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Heraldic abstraction of the Milwaukee Pierhead Lighthouse
Rendered by Chad Krouse, 2025 |
Armorial amnesia /noun/: institutional forgetfulness or rejection of their armorial insignia for corporate identification often at the expense of modern branding.
Example: St. Bart's has the worst case of armorial amnesia I've seen in my life, the new logo approved by the vestry gives a solidly corporate and benign feeling as opposed to the parish's coat of arms used for so long.
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Everything has its own cycle of life. Trees. Ants. And us humans, of course. Organizations, believe it or not, also have their own life cycle--a never-ending merry go 'round of death and resurrection. I find that organizational cycles have variable speeds when it comes to most non-profits. Volunteer-led groups, perhaps, are the most susceptible to painful downs when leaders depart and experience dramatic highs when fresh faces appear at the table.
One casualty of the organizational life cycle is the slow and steady decline of institutional memory. What do I mean by institutional memory? It is quite simply the collective experiences of the organization through multiple life cycles, bearing scars and all.
Just as the lighthouse gives advanced warning to ships at sea, organizations whose lifecycles spin continuously are at a significant risk of losing their history and/or identity. Or, perhaps worst of all, institutions believing their identification is tied to something outdated like a coat of arms seek a more modern solution and reject their past.
Preservation of design is my goal, especially in the absence of any other body maintaining a database of US corporate heraldry. Recently, I was put to the test with a coat of arms from a now closed Episcopal Church.
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Line art of the coat of arms of St. James' Episcopal Church (Milwaukee, WI)
Image from Dekay (1993), page 141
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St. James' was established in 1867 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and constructed in the gothic revival style. By 2017, the parish property was sold and is now being used as a meeting venue. All attempts to discover any information on these arms via the internet proved fruitless.
Dekay (1993) provides a line art drawing for St. James' arms. I am most grateful for this clue even if there was no blazon provided in the work. Without hatch marks or any colored image of St. James' arms, speculation based on known evidence is our course in recreating these arms for preservation.
First, let's begin with the base of these arms, a trimount, lighthouse, sun, and barry wavy lines.
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Milwaukee Pierhead Lighthouse in Milwaukee, WI
Photo from dnr.wisconsin.gov |
Given the city's location next to Lake Michigan provides a reasonable rationale for the barry wavy lines, so I logically selected blue and white. I began to see that the base design was most likely meant for geographical identification which led me to understand the next element, the lighthouse.
A quick internet search revealed two lighthouses in the Milwaukee area, with the closer one being the Pierhead Lighthouse in red and black--the other was all white. Believing that the Pierhead lighthouse better conformed to heraldic rules of tincture, I selected this one to recreate. Typically, trimounts in base are rendered as a metal and white became the logical solution working perfectly with the red and black lighthouse.
The sun placed behind the lighthouse would be rendered in its proper colors. So, now we turn to the chief.
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Attributed arms of St. James
Rendered by Chad Krouse, 2025. |
Dorling (1911) describes the attributed arms to St. James as: Azure, three escallops Or (p 140). So, if the designer of the parish's coat of arms was a purist, blue might be the color of the chief and gold for shells. However, there is another option which is equally attractive and works within our proposed scheme for the base.
Using a red chief with white shells would provide differencing and at the same time create something unique for parish identification. Below is an illustration to better understand what I mean here.
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Comparing the color and metal of the arms' chief.
Rendered by Chad Krouse, 2025 |
I do believe that any one of these four could work, each presenting artistic benefits for identification. However, we have to make some sort of guess.
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The coat of arms of St. James' Episcopal Church (Milwaukee, WI)
Rendered by Chad Krouse, 2025 |
My first instinct was to believe the chief was red and the shells white so as to provide contrast against the barry wavy lines while drawing out the red from the lighthouse.
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Another reasonable option for the arms of St. James' Episcopal Church
Rendered by Chad Krouse, 2025 |
However, the more I think about the options, I'm now of mind to go with the blue chief and gold shells. Again, without a blazon at present its truly anyone's guess.
I'll continue to see what I can find out about these lovely arms to settle the matter of its blazon. Which do you prefer?
Works Cited
Dekay, Ekford. (1993). Heraldry in the Episcopal Church. Acorn Publishing.
Dorling, E.E. (1911). Heraldry of the church. Mowbray Publishing.
