October 12, 2022 at 6:26 p.m.
LABOR OF LOVE
LABOR OF LOVE
Well, the parishioners at Our Lady of Fatima in Delanson found a way. This September, the parish in eastern Schenectady County held a dedication for their newly built pavilion: a 20-by-48 foot, English drop-style barn built entirely out of wood, using no nails, screws or power tools.
“I never get tired of looking at it,” said Josephine Errichetto, head of the Prayer and Worship Committee for the parish. “It’s just amazing.”
The pavilion was built this past summer as part of a project by the church’s Knights of Columbus. The Knights’ members are keen on offering outdoor picnics and church meetings, Errichetto said, the sort of gatherings that help bring their members and the church community together. It seemed fitting to create a structure fit for these meetings.
“The Knights do a lot of cooking and they wanted to have more get-togethers and picnics, and have a place to do it that was sheltered,” Errichetto said.
The Knights approached a parishioner involved in the Timber Framers Guild, a community of builders who participate in the promotion and support of timber framing. Timber framing or “post-and-beam” construction is a traditional method of building with heavy timber wood, creating beams that are squared-off and carefully fitted and joined together, like large-scale Lincoln Logs. In lieu of nails, the joints are secured with large wooden pegs.
The parishioner involved in the Guild, who wishes to remain anonymous, helped orchestrate the project with community volunteers and parishioners interested in learning the trade and helping the Knights bring their pavilion to life.
All tools involved in the build were original to the 1800s, and all of the work done on the Our Lady of Fatima pavilion was done by hand. Posts are held together like puzzle pieces: the wooden pegs are split from block wood and formed to fit together as beams. The wood and materials were gathered with help from the local Amish community in the Mohawk Valley area.
Built just behind Our Lady of Fatima parish, the pavilion stands next to another popular backyard installment: the Our Lady of Fatima Shrine. Built in 1968, the parish shrine has been a drawing point for locals and parishioners who enjoy sitting outside in the shrine’s gardens.
“Sometimes I think we take it for granted that it’s here,” Errichetto said. “But when we come out here to do things … it becomes new again. It’s very spiritual, it really is.”
The shrine holds four statues depicting the apparition of the Virgin Mary to three children in Fatima, Portugal in 1917. Over the years, the shrine has gone through changes and restorations to stand the test of time, including newly added benches and personalized bricks of parish families as part of fundraising efforts for the shrine’s restoration.
“I find it just very peaceful,” said Father Thomas Zelker, pastor of Our Lady of Fatima. “I come on Saturday and I get here early. Even if I don’t come over here, just glancing over you get a sense of its beauty.”
The pavilion’s construction also comes around a milestone moment for the parish, which will be celebrating its 70th anniversary in December. It’s a fitting gift for a church so focused on the very thing the pavilion hoped to support: the local community.
“It’s a really nice community here,” Errichetto said. “The people are friendly.”
“It’s home,” Father Zelker said. “There’s no central area here — Delanson is very small — but people come to this place to be part of something bigger. They’re welcomed and they know that they’re valued. We can (live) far away but you can be together here.”
“I’m happy to share this,” Errichetto added of the new pavilion. “We’re a little community out here but we do a lot.”
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