52 Ancestors Challenge Week 10: "Worship" - Mothers, Keepers of the Faith

I don't have much to say about "worship" or practicing of faith in my family history except that I think most of us are so rigid in our faith that we tend to assume that if we were raised in a particular faith that our ancestors were also raised in that faith. I see it with patrons I have worked with on their genealogy research a lot. I sometimes find a religious record for their ancestor to which the client will balk, "Oh no, they were NOT *insert whatever faith they assume here*." However, very often my own ancestors practiced whatever form of Christianity was celebrated in the nearest house of worship. Not big walkers for Jesus, I guess.

Although I am not a practicing Catholic, I do identify as Catholic. I was baptized Catholic, attended Sunday School, and received all the appropriate sacraments, including confirmation in the Church. My confirmation name is Rose, by the way, after Saint Rose of Lima, Peru, who was the first person born in the Americas to be canonized but I chose it because she bears the name of my birth flower. I was not born in April; thank you very much.

Aside from my paternal grandmother who is VERY Catholic, religion has, again, been relatively fluid in my family history. Most of them really did just attend the church closest to the house.

Both my grandmothers were raised in Catholic households. Neither of them, though, married Catholics. That is correct. My very Catholic grandmother, who would not attend a wedding if someone Catholic was not marrying someone who was also Catholic, did not, herself, marry a Catholic. My grandfathers were both Protestants. Grandpa Gardner was raised Episcopalian and Grandpa Earle was raise a Methodist. Grandpa Earle did convert to Catholicism but not until July 1956; eight years and three children after he married my grandmother.

Like those I help research, I too tend to think of my grandfathers' lines as Protestants. Those steadfast in their faith can probably understand my reaction then when I discovered my Grandpa Gardner's father buried in Calvary Cemetery; a very large CATHOLIC Cemetery in Brooklyn and Queens, New York. Yes. Brooklyn AND Queens. Two counties of the City of New York. That is how large the cemetery is.

What was my Protestant grandfather's father doing in a Catholic Cemetery?

Um, well, he had to be a Catholic! Sure enough, he was. Albert Gardner, born Almond Desjardins (21 September 1891 - 11 February 1946), was from a large French-Canadian, CATHOLIC family. Would ya look that that? He was raised in his mother's faith (Catholic), he married an Episcopalian woman and his children were raised in their mother's faith. His grandson, my grandpa, married a Catholic and his children were raised in their mother's faith.

Thus, I have surmised two things about my family's worship. 1.That mothers are the keepers of the faith and 2. they are still not big walkers for Jesus.