A few years back St. James Episcopal Church decided to purchase a new St. Francis statue for its memory gardern. The current statue had been there for many years and was showing its age. It sat right by the street so that everyone walking or driving past the church downtown saw it. Not knowing what would happen to it, Birdman and I offered to find it a new home in our garden. After a donation for the purchase of the new one, we transfered St. Francis to his new home. Knowing that it was loved and really belonged to the residents of Piqua, we felt that we needed to place it in our front yard so that people could still enjoy it. One day there was a knock at our front door from a passerby. It turns out that their family had purchased the statue many years ago in memory of their daughter who had died. She had contracted encephalities from a bite while she was at band camp and died afterwards. The family no longer lived in Piqua, but upon returning for a visit saw that the statue was on longer at the church and inquired as to what had happened to it. They were happy to know of its new home and had stopped to see it.
