Churches Connecticut

It may not be pennies from heaven but it's as good as hard currency and biodegradable. Pigeon droppings. Trinity Episcopal Church in Hartford, Conn., is in the pigeon dropping and gathering business. It is selling 1,200 pounds of the organic and nitrogen-rich droppings deposited in the church's 90-foot bell tower. After state agricultural workers confirmed that the pigeon droppings were high-quality, the church started selling three-pound bags of "Sign of the Dove" fertilizer for $3 each.

It may not be pennies from heaven but it's as good as hard currency and biodegradable. Pigeon droppings. Trinity Episcopal Church in Hartford, Conn., is in the pigeon dropping and gathering business. It is selling 1,200 pounds of the organic and nitrogen-rich droppings deposited in the church's 90-foot bell tower. After state agricultural workers confirmed that the pigeon droppings were high-quality, the church started selling three-pound bags of "Sign of the Dove" fertilizer for $3 each.

Evelyn Courtney Branche Ward, a retired receptionist, died Friday at her home in Oxnard. She was 77. She was born Aug. 13, 1923, in Worcester, Mass., and was raised in Hartford, Conn. by her grandparents. She attended Hartford public schools and graduated in 1941 from Weaver High School. On Dec. 18, 1945, she married Granville B. Ward, and the couple had nine children. She joined Shiloh Baptist Church in Hartford at an early age and for many years worked for the church in many capacities.

Forrest Cleburne Weir, executive director of the Southern California Council of Churches for two decades and a former chairman of the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission, has died. He was 91. Weir, who lived in Pacific Palisades, died Sunday in UCLA-Santa Monica Hospital, his son, Ralph, said Thursday.

When Clayton A. Church of rural Coventry, Conn., testified at Randy Steven Kraft's preliminary hearing, he thought a jury would decide soon whether Kraft had killed 16 young men, including Church's son. That was five years ago. "This trial is like a cloud hanging over our heads," Church said of his family. "We kept thinking it would finally happen. Then we'd wait till the next year, and the next."