Here's an interesting RPPC (Real Picture Post Card) from Morgan Park I found on Ebay recently.
The picture is wonderful: The card is labelled "Episcopal Church, Armida Ave." This is a very early photograph of the Church of the Mediator, which stands on its own little island of land at 10961 S. Hoyne Ave. (if you remember last week's post, Hoyne was originally called Armida Ave., based on an Italian Renaissance poem). The church is surrounded by rural countryside and dirt roads, and a horse and buggy stands waiting in the road.
The back of the card is postmarked Morgan Park, Aug. 22, 1907, 12:30 p.m. (Morgan Park was still its own Village then – it would not annex to Chicago for another seven years), and bears a one cent stamp. It is addressed to a woman in Bucklin, Kansas.
The sender wrote this on the front of the card: "This is only one of the churches here and a small one at that. I am having a fine time here but had a better time in Bucklin. Will go home in a week. Well it's bedtime now." It is signed Marguerite Gantt.
WHAT?? She had a better time in Kansas than in Morgan Park?? I wonder if she would still say that today!
But this card does remind us that Morgan Park was intentionally founded as a religious, education and temperance community. It was carefully designed and laid out to resemble an English country village. This little church was keeping with that motif.
The Church of the Mediator (in a newer building that replaced this early church) closed its doors for good in 2009 due to a declining congregation. The building sits empty and for sale. One big problem is the lack of parking, but you can see that at the time this picture was taken, car parking would never have been dreamed of yet.
And a side note, one of the people involved in the building of this church was Robert C. Givins, who built the Castle at 103rd and Longwood Drive. Givins' father was an Anglican minister in Canada. The Anglican Church is the Church of England, headed by the current King or Queen. In the USA, it is the Episcopal Church, organized after the American Revolution.
– Carol Flynn, RHS Communications. #RidgeHistoricalSociety