Wilbo Spends Almost His Entire Sunday At St Mark's San Antonio Where Robert E. Lee Helped Build The Church

Monday, February 24th, 2020 @ 11:50 AM

Cattleman's Square

San Antonio, Texas

I attended St Mark's Episcopal Church last Sunday, a beautiful old stone church that has stood on Pecan Street in downtown San Antonio since before the American Civil War. The church didn't open for services until after the Civil War, however. The war halted construction.

Robert E. Lee served on a body of leaders called the vestry and gave money toward the building fund. His officers also gave money by subscription although all officers knew they could be transferred or deployed. 

Lee was leading Union forces in Texas in 1860 when he wrote his wife in Alexandria about the project to build the church. He had yet to make the choice to lead the Confederate forces against the Union.

An excerpt from the letter has been made into a bronze marker posted at the entrance. Lee wrote beautifully. I have decided to read his collected letters. The marker doesn't say if Lee made a visit after the war to see the church completed. I hope he had the opportunity.

A second marker remembered the day in November 1934 when Lyndon Baines Johnson married Claudia Taylor, a woman who became known as Lady Bird Johnson. She must have made an impression on my infant mind because I retain a fascination with her. 

She had become the First Lady two months after my birth upon the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. I was abashed to not have known her given name nor her maiden name until yesterday. My mother, Joan Elizabeth Juntunen and Lady Bird Johnson dressed alike in the same one piece dresses woven of cotton or wool. My mother looked so beautiful in her office clothing when she arrived home from her job at Hudson's. When Anne-Marie was on the way, she left white collar employment. She settled into life as a house wife and completed her family when Eddie arrived.

Rector Beth Knowlton served the Center for Disease Control as an international liaison before entering the Episcopal ministry. She wanted more time with her family.

During the service, she wore the golden garments of a rector over her white robes. I attended the adult Sunday School class on the subject of freedom and courage. When she taught, she had changed to a black, woven dress of the early Sixties, an item that Joan Elizabeth or Lady Bird might have worn. Just like Lady Bird, the rector had a smile for whoever needed one.

I won't say that I spent the entire day at St Mark's. I wrote most of the afternoon at Sip, a quaint coffee shop on Houston Street. I returned at 4 sharp for a concert of classical music performed by a professor from the University of Texas, including Bach and Beethoven and bagatelles. The choir took the lofts and sang choral evensong, an Anglican tradition that entered the Episcopal tradition in American. The choir sang Psalms and hymns as the sun faded and the colors of the stained glass grew faint. In England, the choir will travel to sing evensong every night for a week. In towns like Oxford, evensong completes the night all seven days of the week. In American, evensong is performed only on a major holiday of the Holy Calendar.

Maybe at all costs I should move to a village in England.