From the Church of England, to Marsh Corner Community Church, to St. Monica’s.
The Catholic Church played a prominent role in the lives of John Brain and Helen McGurn Brain and of their children.
St. Monica’s Church in Methuen, Mass. certainly was the main focus of social and religious life for members of the McGurn and Brain families beginning when John and Jessie McGurn moved to Methuen in 1921.
John Brain and Helen McGurn’s 1940 wedding was held in St.Monica’s Rectory due to church regulations against John, a non Catholic, from being married inside the Church itself. He also had to promise to raise any children as Catholics. Both John and Helen fulfilled that promise and more.
St Monica’s Altar Boys (c. 1960) John (top right), Richard (2nd row, 2nd on right) Chuck (1st row, left).
Betsy and Richard at Chuck’s 1958 First Communion
Gerry, Queen of Purity, and Betsy in St, Monica’s 1959 May Procession
Chuck as John the Baptist in that same May Procession.
Gerry with her father, John, as they climb the stairs to enter St. Monica’s on her wedding day, January 4, 1964. Betsy, the attendant to far right, would also be married there in 1973.
However, an examination of our family’s past reveals a long history of membership in many different Protestant denominations and organizations.
An interesting question to ponder is: How did we end up being Catholics when most of our heritage, including six of our eight great grandparents, was Protestant?
This chart will help us to examine our family history.
Our Brain grandparents, Lenny, and Cleora, were married in 1916 in the Second Baptist Church on Common Street in Lawrence. They became members of Marsh Corner Community Church in Methuen when they moved to Pelham St. in 1922.
When Lenny, a successful painting contractor, died young in 1947, Rev. William Callard from Marsh Corner officiated at the funeral which was held at the Brain home on Pelham St.
Lenny was also an active member in Methuen’s Masonic Lodge and several officials from that lodge participated in Lenny’s services. (Note that the Catholic Church teaches that it is a grievous sin for a Catholic to become a Mason.)
Charles and Annie Brain
Lenny’s parents, Charles, and Annie Mills, both emigrated from England, and both were baptized in the Church of England in their hometowns. In 1886 they were married at St. Luke’s, a parish of the Church of England in Birmingham, England.
They lived in Quebec and Manchester, NH before settling in Methuen in 1905. Lenny was born in Manchester in 1895.
When Charles passed away in 1938, the Rev. John Moore of the First Baptist Church, Methuen’s second oldest (1815) church, officiated at the services which were held at the Brain home on Gage Street in Methuen.
Annie lived in Methuen as a widow for almost twenty years. Her 1955 obituary states that she attended Grace Episcopal Church in Lawrence. Grace Episcopal faces the Common as many other early Protestant Churches did in Lawrence. It was one of the city’s most prominent Protestant churches, having been built around time of the founding of the city on land granted by the Essex Company.
Charles and Annie were buried at Walnut Grove Cemetery, a private cemetery in Methuen where all of the English Protestant great grandparents from both sides of the Brain family are buried (Brain, Wagland, and Milton).
Alfred Wagland and Margaret Wadlin
In contrast to Lenny, Cleora’s parents, Alfred H Wagland and Margaret Eugenia Wadlin were both born in this country. Married in 1895 at the Wadlin home in North Andover by Congregationalist Minister Henry Barnes, Alfred was a florist and Margaret was club woman active in various organizations largely related to her father’s Civil War service.
A. H. Wagland, needing more land to support his growing floral business and speculating on the growth of the west side of Methuen, purchased a substantial amount of land on Pelham St. around 1920. Not only did he build a green house to supply his retail store and start developing that land for housing, but he also built homes for himself and his married children. In addition, during this period he helped found Marsh Corner Community Church.
Lenny and Cle were members of Marsh Corner Community Church beginning in the early 1920’s. Their children also attended, as is shown by this 1938 church photo which includes Buddy, John’s younger brother, who was sixteen years old at the time. Cleora’s 1978 obituary notes that she was still a member of Marsh Corner Community Church. The family clearly had a long-standing relationship with the Marsh Corner Church.
The depth of the family’s relationship with Marsh Corner Church is shown by the fact that Cleora’s father, Alfred H. Wagland, was one of fifteen men from that area of Methuen who may be considered founders of Marsh Corner Community Church. In 1924 these men guaranteed a note for $2,500 to erect the Church on the sight of a former town schoolhouse, where the Marsh Corner Union Sunday School Society was meeting.
Alfred and Margaret died within five days of each other in 1950. Services were conducted at their home on Pelham St. with Rev. Callard of Marsh Corner Community Church officiating. Both were buried in the family plot at Walnut Grove Cemetery. Since Alfred had been a Mason since 1902, members of Methuen’s John Hancock Masonic Lodge were present at the funeral.
We’ve been through the Brains, Mills, Waglands and Wadlins and have found a Church of England wedding and two Masons but no Catholics. The question of how the Union Street Brains became a Catholic family has not yet been answered. (To be continued.)