Cummington church burns

Some 150 parishioners and supporters, many with tears in their eyes, packed the church's Parish House just a couple of parcels down from where a few beams and the badly charred entryway of the 27 West Main St. church still smoldered.

Members of the congregation held hands and sang a song about perseverance, while outside, the humming and beeping of heavy machinery working at the site of the church could be heard.

"It was hard," said Stephen Philbrick, the minister, to his congregation as he described watching the church burn down earlier.

"It looked like an old tobacco barn with its slats open," he said. "You could see orange, vertical, flaming posts."

But Philbrick wasn't too far into his sermon before declaring that the church would be rebuilt. He isn't sure how, or when, but with the help of the community, it will be done, he said.

"We have a long way to go, and that's OK," said Philbrick, who noted the church has insurance. "We know how to go the long way."

The Cummington Fire Department was alerted to the blaze by a motorist who reported it on a cell phone sometime after 5:30 a.m. Sunday. When firefighters arrived just before 6 a.m., the church was engulfed in flames, said Fire Chief Bernard Forgea.

On Sunday afternoon, Forgea could not say what started the fire or whether it was suspicious in origin. But in light of the Dec. 27 string of arson fires in Northampton, the state fire marshal's office is investigating all possibilities, Forgea said. No one was injured in the fire, he said.

"I don't know what to call it," said Forgea, "but one way or the other it is being investigated.

"Church fires are the worst," Forgea continued. "They're a nightmare because they are huge, voluminous, well ventilated and with no fire stops. Once a fire gets hold of it, a river could roll through the building and it wouldn't put it out."

Requiem for a church

Parishioners lingered by the driveway leading up a hill to the burned church Sunday afternoon ahead of the memorial service, their paths blocked by a strip of yellow caution tape. The smell of smoke was in the air as people made their way to the Parish House, leaning on each other for support.

Inside the one-story house with yellow walls and a red painted floor, parishioners shared their memories of the church and commiserated over their loss.

Many parishioners, choking back tears, spoke of meeting their spouse at the church and getting their children baptized there.

Penny Schultz's husband informally proposed to her the first time the couple saw the West Cummington church, she told the congregation.

"We were walking up the road and he said, #I think we should get married in this church,'" said Schultz, of Williamsburg, as she wiped away tears. "That was the first time that he said anything like that to me."

John Eisenhour, of Cummington, said he always liked how the church had an understated decor.

"The church was plain and unadorned," he said. "It was the perfect canvas to display the beauty of the people who walked through the door."

The congregation also took up a collection for relief efforts in earthquake-ravaged Haiti. Philbrick said that although parishioners are reeling from the loss of their church, it is important to keep life in perspective.

The loss of the church seemed to hit parishioners particularly hard when Philbrick asked them to take out their hymnals, noting that the books were not the ones they were used to reading from. Instead, the red books were donated by the Village Congregational Church in Northbridge.

"Nothing is left," said Philbrick, who listed the church's contents to sighs and gasps from the congregation. Among the treasured items lost are the old pulpit, a collection of hymnals with mossy green, blue and brown covers, the bent wooden chairs, the new seat cushions stuffed with old straw and horse hair, the piano and hand-written sheet music.

But what may be missed most of all by the congregation is the handmade "healing" quilt, which was consumed by fire. The quilt, Philbrick said, had hung over the piano, like a stained glass window. It was taken down from time to time and given to parishioners and family members who needed healing or support.

Ralph Cahill spoke about wrapping his father in the quilt as he lay dying in the hospital. The quilt covered his father, who died over Christmas, during the funeral, and was draped over his coffin at the burial.

"The church has always been there for us, just like this quilt," Cahill said.

But a new quilt to carry on the tradition of the church's healing quilt made its first appearance Sunday evening when Eisenhour presented Philbrick with a white handmade quilt he owned, wrapped in a black trash bag. The quilt was embroidered with red and blue tulips.

Eisenhour said he thought the quilt was a fitting gift for the church because of the tulip details.

"The tulip might go down for the winter, but it never dies. It's a bulb, it grows back," said Eisenhour, "just like this church."

The fire

Forgea, the Cummington fire chief, said at first, firefighters were unsure if the church was the only blaze they would be fighting Sunday morning. Before the church fire was called in, a car fire had been reported in the vicinity.

"We didn't know what we would be up against," Forgea said.

Firefighters soon learned that the car fire was a false alarm: Someone had seen the reflection of the church fire flames in the window of a nearby car and mistakenly thought the car was on fire, Forgea explained.

Besides Cummington, six other fire departments, from Goshen, Chesterfield, Worthington, Plainfield, Windsor, and Ashfield, helped battle the blaze.

Forgea said firefighters dumped thousands upon thousands of gallons of water on the fire, but could not save the building. He said the church is a total loss, but at the time, he did not have an estimated cost on the full damages.

"The whole entire building was involved," Forgea said. The fire "was pushing out the windows and shoving through the roof and walls."

Philbrick described a similar picture of the church on fire. By the time he got there, firefighters were already on the scene. Philbrick said it was hard to tell where the snow stopped and the piles of white foam and fire retardant sprayed by firefighters began.

"It was like whipped cream up to your ankles," Philbrick said. "I don't know if it was water or tears that ran down the hill and began to freeze."

Philbrick said he was impressed by the work of the firefighters, saying he was glad none of them was hurt. Philbrick closed the memorial service for the West Cummington Church with a short prayer and a quick reminder, even though it "probably didn't need to be said," that church services would be held at 9:30 a.m. in the Parish House next Sunday.

"We can do this," said Philbrick. "We're going to rebuild. Some of it will be the same and some of it will be new, but West Cummington Church will go on."