My Year In The Grand West

Yes, this was a unique night for Zeradatha Lodge. Because it started of with a pre-meeting dinner at a local pub called The Hobby Horse Arms, owned and run by a Mason, and I had the pleasure of sitting with WBro Tim Richardson and sharing stories, due to the fact the lodge's on banquet facilities were rented out for the evening. Following the normal array of toasts and concluding with the JW's traditional toast, we then ventured a minute up the road to the temple. The lodge had een opened prior to dinner and the WM was being returned to the Chair in the East (for a third time), and the IM, WBro Don Kemball, had asked me to sit in the West and also asked RWBro Mark Kapitan to sit in the South and did an excellent job throughout the evening. The first brethren invested were the SW and JW, and the GJW invested the latter, while I invested the former. Zeradatha Lodge was the very first lodge I visited, while still an EA, and while Zeradatha and The Beaches were still in the sam...

I together with RWBro Mark Kapitan and RWBro Tom Haight, and VW David Churchill, joined our Grand Master, MWBro David Cameron, and the DDGM for Ontario District, RWBro Grant Parnell, and many other Masons, for the annual Installation of the WM and Investiture of his officers at Jerusalem Lodge No 31 in Bowmanville on December 11. The room was absolutely packed for the ceremony, and was a testament to the amount of travelling done by the members of this vibrant lodge. According to the website , Jerusalem Lodge was chartered in 1849 with the United Grand Lodge of England and numbered 28. Somehow, the warrant was lost, but there is a record of Jerusalem Lodge being transferred to the Grand Lodge of Canada (Ontario) and so Jerusalem Lodge operated as No. 28 under a dispensation from the Grand Lodge of England from June 1849, until the first Charter was received in 1858, then duly renumbered 31. This charter is dated on July 14th, 1858.

The other night I visited Mimosa Lodge No 576 in Toronto East District that these days meets in Aurora - and, wow, what an impressive temple: a converted church, complete with paintings adorning the walls; apparently several by the same artist who painted the scrolls in Zeradatha Lodge. This was the annual Installation of the WM and Investiture of his officers, and I, for the first time since being invested, sat in the West during the ceremony, while MWBro Don Campbell was the IM. The temple was originally constructed in 1877 as a Methodist Episcopal Church and was purchased in 1885 by The Rising Sun Lodge, which has continued to own and occupy the premises since that time. The walls of the Lodge Sanctuary are graced by four magnificent paintings installed in the early 1900's to illustrate the Four Proper Objects of a Mason's daily life - Prayer, Labour, Refreshment, and Sleep. The first is a mural "Prayer", approximately seven feet square on the "East"...

Last night I met up with my sidekick our GJW, RWBro Mark Kapitan, at Hwy 6 and the 401 near Guelph, after taking 2 hours to get there, in order to then drive together into Waterloo (where I attended WLU from 1978 to 1981) to join the Grand Master on his visit to  Waterloo Lodge No 539 . The brethren, led by MWBro David Cameron, were investing VWBro David Churchill who was appointed Assistant Grand Director of Ceremonies in July, and also attending and receiving recognition was Grand Director of Ceremonies, RWBro Dan Graham. What was unique in this visit was noticing upon their walls an encased gavel, and upon closer inspection finding out it was the historic and well-known Kipling Gavel, a gavel given to WBro Snow in 1934, along with a personal and signed note. Also on the wall was an old copy of My Mother Lodge, a poem written by Kipling when he was in India and attended lodge there as a young man. Courtesy of W Bro David Findlay, in 1972 "Waterloo Lodge joined with three ot...