A Mooseheart Puzzle...

Yesterday I drove to St. Marys to pick up some groceries, run a few errands and see my grandchildren. After lunch, I stopped into the Community Nurses office. Boxes of books for the upcoming used book sale to benefit Community Nurses Hospice program lined the walls of the front office.  I said hello to Chad, the scheduler and to Tiffany, a tall, slender woman with brunette wavy hair past her shoulders, with a smile that brightens the world. 

Tiffany is the manager for the Community Nurses Home Health Support, and we've gotten to know each other over the past three years.  From day one, with my employment with Community Nurses as a personal Care Aide, Tiffany has made me feel an important part of the team. She is never too busy to greet me when I stop in the office and personally thanks me for the work I do.  

 Chad asked me what I needed, and I told him two boxes of gloves. Tiffany was standing closer to the glove cabinet and took the initiative to get me the gloves. Before I left, she said, "Let me get your DVD that you lent me. She came back with the DVD and some other articles I had given her to read.   I gave Tiffany a hug, said good bye and turned to leave.

Before I walked out the door, Chad asked, "Did you get your appreciation gift from us?"  

I turned around and said "No, I didn't."  

As Chad went to the back of the room to retrieve the gift, a box of puzzles for the book sale, stacked up about three feet high caught my eye. I stared at the picture of a familiar building wondering if it would be an easy puzzle to put together. I was bewildered by the drab colors of a stately, tan building surrounded by green grass and a blue sky. I picked up the box and seen that it was a photograph of the House of God, a children's cathedral located at Mooseheart, the orphanage I was I lived in over fifty years ago.   

Chad returned with the thank you gift and handed it to me through the office window.  I thanked him for the gift and then asked Tiffany "Are these books for sale now?" 

"Sure, everyone in the office has been going through the boxes and we've been taking donations for them." 

 I picked up the puzzle box. "You will never believe this, but this is a picture of the children's cathedral, called the House of God, from the orphanage I lived in at Mooseheart." 

Both she and Chad raised their eyebrows and said "Really?" at the same time.  

I proceeded to tell them that children's cathedral is one of a of a kind and was built between the years 1948-1950. I spent every Sunday morning at the church while at Mooseheart from 1961-1971, sitting with my mom and my six siblings listening to sermons. I thought a lot about God when I was in that church.  One repetitive sermon, about casting your bread upon the water and it returning still stays with me.  Each Sunday a gold plate lined with green felt was passed, and we deposited a token penny. The choir consisting of high school students dressed in silky, burgundy choral gowns with a gold sash, sang hymns that brought comfort to my lonely soul.

On Christmas Eve, beautiful carols were sung by the chorus made of high school students dressed in silky choral gowns. 

The church touted to be "multi-denominational" was Catholic and Protestant.  The Catholic wing had confessionals and candles.  The Protestant wing had a marble baptismal pool, which I don't recall being used. In between the two wings was a large church area with pews, a sanctuary and an impressive organ that bellowed out hymns such as the Old Rugged Cross, when Mrs. Elsie Buckley was at the keys.  Many priests, chaplains and reverends served at the church.  If the walls could talk, just like other structures at Mooseheart they would testify to some of the abuse that took place at the orphanage. 

Although it was fifty years ago, I related my experience of being Protestant to Tiffany and Chad.  When I was about seven years old, about ten of the Catholic girls at Muncie Hall were all dressed up in pretty white dresses, a white hanky on top of their heads, white lace ankle socks and white patent leather shoes that they shined with Vaseline. I recall them bragging about their holy middle names they would be acquiring. While the "holier than thou"  girls went to church for their First Holy Communion, at least eight of us Protestant girls had to stay at the hall. Dressed in our raggedy everyday dresses, we sat on a  bare tile floor, with our feet under the dressers.  One of the matrons, Mrs. Paulson, who was a crotchety old woman with bluish gray hair told us how all the heathens, including the Protestants, would burn in hell someday for turning away from the church.  The blasphemous Martin Luther King was the devil incarnate.  Like we knew what all those big words meant.   When "us heathens" got a little older and acquired freedom, we didn't hesitate to live up the expectations set for us.  We would sneak in the church and blow out all the red candles and then play hide and seek in the confessionals.  

Tiffany was sympathetic and couldn't believe children were treated in such a manner. 

 I asked her what the donation for the puzzle was.  "Don't worry about it. I'll take care of it."   The three of us were in awe at how coincidental it was that I found the puzzle.  If it was a different day, it might not have been there. Or if Chad hadn't reminded me to pick up the gift -which, by the way, was a useful pocket flashlight that I put on my keychain-I wouldn't have found the puzzle.   I thanked Tiffany for the puzzle and said good bye to her and Chad. The puzzle has been sitting on my dining room table, and I've been pondering what I am going to do with it. I've entertained thoughts of putting it on Ebay. Perhaps there is someone that collects Mooseheart memorabilia and will pay more than the twenty-five cents it may have fetched at the book sale. If it's a substantial amount, I 

Mooseheart House of God Puzzle 

might donate the proceeds to the Community Nurses. It will make a newsworthy story that might stir up interest in the memoir I'm writing.  Bids anyone?