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Written
by Ann M. Colford
When St. Ann’s Catholic Church, in Spokane’s East Central
neighborhood, celebrated its centennial in 2002, the memories and
stories of the past 100 years were embodied by many life-long parishioners
like Amelia Minelli, Rose Dimico, Adeline Moulton, and the Kelly family.
Their stories conjure up the days when Monsignor Theophilius Pypers
ministered to the souls of Catholics in the immigrant neighborhood
as St. Ann’s pastor, a job he held for more than 50 years. But
other stories hover in the air as well, memories of torture and murder
in El Salvador and of the sanctuary offered by St. Ann’s in
the 1980s to a Salvadoran family fleeing the death squads of their
homeland. From the early days of the parish’s founding at what
was then the outskirts of the city, to the rebuilding of the church
after a devastating fire in the early years of the Great Depression,
and on to the present commitment to the poor of the neighborhood,
the St. Ann’s community has shown a spirit of resilience and
the courage to act in faith.
The Early Days
In October 1902, the diocese of Seattle (then called Nesqually) established
the parish of St. Ann’s to serve the eastern part of Spokane
south of the river, a primarily working-class neighborhood with many
immigrant families. The closest church at the time was the Church
of Our Lady of Lourdes, then located downtown at Main and Bernard.
The Sprague Avenue streetcar did not run as far as the East End neighborhood,
so the Catholics living there often had to hike nearly three miles
into town to go to church.
The bishop appointed Father L. W. Ferland, the chaplain of Sacred
Heart Hospital, as the first part-time pastor. For the first two years,
parishioners gathered in a commercial building at Sprague and Pittsburg
for services. By 1904, the 540 members of the parish had raised more
than half of the funds necessary to construct a church. The parish
began celebrating together in the new church building, a wood-frame
structure set on four lots at the corner of First and Lee, in September
1904. Father J. Rebmann, a Jesuit from Gonzaga University, assumed
the role of part-time pastor until September 1906 when Father Pypers,
a missionary priest originally from Belgium, was appointed as the
parish’s first full time resident pastor. The building debt
was paid off that same year, and the new pastor began plans to build
a parish rectory. He drew up the plans for the ten-room frame house
himself, and two parishioners, Mr. Lorsung and Mr. Pipe, did the construction
work. Once again, the cost of the building project was paid off in
a little over a year.
In 1916, the parish began serious planning for the construction of
its own parochial school. Father Pypers had purchased property adjacent
to the church and donated it to the parish for this purpose, and parishioners
raised over $10,000 towards the building in the first year of the
drive. Construction was delayed first by U.S. entry into the World
War One and later by a lack of available teachers. Finally, early
in 1925, workers laid the foundation for the school at the corner
of Lee and Pacific. The Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration
from LaCrosse, Wisconsin, moved to Spokane to assume responsibility
for the school. At the opening of school in September 1925, 84 pupils
reported to class – including current parishioner Rose Dimico,
who was part of that initial first-grade class.
Rebuilding from Tragedy
By 1929, the year of the stock market crash, the parish had built
both a rectory house and a school serving grades one through six.
On December 7th of that year, long-time pastor Father Pypers awoke
in the early morning hours to find the church aflame. The fire department
worked to save the wooden building, but before it was over, the upper
walls and roof had completely collapsed. The next day, parishioners
gathered at the site of the destroyed church and worked together to
salvage the altar and pews, which were moved into the school auditorium
to create a temporary chapel. A month later, the congregation met
and, after much discussion, voted in favor of building a new church.
By the end of that first meeting, more than $8,000 had been committed
toward the building fund, with another $7,000 to follow in the next
few weeks.
Architect W. A. Wells designed a mission-style church building to
honor the early Catholic missionaries to the Pacific Northwest. Construction
began in August 1930. The altar from the original church was installed
in the new building, and lumber from the original pews was used to
build the new ones, which remain in use today. The new bell tower
held the old church’s bell, recast after cracking in the fire.
And just a year after the fire, in December 1930, the bishop of Spokane
dedicated the new St. Ann’s church in a high mass celebrated
by Father Pypers.
Little changed in the life of the parish during the decades of the
30s, 40s, and 50s, even as the neighborhood changed irreversibly following
the construction of the freeway, two blocks to the south. St. Ann’s
was an island of calm amid the tumultuous events in world during those
years, under the steady guidance of its patriarch, Father Pypers,
who was elevated to Monsignor in 1951. After his death in the late
1950s, his long-time assistant, Father David Rosage, became pastor,
followed a few years later by Father Prince, but parish life remained
much the same.
Decades of Change
Following the Second Vatican Council of the mid-1960’s, however,
change swept through Catholic parishes around the globe. St. Ann’s
was no exception, although the new practices were instituted slowly
at first by Father Prince. He adopted the shift from Latin to English,
turned the altar around to face the congregation, and removed the
communion rail. Changes accelerated with the arrival of the first
Franciscans, Father Tom Frost and Father Glenn Felion, in the spring
of 1968. They removed the traditional ornate altar and replaced it
with a simple table. Some of the statues were removed form the church,
and the tabernacle was moved to the side of the altar. By the early
1970s, the parish school closed and its students transferred to All
Saints’ School, with students from other south-side parishes.
Beyond the physical changes, a philosophical shift began when the
Franciscans assumed responsibility for the parish. By using their
first names and later pushing the altar forward so they celebrated
Mass within the congregation, the Franciscans emphasized their own
humanness and presented a new model of church and community. Parishioners
became more involved and the parish council took on a more active
role in the leadership of the parish.
At the same time, St. Ann’s began to attract people from beyond
the formal parish boundaries. The new arrivals came for the music,
the spirit, and the sense of community that was growing. While they
infused the parish with a new energy and a vision of the concerns
in the wider world, the parish inevitably lost some of its close connection
with the neighborhood.
Many long-time parishioners mourned the loss of tradition, as symbolized
by the statues, the nuns, the communion rail, and the school. Lost
as well was the sense of rootedness in the immediate neighborhood.
But for members who stuck with the parish through the changes came
an opportunity to participate more fully in the life of the church
and a new community growing out of a more collaborative style of worship.
Sanctuary
In the 1970s and 80s, the U.S. government supported governments and
other organizations in Central America that were seen as helping to
“fight communism” in the region. The support included
financial and military aid that increased after the election of Ronald
Reagan in 1980. The result was a guerrilla war waged by these groups
throughout countries like Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador to
either maintain or regain political power.
Many clergy and church workers aided the poor, who were often caught
in the crossfire, while working to promote justice in the region.
The assassination of El Salvador’s Archbishop Oscar Romero in
1980 and the killing of six Jesuits brought the terror and bloodshed
to the attention of many Americans who may not have been aware of
the events taking place beyond our borders. In response, an ecumenical
group from churches in Arizona began declaring their churches to be
places of sanctuary, places where those fleeing the death squads could
remain free from harassment by the INS. Reagan administration officials
insisted that those leaving their Central American homes were doing
so purely for economic reasons, but those who heard their stories
of atrocities were moved to take action to protect the refugees from
being returned by the authorities.
During 1984, a group of St. Ann’s parishioners began meeting
in the chapel after Sunday Mass to talk about the Sanctuary movement
and the continuing injustices they saw in Central America. The movement
arrived in the northwest as the University Baptist Church in Seattle
declared sanctuary, followed by St. Leo’s in Tacoma. A Salvadoran
woman who had been helped by the group in Seattle came to speak at
St. Ann’s with her translator early in 1985, only to be arrested
soon after in a raid that targeted Sanctuary workers across the country.
The raid galvanized support for Sanctuary at St. Ann’s, and
a parish-wide vote in late January approved the declaration of St.
Ann’s as a Sanctuary church. Some parishioners who did not support
the decision left the community, but those who remained worked hard
to turn the basement of the parish house into temporary living quarters.
Parishioners signed a Sanctuary Covenant, committing the community
to the principles of Sanctuary, and that book has remained in the
church ever since. On the evening of the St. Patrick’s Day party
in 1985, several members of the Orellana family arrived in the darkness
and took up residence as part of St. Ann’s community.
Now, as it looks forward to the next century, the St. Ann’s
community reflects on the past but does not dwell there. The parish
maintains a connection with the neighborhood, teaming with several
other churches for a weekly free Sunday lunch open to all in the parish
hall and working with neighboring Grace Lutheran on an after-school
program for the children of East Central. Most parishioners live outside
the official parish boundaries but are drawn to St. Ann’s by
its spirit of community and its commitment to living out the values
of the Gospel through social justice. St. Ann’s is a far different
parish now than it was at the time of its founding 100 years ago but
relies on the resilience and faith of current members to carry the
community into the next century.
Text copyright 2002 Ann M. Colford
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