HOULTON, Maine — Like many people across the world, Esther McElroy of Caribou watched on television as a fire on April 15 gutted Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
Although she had never been there, the former Houlton resident and communicant of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Houlton said that it “struck a nerve,” reminding her of the Jan. 12, 1958, fire that totally destroyed her house of worship.
“I was 7-years-old then,” she said. “We had just moved to town a year or so before, and we moved around a lot because my father was in the military. The church always became our link to the community, and that was how I first made friends.”
McElroy said she recalled being awoken by her two older brothers that January and being told about the fire.
“I remember everyone in town being shocked,” she said. “Especially the parishioners of the church.”
According to the Jan. 13, 1958, edition of the Bangor Daily News, the pre-dawn fire was discovered at 3:45 a.m., but by that time, flames had already ripped through much of the wooden structure that was located on Main Street.
Firefighters from Houlton with mutual aid from firefighters in Woodstock, New Brunswick, battled frigid temperatures, which caused ice to form on hose lines.
Ann McIntosh, a Houlton resident, said she recalls watching over the next several days as church members tried to salvage relics from the remnants of the church.
“We weren’t members of the parish,” she said. “But I recall a number of people in town helping the church decide where they would hold mass, how much of the church they could salvage, and what they would do next. There was a real sense of community after the tragedy. Everyone came together, just like they always do. It was just like we are seeing with Notre Dame.”
The fire, which was believed to have originated in the furnace room, caused about $400,000 in damage. Some of the relics lost in the fire included hand carved statues and candle sticks, an altar carved from Australian oak, and a pipe organ.
The only items saved from the church fire were two communion vessels, two brass angel handles that were on the tabernacle, and the bell from the steeple.
St. Mary’s had been one of the oldest churches in the area at the time, and had just been remodeled in 1941.
Rev. Michael Tierney, pastor of St. Mary’s, held mass the morning after the fire at the Houlton Theatre, and that was where worshipers continued to meet until the new church was built on Military Street over the next year.
Both McElroy and McIntosh said they couldn’t help but think of the 1958 fire after watching the images of the burning cathedral coming from Paris.
“You really lose a sense of history and peace when you lose a church,” said McElroy. “There is so much emotion tied to church. It’s really hard.”
