Seeing the work and growth of our association, many people have asked how was born this group of highly motivated volunteers?
We will try to tell our route:
Firstly, having been long neglected and forgotten, our chapel decaying slowly with only companions, rabbits, birds, cicadas and a few foxes or badgers.
One day a young couple (Beloved & Vicente Vera ) Homeless and freedom-loving, came to solicit the parish priest, Father Roy, who gave them the key to the chapel. Within months, they transformed the chapel into a habitable house. They appealed to Mr Michel Valero then Mason, who created three openings, a small tank and refit the roof.
In a discussion with Michel Valero, the latter informed him that Norbert had been summoned to remove the "virgin" that sits on the pinion, then throw it in the landfill. He calmly but firmly dissuaded by arguing on the respect for heritage. The matter rested there.
The ground was covered with parquet flooring, wall paneling, which amounted to roof, and door-lined plates. To soften the winter, a fire was in the left corner as you enter. The bedroom was installed in the pit. Later, at the birth of their daughter Minerva, they aménagérent mezzanine. The big problem of this magnificent place was the lack of water. It was perhaps for this reason that our ancestors had built their cemetery away from wells and rivers. They did not speak yet of ecology, but practiced.
When, tired of playing hippies, squatters left join our civilization, the chapel became a beautiful cabin for our youth and others.
Unfortunately, a fire is extinguished spread from the fireplace floor, and then paneled and of course the roof beams. Everything except the walls collapsed and the statue. You can still see now, inside the stones reddened by the intensity of the blaze. As a misfortune never comes alone, shortly after a violent storm uprooted thousands of trees, the most beautiful of our site.
(this tree to the right of the chapel was quoted in a book, among the 100 most beautiful trees of the Herald ...)
Shortly after Mary Crebassa said Norbert out of the Mass:
" Norbert, we should do something for the chapel. "
"It's true, we could do something, but what ?..."
Things remained there.
But they did not count without the sweet and firm will to Mary that restarted every time she saw him. He did not know by how to handle this story when he said that ... Maybe
?
He spoke thus Loulou Fouquet. He would know how to do it with the dynamism that we all knew him. We needed to first know who owned the chapel, because we could not afford to take care of the land without the owner knowing. At the town hall, Yvan Segalas, our former secretary, informed us immediately with the cadastral map:
The chapel and its adjoining land still belonged to some association of popular education "Culture and joy", created in 1955 by Abbé Georges Cros, then pastor of Abeilhan.
So we revived the association July 18, 1996, to become owner of the chapel.
That's why we kept the name a bit outdated in this association,
adding unofficially "Friends of Saint Peter."
Now all we needed as the principal, the sinews of war to begin work.
By a stroke of luck, the wine cooperative made us aware that we could have hoped for ... maybe a ... Grant FGER, through its support, through its group. For large earthwork, embankment and cleaning, etc. ... requiring the use of heavy equipment.
Emmanuel Villeneuve (native Abeilhan) then president of "Shale" (group of cooperatives, including that of Abeilhan) took all the steps to qualify for this grant. Chaired by Didier Boyer, Gerald Santacru (former manager of the cooperative cellar) and Guy Rivemale our liaison officer will then provide the documents necessary for the constitution of matter, which was finally accepted September 2, 1997.
The train was on track.
We take this opportunity here to thank all those who by their contributions (grants, contributions, gifts, material aid, physical and moral, etc ...) even modest help us preserve and beautify our ancient heritage.
