Emessay Notes July 2011 

Appeal For Relief: North Dakota

With flooding in many parts of the state, most especially in Minot, (completely underwater) North Dakota is experiencing a major disaster!

         Please forward to the MSA such funds as you feel appropriate to help our devastated Brethren and their families in this stricken jurisdiction. Please make checks payable to the MSA Disaster Relief Fund and send to 8120 Fenton Street, Ste. 203, Silver Spring, MD 20910-4785.

         Thank you very much for your help!

Smallest Lodge In North America

The Grand Lodge of Virginia is posing this question: Does their lodge – Wynn Lodge #521 – have the smallest lodgeroom dimensions in North America? Wynn Lodge’s lodgeroom measures 20’ wide by 30’ long. The anteroom and preparation room are 18’4” wide and 5’7” long. The main lodgeroom is 22’6” long. The distance from the Masters station to the altar is 5’6” and from the Senior Warden’s station to the altar 8’1”.

Does any lodgeroom have smaller dimensions? If so please email those dimensions to MSA at : msana@ix.netcom.com

 

YANKEE DOODLE

Yankee Doodle came to town,
A-riding on a pony
He stuck a feather in his cap,
And called it macaroni.

A British Surgeon, Dr. Richard Schuckberg is credited with writing down “Yankee Doodle Dandy” after the French and Indian War.

(Source: Walter Reed Chapter #303, National Sojourners, Newsletter,
July 2011 Prepared by Bro. John Cole prior to his passing in April, 2011)

 

       JULY 4TH – INDEPENDENCE DAY

 

Two Prominent English Masons

 

A King & His Speech Therapist

            “The King’s Speech” recently swept the Academy Awards, but the rest of the story (as Paul Harvey used to say) is that although not mentioned in the film, it is of interest that both King George VI (1895-1952) and his speech therapist Lionel George Logue (1880-1953) were Freemasons. Worshipful Brother Lionel Logue, the character played by Geoffrey Rush, was the speech therapist who helped King George VI cure his stammer.

            Lionel George Logue was a member of St. George’s Lodge (now J. D. Stevenson St. George’s Lodge No. 6, Western Australian Constitution). He was born in Adelaide on 26 February 1880 and educated at Prince Alfred College in Adelaide. He studied elocution and worked as a teacher.

            His Masonic records show that he was raised to the sublime degree of a Master Mason on 20 November 1908. His rise through the Officer’s Chairs continued to Worshipful Master in 1919. WB Logue seems to have had a busy professional life in Perth. He taught elocution, public speaking and acting, as well as producing stage plays. He worked to help soldiers returning from World War I who were afflicted with speech impediments caused by shell-shock.

            In 1924, he set up consulting rooms in London where he treated both rich and poor alike; apparently the exorbitant fees he charged the rich subsidized the treatment of his poorer clients. In 1926, he was consulted by the Duke of York (later King George VI) for help to overcome his stammer. Brother Logue was appointed to the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) the night before the coronation of King George VI on May 12, 1937.

            Brother Logue was a founder of the British Society of Speech Therapists and a founding fellow of the College of Speech Therapists and he was speech therapist to the Royal Masonic School.

            In 1944, his MVO was elevated to Commander of the Victorian Order (CVO). He retained his friendship with King George VI until the king’s death in 1952. Brother Logue passed to the Grand Lodge Above on 12 April 1953.

            George VI - Albert Frederick Arthur George - was king of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death. As the second son of King George V, he was not expected to inherit the throne and spent his early life in the shadow of his elder brother, Edward. He served in the Royal Navy during World War I, and after the war took on the usual round of public engagements. He had two daughters, Elizabeth (who succeeded him as Queen Elizabeth II) and Margaret.

            George’s elder brother ascended the throne as Edward VIII on the death of their father in 1936. However, less than a year later, Edward revealed his desire to marry the American socialite Wallis Simpson. Edward abdicated in order to marry, and George VI ascended the throne as the third monarch of the House of Windsor. King George VI was a very keen Freemason and the multi-page article at www.mqmagazine.co.uk/issue-14/p-07.php states that “his stammer rarely surfaced when he was involved in ritual.”

(Source: The Indiana Freemason, April 2011)