This is the story of a priest’s journey after death. His name was the Reverend Hilary Hemmer, and he was a relative of Old Forge’s Hemmer Family. Father Hilary, as he was known, was pastor of St. Anthony’s Church in Inlet; in fact, he was in charge of building St. Anthony’s and its Friary.

Father Hilary grew up in Syracuse where he was taught by Franciscan priests and nuns and was professed a Franciscan priest on May 1, 1898 at Assumption Church, the same church where he had received his first communion. Besides Inlet, he also served parishes at St. William’s at Raquette Lake, in Albany, in Terre Haute, Ind.; Trenton, N.J.; Utica, Minoa and Syracuse.

Father Hilary was serving a parish in Wells when he died of heart disease just before Easter in 1934, and he was to be buried from Assumption Church in the plot for Franciscan Friars in Assumption Cemetery. His body was lying in state in the Novitiate at Assumption on Easter Sunday morning when fire broke out and that completely destroyed the church. It burned to the ground.

It happened that two close friends of the priest, Salvatore Grande and Andrew Metzger, both of Utica, were asleep in the upstairs dormitory of the Novitiate. They had come to Syracuse after Father Hilary’s death and remained over Easter for the funeral. They ran downstairs, picked up the heavy casket and carried it through smoke-filled halls, down a flight of winding steps to the sacristy of the church and up another flight of stairs to the outside. Once outside they took the casket to a nearby funeral home, but when firemen ordered that building abandoned because it was in the path of the fire, the casket was taken to a home in the neighborhood only to be removed later to the home of Father Hilary’s brother, Victor Hemmer, who lived several miles away. From there the casket was taken to the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in downtown Syracuse for Father Hilary’s funeral, two days after Easter.

May he rest in peace.