the community's most precious and dwindling resource.

Toward the end of August someone threw a lot of rocks in Main Brook - eight stones broke the stained glass windows of Main Brook United Church, three pickups had their windows beat out and an unoccupied house had its door kicked in.

"We suspect it's someone in the community," said Const. Stacey MacRae. "But we have no evidence as to who it is. It's been an ongoing problem and we're looking for the public's support."

But Main Brook knows who did it.

"Everybody knows who the kids are," said area businessperson Barb Genge. "We're all disgusted."

The windows, according to Woodrow Bessey, came from Ireland more than 100 years ago.

The orange, yellow, green and blue glass found its first home in St. Anthony United Church. As St. Anthony grew so did its congregation and in 1959 the old wooden United Church was replaced.

Meanwhile, Bowaters lumber company was attracting hundreds of people to Main Brook for work in the woods. The town was booming - there were three movie theatres, three schools and 10 stores.

For Mr. Bessey, the windows are a link to his deceased mother, Irene Bessey, and his youth in Main Brook.

Mrs. Bessey, Laud Hodge and Bessie Pilgrim had scratched and saved to build Main Brook United Church, providing for the spiritual needs of their growing community.

"When Aunt Bessie Pilgrim was told the windows had been broken, she said it was the first time she'd felt sick since her husband died," said Mr. Bessey of the 90-year-old woman. "They sold socks for as low as five cents a pair to get those windows."

Melvin Pilgrim was the man tasked with breaking the news to his mother.

The caretaker of Main Brook United Church poked amongst the pews last Tuesday looking for broken glass from the windows his mother had spent countless hours knitting and campaigning for.

The church has slowly been losing windows to rocks thrown by local youth for the past decade. Their progress is marked by the shades of grey of the plywood covering each window - with only 12 families, the congregation can't afford to repair the damage. As caretaker at Main Brook's 34 student K-12 school, Mr. Pilgrim sees the suspects daily.

"You know who did it and you see them and it makes you angry," said Mr. Pilgrim. "But you just lives with it because the cops aren't going to catch them anyway."