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Christmas has special meaning to the parish of St. Margaret of Scotland. The parish's first mass was celebrated in a rented store building on Christmas Day, 1899, and the first mass in the present building (then unfinished) was exactly seven years later. The day is commemorated in the large Nativity mural behind the main altar. A related image of Mary and the infant Jesus is seen in the first statue to the left.
The statue to the right in contrasting marbles represents St. Margaret of Scotland. She is also depicted in stained glass in the balcony window. The historical St. Margaret was a member of the Saxon ruling family of England, born about 1045 while her parents were in exile from the Danes. They returned during the reign of her great-uncle, Edward the Confessor, but fled the Norman invasion in 1066. Seeking refuge in Scotland, they met King Malcolm Canmore, the victor in Shakespeare's Macbeth. He married Margaret a few years later. Their joint reign became a milestone in the development of Scotland, with Malcolm consolidating the country and Margaret introducing continental standards of Christianity and culture. They died within days of each other in 1093. Three of their sons succeeded to the throne of Scotland, while their daughter Matilda became the progenitor of the kings of England through her marriage to Henry I. Margaret was declared a saint in 1250 and patroness of Scotland in 1673.
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The church is one of at least six parish churches designed by architects Barnett, Haynes & Barnett in the first decade of the twentieth century, while they were working on the New Cathedral. The others are St. Rose of Lima at Goodfellow and Maple, St. Ann at Page and Whittier, St. Mark the Evangelist at Page and Academy, Our Lady of Visitation at Taylor and Evans, and Immaculate Conception at Lafayette and Longfellow. All are still standing, although the first three are no longer Catholic. St. Margaret's shares with several of them a dominant corner tower and a broad worship space under a beamed ceiling unsupported by columns.
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Outside, St. Margaret's is Gothic in style, and the windows have simple pointed arches of the Early Gothic inset with the more ornamental parallel tracery of the Perpendicular or English Late Gothic. Beginning in 1925 and continuing for the next 13 years, the original wood altars and plaster statues inside were replaced by marble and mosaics under the direction of the Daprato Company of Pietrasanta, Italy. Murals above the altar depict the Transfiguration and Ascension. Windows by the Emil Frei Art Glass Company of St. Louis show the miracles of Jesus, starting with the Marriage at Canna at the left front.
A second round of decorations in the 1940s included the present pews. By that time, the parish had nearly 2,600 households. Today, with 450 families, a grade school, and many community activities, St. Margaret's remains an important anchor to the Shaw neighborhood.
| Notes by Esley Hamilton
and Philip Barnes Exterior Photos by Roger Hill Interior Photo by Beth Tuttle |