Despite near destruction by hurricane Katrina, Magnolia Lodge No. 120 of Biloxi, Mississippi, held their regular November meeting by candlelight in their building.

Above left: WM Lex Lamey presents a 50-year certificate to Wor. Lawrence Corban, Jr. Left-Right: Bro. Ricky Randazzo, WM Lamey, W Bro. Corban, SD Jimmy Rodriguez, PM. Above right: Treasurer Paul Davis, PM, and Secretary George Clemenes, PM, operated smoothly from their temporary desk.

“Even the Temple of Solomon, so spacious and magnificent and constructed by so many celebrated artists, escaped not the unsparing ravages of barbarous force. Freemasonry, notwithstanding, has still survived.”

As Masonic meetings go, it wasn’t all that special. In fact, it was downright commonplace. The members of Magnolia Lodge No. 120 in Biloxi, Mississippi, gathered before the meeting and put on their aprons while jokes and greetings were exchanged. Then the Worshipful Master opened the lodge, the members recited the Pledge of Allegiance, the Chaplain invoked the blessings of God, and the Secretary read the minutes. A few announcements were made, and a brother was recognized for 50 years of faithful membership in the fraternity.

What was very special, however, were the circumstances under which the meeting was held. The Magnolia Lodge building, nearly a century old, was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. (The back page of the November-December 2005 Scottish Rite Journal carried photos of post-Katrina damage, and more are available at http://www.magnolia120.org.) Over 1,000 feet of the roof was destroyed, the ceilings collapsed on the second and third floors, windows were blown out, the interior was destroyed in the lodge room, and two of their three business tenants on the first floor are gone. Some members of the lodge lost everything except the concrete slabs on which their former homes rested. Biloxi and Magnolia Lodge indeed experienced the “unsparing ravages of barbarous force.”

Immediately following Katrina, Magnolia Lodge held a special meeting in a neighboring lodge. An insurance representative said the damage was so severe that the extent of repairs and costs could not be decided quickly. A structural engineer determined the Masonic Temple could be rebuilt, but the details were left to the lodge. That’s where the courage, resolve, and fraternal spirit took center stage. Members have worked ten hours a day, seven days a week to restore Magnolia Lodge. The roof has been nearly restored, and the lodge room almost stripped bare. The lodge room walls are now bare brick and the floor is raw wood. The Master’s podium is a nail barrel, the Wardens use upturned garbage cans, and the altar is a utility cart. The members sit on old wooden chairs from the 1940s and before. There is no electricity, so candles light the room and the Letter “G.” Virtually everything the lodge had is gone except for the Mystic Tie that binds the Brothers together.

On the second Thursday of November, despite the chaos left behind by Katrina, the Brethren did what they’ve done since 1850—they held their regular meeting. There is something deeply satisfying about Magnolia Lodge being part of the slow return to normalcy in Biloxi. That evening Worshipful Master Lex Lamey, assisted by Sr. Deacon Jimmy Rodriguez, P.M., presented a 50-year pin to Bro. Lawrence Corban, Jr., who was raised to the Sublime Degree in 1955 by his father, the then Grand Master of Mississippi.

The meeting brings to mind lines from Ill. Lawrence N. Greenleaf’s poem, “The Lodge Room Over Simpkins’ Store”:

Above: The letter “G” over the east was illuminated 2 candlepower of light. Below: The temporary altar of Magnolia Lodge served the members very well.

The plainest Lodge room in the
land was over Simpkins’ store,
Where Friendship Lodge had
met each month for fifty years or more.

…

To city eyes, a cheerless room,
long usage had defaced,
The tell-tale lines of lath and beam
on wall and ceiling traced.

The light from oil-fed lamps was
dim and yellow in its hue,
The carpet once could pattern boast,
though now ’twas lost to view.

…

There could be left no lingering doubt,
if doubt there was before,
The plainest Lodge room in the
land was over Simpkins’ store.

…

To hear the records of their acts
was music to the ear,
We sing of deeds unwritten which
on angel’s scroll appear.

A widow’s case—four helpless ones—
Lodge funds were running low,
A dozen Brethren sprang to feet
and offers were not slow.

Food, raiment, things of needful sort,
while one gave a load of wood,
Another, shoes for little ones,
for each gave what he could.

…

Were Brother cast on darkest square
upon life’s checkered floor,
A beacon light to reach the white—
was over Simpkins’ store.

Nothing special here, no, nothing at all. It was just another lodge meeting of Freemasons devoted to the principles of Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth. “Freemasonry notwithstanding, has still survived.”