Sunday, July 05, 2009

CHESTERTON SQUARE!

My family and I recently had the privilege of visiting Chesterton Square in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, the home of the only life-size statue of G.K. Chesterton in America! Here are some photos of our visit--view and be jealous, my fellow Chestertonians!







Around each side of the statue are four different plaques:






My brother and I were thoroughly enjoying ourselves, standing next to GKC!



A few more pics of GK and his square:









Ponchatoula is also known for its Strawberry Festival in the spring, when there is beautiful weather. Chesterton Square is an event center; wouldn't it be just perfect if they had the next ChesterCon there in Ponchatoula?

Here is the Ponchatoula Train Depot, directly across the street from Chesterton Square. The Chesterton Square's creator said he wanted it to look like Chesterton had fallen asleep on the train and accidentally disembarked at Ponchatoula!




































































































Right next to the Train Depot is the home of "Ole Hardhide", who is " an alligator credited with "writing" a column in The Ponchatoula Times newspaper. The current Hardhide is the fourth by that name."
















The old train engine!

















The square from different angles.




To the far left in the distance, you can see the steeple for St. Joseph's Catholic Church.































A pretty alleyway in Ponchatoula.
























I was so thrilled to be able to see the statue and the square!

God bless!
RoseinFaith

8 comments:

love2learnmom said...

That is so awesome! Thanks for all the pictures! :)

Mrs. VH

Dr. Thursday said...

Awesome! I want to go there someday, it looks very interesting.

Of course GKC would be delighed to visit Louisiana, the Pelican State, and no doubt would make a poem about it, alluding to the very well-known appearance of this symbolic bird in the Adoro Te of St. Thomas Aquinas:

Pie pellicane, Jesu Domine,
Me immundum munda tuo sanguine,
Cujus una stilla salvum facere
Totum mundum quit ab omni scelere.


Tender pelican, Jesus, Lord,
Clean me the unclean by means of your blood,
Of which one drop can save
The whole world cleared of all stain.
(my rough translation)

(Why? the pelican in symbolism stands for the Eucharist, since the mother feeds her little ones with her own blood...)

Old Fashioned Liberal said...

Fun!!! Your pictures-per-site is probably even greater than I did on my last days in Rome!

Lauren (RoseinFaith) said...

You're welcome for the pictures! We had such a good time there.

One interesting thing about Ponchatoula, and one that made me love the little town even more, was that when we went there on Sunday, almost every shop was closed. When was the last time you walked through a downtown on a Sunday afternoon and realized that you were walking through a tradition that has almost been lost: that of ceasing business on Sunday, out of respect for the Lord's Day?

Ana Braga-Henebry said...

I am sure you Chesterteens have seen this?

http://www.americanpapist.com/2009/07/cool-blessed-g-k-chesterton.html

Unknown said...

Wow! Sweet! Do we know why Ponchatoula decided to build the Chesterton Square and how long it's been there?

Lauren (RoseinFaith) said...

If you go to to www.chestertonsquare.com , Laura, enter the site, and click on "About", it will tell you all about Dr. Robert Benson, the man who built the Chesterton Square and why he did it. :) It's fairly new, I think it only opened this year!


And yes, I've seen the news about GKC's cause for beatification opening up, isn't that wonderful?? :) Thanks for sharing it with us, Ana!

Unknown said...

Thanks, RoseinFaith, that's really cool! (I wonder what it would be like to have prom in the square... :)