‘Font relay’ brings antique sacramental items to their new church home
Fourteen Episcopalians volunteered to transfer a baptismal font, an altar cross and a processional cross from Fryeburg, Maine, to Riverside Episcopal Church in McCalla, Alabama. The journey was dubbed the “font relay” on Facebook. Photo: Melissa Bailey
[Episcopal News Service] Ten states; 1,560 miles. Eleven parishes and a seminary student; 14 adult volunteers and a baby. Total time: two weeks.
That’s what it took for a team of Episcopalians to transport a baptismal font, a processional cross and an altar cross from Fryeburg, Maine, to their new permanent home in McCalla, Alabama.
Riverside Episcopal Church’s baptismal font dates to 1888. It originally belonged to Episcopal Church of Saints Matthew and Barnabas in Hallowell, Maine, before the parish closed in 2021. Photo: Melissa Bailey
“Every single volunteer was a total stranger to each other before the relay. …Now we’ve really become friends,” Melissa Headrick Bailey, a member of the bishop’s committee for Riverside Episcopal Church, the Diocese of Alabama’s newest church plant, told Episcopal News Service. Bailey is a parishioner of St. Mary’s-on-the Highlands Episcopal Church in Birmingham.
Riverside was named after the “river of life,” which is mentioned throughout Scripture, including Revelation 22.
In January 2024, Bailey reached out to Episcopalians on Facebook, a public group with close to 86,000 members, asking to purchase sacramental items, furniture and other supplies from churches that no longer needed them. Many people nationwide responded, including the Rev. Sinclair “Skippy” Ender, rector of Christ Episcopal Church in North Conway, New Hampshire. Ender had been storing a baptismal font, a processional cross and an altar cross in his home for a few years, waiting to find the perfect new home for them.
“I answered the Facebook post, and they asked how much I wanted for the font, and I said, ‘Oh, I don’t want anything. I just want it used for the glory of God,’” Ender, a resident of Fryeburg, Maine, which is just across the state line, told ENS.
Ender, a U.S. Navy veteran, said he obtained the baptismal font and other church supplies from the Episcopal Church of Saints Matthew and Barnabas in Hallowell, Maine, when it closed in 2021. He planned to use the items at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, where he was a command chaplain at the time. However, shortly after obtaining the baptismal font, which dates to 1888, the naval shipyard received a donated ship bell from a decommissioned destroyer and began using it for baptisms instead. In several military branches worldwide, including the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard, upside-down ship bells traditionally serve as baptismal fonts. The custom dates back centuries to the British Royal Navy.
The altar cross at Riverside Episcopal Church in McCalla, Alabama, was originally used at St. Katherine’s Episcopal School for Girls in Bettendorf, Iowa, before it became a secular, coeducational college preparatory school decades ago. Photo: Melissa Bailey
“The antique font Fr. Skippy gave us is lovely, and it’s also very small and perfect for us,” the Rev. Geoff Evans, pastor of Riverside and the Diocese of Alabama’s canon to the ordinary, told ENS. “Everything has been serendipitous; providential, even.”
The altar cross was originally used at St. Katherine’s Episcopal School for Girls in Bettendorf, Iowa, before it became a secular, coeducational college preparatory school decades ago. The cross had been stored in the undercroft of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Davenport since then. The damaged altar cross was about to be thrown away before Ender, who was a priest at the cathedral between 2018 and 2020, climbed into the dumpster to salvage the cross and restore it. Around that time, the Very Rev. John Hall, dean emeritus of Trinity, gave the processional cross and other sacramental items to Ender, which he used while enlisted in the Navy.
Ender initially offered to pay to ship the sacramental items to Riverside, but the shipping fee was much higher than he could afford. Bailey reached out to Episcopalians on Facebook again asking if anyone living along the route between Fryeburg and McCalla would be willing to help drive part of the way to the next driver until the items reached their destination. Many people offered to help, and after some careful logistics planning and regular communications, 11 volunteers were selected to be a part of the “font relay.”
Facebook users were able to read the relay’s progress by following the hashtag #FontRelay and the Episcopalians on Facebook group.
The relay:
Feb 3:
Ender drove 222 miles from Fryeburg to Springfield, Massachusetts. That same day, Leslie Williams, a parishioner of St. Andrew’s Church, Northford, Connecticut, picked up the sacramental items and drove 83 miles from Springfield to Danbury, Connecticut.
Feb 6:
Williams drove an additional 35 miles from Danbury to New Haven, Connecticut. That same day, Nancy Pierson and Diane Goodman, parishioners of St. John’s Church Episcopal Church in Larchmont, New York, drove 82 miles from New Haven to Secaucus, New Jersey.
Feb 9:
Vivian Roston, a parishioner of St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in New York City, drove 239 miles from Secaucus to Hagerstown, Maryland. That same day, Kyle, Lauren and William Munroe, parishioners of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Auburn, Alabama – temporarily residing in Alexandria, Virginia, while Kyle Munroe attends Virginia Theological Seminary – drove 133 miles from Hagerstown to Staunton, Virginia.
Feb. 10:
Susan Palmer, senior warden of Trinity Episcopal Church in Staunton, drove 225 miles from Staunton to Bristol, Tennessee. That same day, Candace Armstrong, music director St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, drove 115 miles from Bristol to Knoxville.
Feb 13:
Maryjo Latham, a parishioner of St. James Episcopal Church in Knoxville, drove 111 miles from Knoxville to Chattanooga, Tennessee. That same day, Ola Williams and Cathy Struntz, parishioners of the Church of the Resurrection in Rainbow City, Alabama, drove 110 miles from Chattanooga to Gadsden, Alabama.
Feb. 14:
Williams and Struntz drive 58 miles from Gadsden to Trussville, Alabama. That same day, Lane Oden, who’s not a member of a church, drove 11 miles from Trussville to Irondale, Alabama.
Feb. 15:
Oden drove 11 miles from Irondale to Homewood, Alabama. That same day, Bailey drove 16 miles from Homewood to Helena, Alabama, then 15 more miles to McCalla.
To document the journey, Ender purchased a notebook for drivers to record their traveling details and reflections.
“We are grateful to be on this journey with y’all. It is nice to think about all of these items going to their new home in our home state and diocese of Alabama,” Kyle, Lauren and William Munroe wrote in the notebook. “We hope these items help lead people with deeper faith, and new life in Christ.”
The font and crosses were used during Riverside’s first worship service in its permanent location on Feb. 23. Alabama Bishop Glenda Curry preached and blessed the grounds.
Ender said he plans to someday visit Riverside to see the sacramental items he helped rehome in use.
“Everyone who helped undertake this big task of helping a new church get on its two feet answered the call to ministry,” he said. “Even if the task of driving seemed small, they participated in an extraordinary thing.”
Even though the “font relay” is over and the sacramental items are settled in their new home, the volunteers, who didn’t know each other before Bailey reached out on Facebook, keep in touch.
“We’ve really become friends through all this,” Bailey said.
-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.
