Of St John’s Anglican Church and Allison Morris Part IV – Picking up the pieces

Category 5 Hurricane Melissa left Jamaica before nightfall, leaving people in the path on which she swirled violently in utter disbelief over the great extent of the destruction she had created. In five hours or so, their entire lives were upended.

Fortunately, Allison Morris, of Black River, St Elizabeth, and her family still have a home, even though there was much miscellaneous damage on their property, including the roof from Morris’ section of the house.

The morning after, they and other people took to the streets to see the devastation left behind by this once-in-a-lifetime storm. But, by any stretch of the imagination, Morris could not imagine what she would see. Her family has a long association with the southern seaside town; the St John’s Anglican Church is her family church, where she was christened, and is one of the popular markers on her Way Back When Black River Heritage Tour. So, for familial, religious and entrepreneurial reasons, Morris is deeply connected to the town which was named for the river that runs beside it to the east.

“And, even when we were walking the day after, I couldn’t imagine, I did not imagine, people were just in shock … I was walking with my children and, when we reached by the hospital, we saw some people coming from the other way, and the people just looked shell-shocked. And we heard one girl say, ‘Big church gone,’” Morris related.

That big church was St John’s, and its demise was something Morris didn’t want to hear. They continued up the road and, when they reached the Catholic church compound, they realised that Magdala House had crumbled. This house was built in the late 19th century. It was constructed by Adolphus Williams for Tom Leyden, who, with partner William Farguharson of Leyden and Farquharson Shipping Company, were two of the richest men in Jamaica in the mid-1880s.

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In 1963, the two-storey Victorian building decorated with fretwork was bought by the Roman Catholic Church from Dr C. D. Johnson, and was at one time being used as an orphanage. Allison’s mother had saved it from demolition in the 1980s. It was thus, her favourite historical building in Black River. When Morris saw the rubble that it had become, her heart started “to sink”. But, when she looked down the road, she could see the church tower. Strange. Because she heard that ‘big church’ was gone.

There was still some amount of anxiety, for landmarks were gone, things were unrecognisable; where the road was, there were just rocks. They had to sit on and climb over a tree or utility pole to cross the path. And that was when the reality of the destruction of Black River started to manifest. Everybody stopped talking and only uttered, “OMG! OMG! OMG!” The devastation was unspeakable! The historical structures in the area, High Street, were either totally or partially damaged.

CHILDHOOD MEMORIES GONE

There was one that Morris wanted to turn into a museum and had been going through the legal process to acquire to it. Its roof was gone. “But, the bottom of the building was still standing up, and, by this time, it was sunset, and it was so beautiful in the sunset that I had to rejoice, and I said, ‘It still standing, it still standing’,” she shared’.

There was hope for the museum but, a few days later, the St Elizabeth Municipal Council and the National Works Agency demolished what was left of the building. More heartbreak for Morris. Her daughter started “to bawl dung the place” upon seeing the extent of the devastation, lamenting that all her childhood memories were gone.

As Morris neared St John’s the bell tower could no longer hide the fact the rest of the decades-old brick building in which she was christened had be reduced to rubble. “Mi nuh know, that was some bawling in the street, mi nuh know if mi did drop, mi nuh know,” she said about her reaction.

“It’s like someone had died,” The Gleaner asked. Morris replied, “Yes, and that was what I was going to tell you about my grandmother. When she was recounting when they had taken down what she called the old Fireproof Store … they had to take it down to modify the entrance to the wharf when they were building the Revere factory … You just heard her voice break, and she said, when they took down the old Fireproof Store, it’s like they were killing a person … and, when I saw the church, I understood what she meant … You literally feel like it’s death, it feels like it’s death.”

For obvious reasons, there was no church service on the first Sunday after Melissa’s passage. Yet, the priest visited the property and rang the bell in the tower. Five churches are in the cure, four severely damaged, and the other, partially. Services are now being held in the nearby rectory, which was also partially damaged. On Monday, there was a carol service and a Christmas treat for children in the churchyard.

“It was nice, despite rain at the start. Good to be on the grounds. Sending the message that we have not given up on our church,” Morris told The Gleaner.

Her home was partially damaged; St John’s was destroyed, except for the belfry; and her business, Way Back When, was dealt a financial blow with the destruction of most of the historical markers. Last year, she had left her teaching job of 20 years to focus on the tour, and then came Melissa in October. But the tours will not die and the story of Black River will be told in a different strategy or strategies.

Morris has been picking up pieces from the church wreck for the museum she wants to establish and for personal and posterity reasons, for she and Black River have gone way back when.