The 120-year history of Annandale’s once-thriving Masonic lodge has come to an end. Established in Fair Haven in 1890 and moved to Annandale in 1894, Fair Haven Lodge No. 182 merged with the Nelson Lodge in Buffalo last month. Membership that once included the "movers and shakers" of Annandale had dwindled to only a handful of local men after the lodge lost its meeting place when the old city hall was demolished about a decade ago, former secretary Jim Peterson said. "We are done now," Peterson said after he and acting master Bob Magnuson, standing in for Lyle Bing, handed over the Annandale lodge’s charter in the worldwide fraternal organization to Nelson Lodge officials Dec. 15. The Minnesota Grand Lodge told the Annandale lodge to merge with another one because of its declining membership, he said. The 17 remaining members are now part of the Nelson Lodge, but only about a half-dozen of them live in Annandale, and two of them are ill. "There are three of us healthy enough to go to Buffalo," Peterson, a 40-year member and onetime lodge leader, said. It wasn’t always that way. The lodge had 96 members back in 1964 and ’65, according to a history in an album of photos of its leaders. As recently as 1978 it had 78 members. In its heyday, many of the lodge’s top officials, called worshipful masters, were "movers and shakers" in the community, Peterson observed as he paged through the album. Some were mayors, like Carty Magnuson and Jim Rogers in the ’60s and H.K. Kelly in the 1890s. Colin McDonald, 1931, was president of the Annandale State Bank, and Myloe Loberg, 1954, was publisher of the Annandale Advocate. Peterson estimated there were 30 members about 10 years ago when the lodge found itself without a meeting place, which he said was the main cause of the merger. The Masons had met on the second floor of the old city hall building since 1923, but it was torn down after Annandale moved into a new city hall just north of there in 2002. The lodge met in the United Methodist Church for a few years and in the back room of a restaurant for awhile, even gathering in members’ homes. "But nothing worked very well," Peterson said. The lodge also wasn’t attracting any new members. "The interest was no longer there." The lack of a meeting place contributed to that, Peterson said. Thriving lodges like those in Buffalo and St. Cloud have impressive places to meet and conduct their rituals. "We had absolutely nothing." The Annandale chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star, the Masons’ women’s auxiliary, used to meet in the same space. It merged with the Clearwater chapter in 2001 when it couldn’t find another place to meet here. The Masonic lodge was started in 1889 in Fair Haven by Jeremiah Gould, a farmer who was its first master. It was chartered the next year and moved to Annandale in 1894, occupying the former Advocate building. "They never did say why they came to Annandale," Peterson said. The Masons are a men’s fraternal and social organization with a religious aspect, according to Peterson. Wikipedia, the internet encyclopedia, says: "Freemasonry’s central preoccupations remain charitable work within a local or wider community, moral uprightness (in most cases requiring a belief in a supreme being) as well as the development and maintenance of fraternal friendship." Worldwide membership is estimated at 6 million and just under 2 million in the U.S. "It’s very related to God," Peterson said. The Masons also support the Shrine hospital research centers, one of which is at the University of Minnesota. Part of the activities at the lodge’s meetings involved getting together and socializing, he said. Back in the early years of the Annandale lodge before his time, dining and playing cards was an important event, Peterson said. "You’d go to a meeting, you’d have a meal and then you’d sit and play cribbage" for a couple of hours. "That was a big deal." While the healthy Annandale Masons can attend meetings in Buffalo, Peterson said he hates to see the lodge fold for the sake of some 40- and 50-year members who have moved elsewhere but faithfully maintained their membership for so long. But since the lodge had become inactive, "it’s time I guess."
My parents Charles William Rode and Dorothy Rode were members for many years from the 60s to the 70s are there any way that I can see pictures