Holy Trinity Catholic Church - once a host to thriving Catholic life in the Valley

I see that December has slipped by without my attending to the Blog, so I do apologize to those readers who have encouraged me to write more articles. In truth some rather startling new material has come to light concerning earlier articles posted, but I'm just too busy to put it all together. Rather than let our Lost Valley year end with a blank page I thought I might put something together about Holy Trinity, the Catholic church where my mother and her twelve brothers and sisters learned their prayers in the 1930s and 1940s.

Holy Trinity Catholic Church in 1890. The entrance doors face Wall Street and in the photo we can see that as yet no sidewalks existed. The Valley Catholics of my mother's generation attended Holy Trinity or trudged up Main Street to attend St. Peters Church. 118 years later the church still stands, virtually unchanged, although the parishioners have dwindled.

Holy Trinity Church was painted by Marjory Rogers Donaldson. In her picture we are looking west along Canon Street and a heavy crust of old snow contrasts with the brilliant red bricks of the church. Donaldson, a Fredericton artist, probably painted this picture in the 1950s. The oil painting goes to auction in Saint John next week.

Though I have heard several anecdotes about "the Sisters," those stern taskmasters who taught the Catholic kids in the Valley, I have no photographs of them or any record of my mother, aunts and uncles attending Holy Trinity School. The family didn't keep report cards. I suspect that group photos of kids parading for their First Communion at the church, or yearly photos of Holy Trinity schoolkids were taken, but I have not seen any. As a substitute I finish up with a photo of my mother, Joyce Marie Brown, sitting on a photographers' pony outside the family residence on Paradise Row.
Joyce Brown poses in the saddle, excited to be sitting on a photographer's pony. The wall is her home at 92 Paradise Row and I guess the year is 1943. It's entirely possible that a reader may recognize the pony from a similar image in their family album. If anyone knows the name of the itinerant photographer, please share it. Joyce was a bit of a terror, who could give some of the teaching Sisters at Holy Trinity a hard time.

January 4/09 - Here is a nice coincidence. I haven't looked at Ebay for a month, and this morning I find a postcard to compliment this article.

Posted in 1906, this postcard shows the five largest Roman Catholic Churches in Saint John, N.B., including Holy Trinity. The message from Kitty to Walter, with three kisses "XXX", is a bonus.