Sweet little brick country church

Out in the country, northwest of Fort Wayne, is the tiny village of Ege in Noble County. At one time near this little crossroad was a parish school, a pastor's rectory, a convent, general store, and perhaps a dozen houses. Now are the remains of the convent and school, and there is the lovely Catholic Church, The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

I looked up the origin of the word 'ege,' and I found it to be an old English word meaning 'fear' and 'awe.' Perhaps sort of like 'awesome' is used today - but some of us tend to forget the 'fear' part. I think I was expecting it to be 'egg' in a different language, especially since this is in the middle of farm country. The little settlement was named for Francis Xavier Ege, a parish priest who was dearly loved for his good work in this area. As a surname, Ege is thought to have sprung from Seigbert, a German name. There are many people of German or Polish descent in this area.

The first church was built on this spot in 1863, and when a frame building used for the church burned down in 1921, the brick building used today was constructed. At the time in winter when the old building burned down, it smoldered slowly enough people were able to extract all the statues and other relics, and even the large organ was lowered down with ropes from the choir loft and saved.

There is a large, life-sized statue of the Virgin Mary in the church yard, and even though I am not Catholic, I like to go to this peaceful spot and see her - there never seems to be any one around, unless during the hours of church services, and the Virgin seems to keep watch over this site by herself. I like to walk up to this site silently and take in the presence of the mother of Christ depicted here - it's hard to see from the angle of this photo, but her hands are slightly outstretched and open, and I like to shyly take her hand and perhaps say a little prayer in her presence.

A nun who grew up here and attended the parish school as a child reported in her day, 80 children attended the parochial school. She wrote about marching around the sidewalks two by two after lunch, singing an old civil war song, "Marching through Georgia." She wrote down the words to the song, and it's listed on a website I found. She also wrote about other childhood games.

One of these was called "Pompey is dead and laid in the grave." In this game, one girl would lie in the pretty fall leaves before they were all tread upon and disintegrating. The others would cover here carefully with colorful leaves and join hands in a circle around her. They sang a song, (the verses are printed on this Ege remembrances page) - basically, Pompey is dead until an old woman comes around to gather falling apples, at which point Pompey jumps up from under the leaves and decks her with an apple. That certainly would be enough to give the old woman a heart attack. The 'buried' little girl, at this point in the song, jumps up from her leaf nest and chases the scattering girls, and tags one who then takes her place on the ground.

There are lots of old churches in the country in Indiana, and in all parts of all states around the nation. I'm not sure why this one moves me so, but I feel a magic around here, and statue Mary feels eerily alive. I am struck with quiet reverence when I am here, and find a great sense of peace. I am ready for peace to find our nation, and us all.