History of Saint James': Hadow Memorial Tablet

“No Star is Ever Lost / We Have Once Seen”

Originally posted 03/01/2016

In the nave, on the right-hand wall between the first two windows, is a marble tablet in memory of Ian Lindsay Lunsford Hadow.  Placed there in October 1935, it memorializes a young boy, age 7, who was born and died in England at the home of his parents.  Ian Hadow’s short life was from 1927 to 1935.  On his mother’s side, he had roots in Virginia.

Ian’s parents, Robert Henry Hadow and Elizabeth Lindsay Lomax, were married at Saint James’ Church on June 30, 1925, with the Rev. Paul Bowden officiating.  The Parish Register shows the groom’s residence as Srinagar, Kashmir (India); the bride’s residences are shown as Washington, D. C. and Warrenton, Virginia.

Elizabeth’s father was the renowned architect Waddy Butler Wood (1869-1944), who designed many of the great houses and buildings in the City of Washington.  His wife, also named Elizabeth, (1874-1951), was a member of the prominent Lomax family of Warrenton.*  In addition to their Washington residence, Mr. and Mrs. Wood lived at Leeton Forest on Lees Ridge Road, Warrenton.  To illustrate ties with Saint James’, in 1917 Waddy Wood donated plans for a new rectory adjacent to the church, completed around 1920 – and which happily serves that purpose today.

Back to young Ian Hadow:  When he came from England to stay with his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Waddy Wood, Ian was baptized at Saint James’ Church.  We can speculate that the tablet memorializing Ian, with its thoughtful verse, was designed by his grandfather, famed architect Waddy Wood.

Although Ian was born in England and died there at age 7, his mother was from a Warrenton family and had married an Englishman.  When Ian came from England to stay with his Warrenton grandparents, he was baptized at Saint James’, the family parish.

Fortuitously, fellow parishioner Eileen Burgwyn kindly wrote on March 10 informing of the origin of the quotation on the memorial tablet —

Eileen explained that the quotation was taken from a narrative poem by Adelaide Anne Procter called “A Legend of Provence.”  A. A. Procter was said to be the favorite poet of Queen Victoria.  This thoughtful quotation comes from the last stanza of the poem (emphasis added):

And thus the Legend ended.  It may be
Something is hidden in the mystery,
Besides the lesson of God’s pardon shown,
Never enough believed, or asked, or known.
Have we not all, amid life’s petty strife,
Some pure ideal of a noble life
That once seemed possible?  Did we not hear
The flutter of its wings, and feel it near,
And just within our reach?  It was.  And yet
We lost it in this daily jar and fret,
And now live idle in a vague regret.
But still our place is kept, and it will wait,
Ready for us to fill it, soon or late:
No star is ever lost we once have seen,
We always may be what we might have been.
Since Good, though only thought, has life and breath,
God’s life—can always be redeemed from death;
And evil, in its nature, is decay,
And any hour can blot it all away;
The hopes that lost in some far distance seem,
May be the truer life, and this the dream.

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*Following Lincoln’s assassination, an aunt, Virginia Lomax, was visiting in Washington and was imprisoned with Mary Surratt, under suspicion, owing to her brother’s high rank in the Confederate Army – Major Gen. Lindsay Lomax of Warrenton (1835-1913).

• Compiled: History Committee – Richard Gookin     February 2016
• Sources:  Parish Register; Warrenton, Virginia – A Unique History of 200 Year, Fauquier Democrat of 10/30/35.  File: Memorial Tablet

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