On Monday, Jan. 2, Shaker Sister Frances Carr died at the age of 89. She had been a Shaker for almost 80 years and passed away at the Shaker community at Sabbathday Lake in Maine.
Through my own research interest in the area of Christian rituals, I have developed an interest in the Shakers and Shaker history, especially related to the “Era of Manifestations” in the mid-19th century. That was the period when the Shakers performed elaborately choreographed forms of ritual dance and sang sacred songs during their Sunday worship (usually open to the public).
And so it was with a pang of sorrow that I read Sister Carr's obituary. She had been a member of the community since 1937, when the Shakers (who called themselves the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing) had taken her in as a 10-year-old orphan
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