 |
|
|
|
New Bern |
|
|
Priceless frescoes brought back to life in St. John’s 3 lodge room
|
A tragedy was in the making. For 149 years the famous frescoes had been deteriorating to the edge of disaster. The chemistry of paint on plaster can turn ugly in time, as it has many times in Venice.
So it was in the St. John’s 3 lodge room within New Bern’s Masonic Temple building built in 1804. The splendid illustrations of Masonic degree lectures were becoming unrecognizable on the walls and ceiling. Painted in 1847 by Brother E. N. Medernach, they had enough integrity to be repaired rather than repainted. For months Ed Rokoski, an artist from Durham who had done restoration work in Tryon Palace, had painstakingly breathed life back into Medernach’s work.
By early 2006 the work was successfully completed. Today brethren can appreciate these unique paintings, as grand and colorful as ever. Interest has been expressed in photographing the frescoes for lodges to show to candidates for the degrees statewide.
The same room has seen the birth of New Bern’s three York Rite bodies, the Scottish Rite, Doric 568, Craven 129, Bern 724 and Order of the Eastern Star.
But New Bern Masonry did not begin here. The fraternity was alive and well in 1755.
|
 |
Produced by the public relations committee of the Grand Lodge AF&AM of Masons in North Carolina,
2921 Glenwood Avenue, Raleigh, NC 27628 MMVIII
Author/editor: Walter J. Klein wklein(at)carolina.rr.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
