04/14/2026
Journal Readers are Everywhere!
From there to here, from here to there, Journal readers are everywhere.
To celebrate his 70th birthday, Hal Munger, Sr., took his family to Paris for Holy Week last year. Pictured above are Hal Sr. and Melissa Munger, Hal Jr. and Jacquelyn Munger with their three sons Harry, Will and James, and Elizabeth Munger Szymanski with her husband Erik Szymanski, outside the restored Notre Dame Cathedral following Easter morning mass. On Good Friday, they attended Tenebrae services there, led by the Archbishop and culminating with each of them kissing Christ’s Crown of Thorns—brought back from the Middle East by King Louis IX. It was the 50th anniversary of Hal senior’s first visit to Notre Dame as a young architecture student.
The Mungers noted the cathedral’s restoration following the devastating fire five years earlier was an architectural, artistic and faith-filled wonder. At the beginning of the week, the family took part in a processional and Mass at Sacré-Cœur on Montmartre, the hill overlooking the City of Light. Throughout the week they explored sites like the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the Bateau Mouche, the Louvre as well as other museums, Gothic basilicas, gardens, shops, cafes and bistros, patisseries, champagne caves in Reims and its famous Gothic Cathedral. Both Hal’s son, also a Notre Dame Architecture graduate, and his son-in-law, an Indiana University Art School graduate, saw works they’d long studied. His grandsons, taking Immersion French classes in suburban Boston, got to use their emerging language skills. All will forever remember their April in Paris.
The Perrysburg Messenger Journal staff invites readers and advertisers to submit photos of themselves or others reading the paper wherever they may travel. Try to include a familiar or interesting background, such as Big Ben. Photos may be submitted by email to [email protected] or by mail to the Perrysburg Messenger Journal, P.O. Box 267, Perrysburg, Ohio 43552. Please note the name of the person(s) in the photo and their hometown/business as well as any other details you may want to include about the trip.
