A Sermon in Stones

Houses of worship have been a special focus of building design for about as long as worship and buildings have existed. Even as religious practice has declined, churches, temples and other prayer centers remain among the most beautiful feats of architecture. This is true of many churches in Aberdeen, one of which is Sacred Heart Catholic church on Third Avenue SE between Kline and State Streets. It not only expresses faith in a higher power but reflects its parishioners’ confident hope.

One of the oldest congregations in Aberdeen, Sacred Heart was organized in 1880. Its founding pastor Father Robert Haire originally had an enormous parish, stretching from western Minnesota into what became North Dakota to the Missouri River and to Huron (read about Fr. Haire in Aberdeen Magazine here). Eventually, Sacred Heart’s boundaries receded to the Aberdeen area. Having celebrated Aberdeen’s first Mass in a sod house in 1880, Fr. Haire built the parish’s first church in generally the current location in 1882. In 1899, Fr. John O’Hora built a new church. It would have nearly as short a life.

This vintage postcard features Sacred Heart’s second church, located about in the same place as the current church. This was built in 1899 but was condemned in the early 1920s.

ENTER FATHER DERMODY

Irish-born Fr. Michael Dermody became Sacred Heart’s pastor in 1904 and seems always to have wanted to build a new church. Within a decade, he built Sacred Heart School at what was then the corner of Arch Street and Third Avenue in 1914 at a cost of $80,000.

A few years later, a 1919 newspaper story on the church’s anniversary noted, “Twenty years has made many changes, but the beauty of the church …has increased greatly instead of deteriorating.”  The story concluded, “the church has become almost too small to hold the increasing number in the parish.” Proving the first sentiment wrong, within three years the building was condemned, and services moved to the school basement. The second assessment was accurate because the parish was bursting at its seams, perhaps literally. Deacon Jeff Swank, who oversees parish maintenance, says the building had mortar problems.

According to the parish history, A Church Grows on a Tree Claim by Robert J. Murray (1974, 1981), building a new church was delayed due to school construction debt. Additionally, ominously, “The beginning of a business recession and some bad crop years added to the financial worries also.”

Despite such omens, when the old church was demolished in 1928, a newspaper reported—17 months to the day before Black Tuesday, the stock market crash that augured the Great Depression—Sacred Heart planned to build a $250,000 structure. A later report predicted a finished church by winter 1929. The St. Paul architecture firm of Slifer & Abrahamson was already involved. Principals Fred Slifer and Frank Abrahamson had helped design—either with their mentor, seminal architect Emmanuel Louis Masqueray, or in their own firm—many Twin Cities area buildings, including two major Catholic churches: the Cathedral of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Basilica of St. Mary. The firm must have been working for a while because Sacred Heart’s 1926 parish financial report bore a pretty accurate rendering of the future Gothic-style church.

The global Great Depression intervened, however, and construction was delayed until 1932. While a vision was clearly in place, the parish history reports Dermody appointed a building advisory committee made up of local heavy hitter businessmen. Encountering occasional dissent, the pastor “periodically ‘dismissed’ his building committee,” but later “would prevail upon them to accept reappointment.” Still, Father usually got his way.

Regarding building during the Great Depression, the parish history argues that “the building of a new church at this time would provide an opportunity for work and it also made it possible, with the prevailing low wages, to get a lot of building for the money available.” In other words, firms got needed business, people got needed work, and the parish got a needed church at a bargain.

NEW CHURCH

Original blueprints for the new church building

Nasvick Construction Company, a St. Paul church building specialist, earned the contract, and finally, nine years after the 1899 church had been condemned and four years after its demolition, excavation for the new church began in October 1932. Not a lot of detail about the process made it into print (and most ninety-year-old parish records were discarded), but some milestones were reported. The foundation was set in December 1932, and in April 1933, the bishop laid the cornerstone, which contained a parish history and explanations of the building’s architecture and symbolism. On Christmas Eve 1933, Fr. Dermody celebrated the first Mass in the completed building.

The church was actually not totally complete. The planned stained glass windows and interior decoration would wait years, except a 1933 article noted that two windows had already been donated and would be installed soon. Reflecting scriptural precursors of the Catholic Mass, one would present Abraham ready to sacrifice his son Isaac, and the other would show Melchizedek offering bread and wine. It’s not clear when those were installed.

The cornerstone on the church building notes the date it was erected. But not finished.

Financing was likely the cause of the interruption. Despite promising fundraising results, Fr. Dermody needed a loan to cover costs. The total construction bill was reported as high as $250,000 down to $130,000, perhaps the difference between prices before and during the Depression.

Complete or not, the church was broadly celebrated. In January 1934, an editorial hailed “The achievement of the Sacred Heart parish in ‘beating the depression’ by constructing a stately new edifice of worship when retrenchment rather than ‘Excelsior’ was the watchword of the times.” Another article said, “The structure, viewed from the exterior or interior, is literally a sermon in stones.”

Modern architects share the admiration. Buffy King, with Co-Op Architecture, pointed to high vaulted ceilings and pointed arches exhibiting Gothic architecture’s “idea of tall—to be raising thoughts to heaven.” Having seen the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, she said, “Sacred Heart is really a nice representation of cathedral architecture. It’s really a gem.” Growing up near Sacred Heart, where she was baptized, confirmed, and married, she has long experience there. “I almost took things for granted from coming to church here so often,” she said. “When you think about it, it’s a treasure.”

King’s Co-Op colleague, Spencer Sommers, is also impressed by the church’s ornamentation—unlike “any building built after the 1920s.” Gothic revival was already winding down by the early 1900s, and “To have a church like this in Aberdeen is remarkable. You don’t see stuff built like this anymore.”

Architectural details and statuary are integrated throughout the building’s exterior.

Photos of the building—not to mention actually visiting the church—do much better than words to describe its design and the many details—God is in these details—that convey the faith of the church and its parishioners, so descriptions here will be somewhat superficial. The building is 187 feet long, 44 feet wide and 83 feet tall at its highest point. The exterior walls are Mankato limestone cut to different sizes. The trim stone and all window tracery is Indiana limestone. Deacon Swank notes the clever design of the slate roof tiles, “They get smaller as they go higher to create the impression of greater height.”

The exterior features much iconography. High above the side entrances are religious symbols, including on the east side, recognizing the Jewish roots of Christianity, a menorah. But the facade might be the most densely packed with symbolism, as the parish history describes:

“Above the door, in carved stone, are the symbols of the Trinity. In the center the hand, symbol of the creator, God the Father; to the right, the Lamb, symbol of the sacrificial victim, the Redeemer, with the banner of triumph over sin and death; to the left the dove of peace, symbol of the Holy Spirit. The symbols of the four Evangelists distinguish the two towers—to the right are the symbols of Matthew, the man’s head, and Mark, the lion; to the left are the ox, symbol of Luke, and the eagle, symbol of John.”

And these are primarily in just the first “story” of the building.

Inside, vaulted ceilings are divided by columns into bays, and the walls have oak wainscoting. At the back of the sanctuary is an Italian marble altar, a gift from Father Dermody, above which three life-size statues of disciples mourn at the foot of the cross. Transept chapels featured statues of church figures, including a reproduction of Michelangelo’s Pieta, Mary holding Jesus’ crucified body.

Gone but not forgotten, the old churches bequeathed two features to the new one. The bell from the original 1882 church, which had also rung in the second building, made the trip to the tower. The Estey organ followed into the new choir loft.

COMPLETION

Recalling Moses, Fr. Dermody died in 1939 before seeing the finished church. It fell to Monsignor Patrick Monaghan, who became pastor in 1941, to decorate the church and install the windows.

It was not an auspicious time. As the Depression lingered, World War II began. While the latter seemed ultimately to defeat the former, challenges didn’t diminish. The scarcities of the downturn were replaced by rationing as the country invested in war. Stories of local men in service, including the injured, missing and dead filled newspapers, and their funerals filled churches. Maybe because of these hardships, Monaghan saw need to complete the church.

There was a practical reason too. Most large windows in the building were plain white, which made for a very warm church in summertime.

In 1944 Msgr. Monaghan obtained donations from parishioners for the stained glass windows, $1,000 each for the two large transept windows and façade window, and $600 each for nave windows. Donors’ names are painted on the windows they donated. Otherwise, however, little is recorded about the installation, including, sadly, the windows’ manufacturer.

Like the overall architecture, the beautiful windows are filled with detail, presenting faith in various ways. Interestingly, the Old Testament images of the two sanctuary windows installed earlier tell a somewhat different story than the 1944 additions. In their primarily New Testament images, the newer windows depict 13 of the 15 mysteries of the Rosary, a devotion recalling events in the lives of Mary and Jesus (the first and third Glorious mysteries are not depicted). Each window presents at least nine discrete images around the richly colored central scene, including symbols of patron saints of some 30 nations, against a geometrically sectioned field of leaves, vines and fruit.Deacon Swank says the stained glass windows cost about $150,000 in total (dwarfing the parish history’s report on donations collected). “To replace them today,” he added, “would be $1 million each—if you can find a craftsperson to do it.”

The windows finished, painting began in July 1944. Initially painted an off white, the interior was always meant to be decorated according to Father Dermody’s plans. Over the sanctuary spread the Tree of Life against a blue sky. A mural on the east side depicted the resurrected Jesus outside the tomb. To the west, another mural showed Jesus appearing to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque who would promote devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The American News profiled Aage Anderson and Joseph Falkenbach, the two European-trained men who led the decorating. They had helped decorate the cathedrals in Sioux Falls and Fargo. Anderson said their goal was to “produce by murals and symbols the ‘Life of Our Lord.’”

Ornamentation above the front door on Third Avenue.

For an age of black and white photography, it sounds like bold colors were the norm in the church. Arches, walls, and columns were painted green, red, black, gold, blue, ivory, and cream.

The patterns on the side walls were original creations of the artists. The stencils were made for this church only and were destroyed and never reused. Later redecorating covered the stenciling, but all was not lost. During an organ replacement in 2018 (you can read about that here), Deacon Swank said, “We found the original stenciling when they removed the old pipes.” The one-foot square patches showing a fallen cross on each side of the choir loft were behind fixtures of the old organ, “So we know what a small part of the original stencil looked like.”

COMPLETION, CONTINUED

As with any home, renovations, redecorations, and repairs would occur in this house of prayer over the ensuing 80 years. Ceiling acoustic tiles were added throughout the worship space, hiding artwork. A 1965 full redecoration led by the local E.C. Montgomery Decorating firm covered the sanctuary art. Addressing parishioner discontent over the new decoration, the workers sealed the original work to allow for a later change of heart. About half a century later, the sanctuary murals reemerged. That project removed the statues under the crucifix, which have also returned to their original spot.

Buffy King noted that the architecture firm of her father, Clarence “Bud” Herges, now HKG, did church renovation work in the 1980s, extending the sanctuary, removing some pews and reorienting transept seating. The stained glass windows are now in their second round of restoration. The current process is slow, as each window costs tens of thousands of dollars. “The process of refurbishing the windows is an art in itself,” Swank says. “When the windows are taken apart and removed, the pieces fit in a 4 foot by 6 foot trailer.”

The 100^th anniversary of Sacred Heart Church is less than a decade away. It will be recognized with a celebration—and continuing upgrades.

The Stained glass windows are truly a wonder to behold. Symbolism abounds in every panel. It is not known, however, who designed the windows.

Fr. Jordan Samson is the current pastor of Sacred Heart. Actually, due to diocesan consolidation, he leads a pastorate of several churches from Westport to Turton—reclaiming some of Fr. Haire’s territory. Reflecting on the church, he observed, “This structure, and the faith that helped build it, is something our parishioners are so proud of.” He added, “It is my hope that today we will be good stewards so that the next generations after us will continue to be inspired to deeper faith by the beauty of Sacred Heart.”

One can pray and worship anywhere, of course, from ornate buildings to open prairie. Adopting an architectural style hundreds of years old, Sacred Heart hearkens back to centuries of artistic traditions that reflected and inspired awe. There was also sacrifice. Many cathedrals took decades to build, demanding much of the faithful. Groundbreaking for St. John the Divine in New York, the largest cathedral in the world, occurred in 1892, and it is still not complete. The continually evolving Sacred Heart is hardly unique—nor are the sacrifices its parishioners endured in Depression and war. But the blood, sweat and tears as well as the love, laughter and joy—and faith—that have gone into the place create quite an atmosphere. //