Saudade and an 1870 Church

"People are very adaptable to change. They come and go in their pursuit of stability for their families and for greener pastures. The footprints they leave behind - abandoned businesses, overgrown gardens, vacant homes, and, yes, tombstones - are stories of hopes and dreams manifested, but never told...lived, but long forgotten"

The quote is from an article I wrote over a year ago titled, The Feeling That No English Word Describes.

The Portuguese have a word for the feeling. Saudade (/souˈdädə/). It's the empty, melancholic yearning for yesteryear when times were carefree and food tasted better. It's that feeling you get when you see the skeletal remains of an old home and wonder who lived there during the home's heyday.

It's the feeling I get when I see the 1870 Church in Fairmount, MD with its granite block foundation from Port Deposit. The Church is a reminder of how the farmers and watermen put Delmarva on the map. 

A memorial on the Church grounds to the first
pastor of the congregation long before the
present structure was built. 

The abandoned Church is for sale. It's in need of major renovation and I figure it would take me a good ten to twenty years to restore it to its former glory. If I can raise half the asking price, Keith and I should have no problem taking a mortgage for the balance. 

Our biggest fear is a developer might purchase the property and raze the Church...or worse, turn it into a restaurant or town homes. The history would be erased and the culture of the farmers and watermen who built it would be forgotten. We want to make sure the Church stands proudly as a reminder of where our communities came from and help give direction to where they are going in the next 150 years.

If you are interested in preserving a bit of Fairmount, Marion Station, and Crisfield's history, please visit our GoFundMe effort. Here you can get a more complete, yet brief, history of the Church and of the area before deciding to help.

If you decide you want to become a permanent part of the Church's history, you can donate at our Bricks R Us fundraising site. For various donation levels, you can order a brick with your own inscription. For this phase of the restoration efforts, the bricks will be used in the outside walkways and pathways through the planned gardens on the Church grounds.


For your viewing pleasure, I used the song, Saudade, by Love and Rockets and various video clips credited below to help give you an idea of the history and culture we wish to preserve through this Church.

• Eastern Exposure: A Chesapeake Story Documentary on Crisfield, Maryland
• 1952 Day In The Life Of A 1950s Small Town Part I
• 1952 Day In The Life Of A 1950s Small Town Part II
• WBOC Travels With Charlie- Blueberries, Peaches, Apples and Corn with Charlie Paparella
• Watermen of the Bay crabbing on the little Choptank 6 AM

Enjoy and please help either with a donation, sharing the effort, or both.


Posted by A Drunk Redneck