‘Sad Tidings: Marilyn Braatz’

    

“That you should know no further sorrow.”

Very sorry to share the sad news of the passing on Monday night of Mrs. Marilyn Braatz, wife of MW Bro. George Braatz.

Arrangements are being made for November 12-13. I will update this edition of The Magpie Mason with that information when I have it. Click here for the obituary.

George and Marilyn Draper married in 1967, celebrating their fifty-fourth year of matrimony on June 17. Let’s remember George and their sons and daughter David, Michael, and Wendy, and their grandchildren.

Bro. George is very well known about the apartments of the Temple for having served as executive director of the Masonic Service Association of North America from 2010 to 2015. He was elected and installed grand master of the Grand Lodge of Ohio in October 1987.

     

‘LaPlace to head MSANA’

     

Simon R. LaPlace

Connecticut Past Grand Master Simon R. LaPlace will become Executive Secretary of the Masonic Service Association of North America beginning October 1.

LaPlace will succeed George O. Braatz, the Past Grand Master and Past Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Ohio who announced his retirement earlier this year after serving the MSANA for five years as Executive Secretary.

Launched in 1919, the MSANA serves as a clearinghouse of educational publications and demographic data, as well as fulfills philanthropic needs as an organizer of disaster-relief funding in the Masonic fraternity. It also administers its Hospital Visitation Program for the benefit of military veterans across North America.
     

‘QUEST XXXV’

     
QUEST, the longest continuing Masonic education seminar under the Grand Lodge of New York, marking 35 years in the Queens District, will meet again next month in the appropriately named Rockville Centre. From the publicity:

Queens United Educational Seminar Today

presents QUEST XXXV

Saturday, March 28

9 a.m.

Scottish Rite Valley

28 Lincoln Avenue

Rockville Centre, New York

The Grand Master, Grand Line, and Past Grand Masters will be present. Address by MW William J. Thomas, Grand Master.

Keynote Speaker: MW George O. Braatz, Executive Secretary of the Masonic Service Association of North Amierica, and a Past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ohio.

Luncheon Speaker: RW Charles Catapano, Grand Treasurer of the Grand Lodge of the State of New York.

Masonic education literature will be available for purchase. Attire: business casual. Breakfast will be served at 8, and lunch at 12:30.

Cost: $20 per person. Contact: RW John McKoy at ogundawo(at)optonline.net

Click here for more information.
     

‘Coming soon to the Pennsylvania Academy’

     
The Pennsylvania Academy of Masonic Knowledge has announced its plans for March 21. From the publicity:

The 2015 Spring session of the Academy of Masonic Knowledge will be held Saturday, March 21 in the Deike Auditorium of the Freemasons Cultural Center on the campus of the Masonic Village in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. Registration will open at 8:30 a.m. with the program beginning at 9:30. A lunch (requested contribution of $10) will be served at noon, and the program will be completed by 3 p.m. All Masons are welcome to attend. Dress is coat and tie.

The program for the day includes:

Professor Kenneth Loiselle will speak on topics from his research and his recently published book Brotherly Love: Freemasonry and Male Friendship in Enlightenment France in a lecture titled “From Enlightenment to Revolution: Masonic Friendship in Eighteenth-Century France.”

Kenneth Loiselle, Ph.D., is an associate professor of history and international studies at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Loiselle’s research focuses on the relationship between the Enlightenment and the political revolutions that unfolded during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the history of friendship and private life, and French colonialism in the Americas. He is presently conducting research on a book co-authored with Pierre-Yves Beaurepaire on Old Regime Freemasonry.

Brother George O. Braatz, PGM, Executive Secretary of the Masonic Service Association of North America, is a Past Grand Master and Grand Secretary Emeritus of the Grand Lodge of Ohio. The Masonic Service Association of North America, formed in 1919 and headquartered in Maryland, provides educational material, statistical reports, Disaster Relief and it administers a Hospital Visitation Program across North America. Bro. Braatz, has previously served for many years on the steering committee of the MSA’s Masonic Information Center and also as a member of the board of directors of the George Washington Masonic Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia.

The great objective in Freemasonry is to gain useful knowledge, and the Academy provides a great opportunity for the brethren to learn and to understand more about the significance of the Craft. Plan to attend and bring a brother or two with you.

Pre-registration is required. Please send your name, address, lodge number and telephone to amksecretary(at)pagrandlodge.org

Please recognize that a cost is incurred to the program for your registration. If you pre-register and subsequently determine that you will be unable to attend, please have the Masonic courtesy to cancel your reservation by the same method and providing the same information.


I notice there is no mention here of what Braatz will discuss, but at the October session, which I still have yet to write about here, it was said he will disclose the results of a recent nationwide survey of things Masonic.