News & announcements
Saving your history
Early accounts
Maps
Nearby towns
People
Churches
Schools
Municipal
Organizations
Businesses
The mines
Transportation
Streets
Buildings
Entertainment
Celebrations
Sports
Ethnic groups
St. Ann's second church, 1920s
This interesting little booklet comes to us from longtime Freeland
librarian Colleen Tatar, who had it from her father. The Catholic Reference Book and Parish
Register was published circa 1924, and contains many local
business
ads and a brief biography of parish founder Rev. Michael J. Fallihee,
in addition to the Catholic reference material that forms the core of
the text. However, the most interesting thing about this for local
history is the image
on the cover and the ad on the inside back cover. Charlie Gallagher
tells the story:"I was told that was the church that was never built.
On page 12 you see that Durnin Construction was to have been the General Contractor for the Church.
They got the basement completed and that was it until the new church was built October 15, 1967.
(but the basement church had its charm and was unique).
Apparently upon completion of the school, convent and rectory, the church construction was started.
I’ve been told that concerns over the amount of debt the parish undertook resulted in a suspension of the additional construction.
Father Leo Gilroy, who brought the parish out of debt, was pastor of St. Ann’s from 1946 until he died on February 17, 1965.
He was succeeded by Father Gilleogly, who raised the money for a new church in 24 months and built it in 18 months."
He added: "It couldn’t have been a worse time to start a full parish construction project. Just before the 1929 stock market crash and the continuing depression into the mid thirties. Then right after all that, WWII. I imagine donations dried up during those years."
Shown below at left is the first St. Ann's Church, founded in 1874 in Woodside as a mission of the Immaculate Conception Church in Eckley. The center photo shows the second St. Ann's church, built in the 800 block of Centre Street and serving the parish for about 40 years, from the 1920s to the mid-1960s (photo from Ed Merrick). At right is the model for the planned but unrealized completion of the 'basement church.'
Here is the complete booklet that shows what the church would have looked like if it had been completed in the 1920s.
Clicking this link will open an Adobe PDF file of this booklet. If you don't have Adobe Reader on your computer you can download it for free at www.adobe.com.
St Ann's
Catholic Reference Booklet, circa 1924 - (PDF file size = 4.1
MB)
Thank you to Colleen for the booklet, to Charlie for the story, and to Ed for the photo of the basement church.