St. Joseph's Memory Lane

It's now called the Heartwood Center. but many locals in Sandpoint identify this church as the place where their Catholic faith was established. 

They'll include their Baptism, First Confession, First Communion, Confirmation and maybe even Marriage Sacraments. 

Some will remember spending summer days for two weeks after school let out to attend what we knew as "Sister School."

 Nuns from the Immaculate Heart of Mary would come up from Coeur d'Alene where they taught at the IHM Academy. 

From those days, I remember Bobbie Brown, my first teacher ever.  She was enough older than the rest of us that she could assist the nuns with teaching the younger kids. 

I remember JoAnn Rogers, Denice Lutzke, Mike Parkins and others from Clark Fork like Julie Maloney.

  They were my Sister School classmates. Mike and I still visit back and forth these days, and we both serve on our public school class reunion committee.

We young Catholics were not the biggest fans of Sister School, but we tolerated it because we knew about the big picnic at the end where ice cream and hot dogs and lots of bottles of strawberry pop delighted our respective palates. 

We also attended Catechism on Saturday mornings and learned more about our church and its faith from teachers like Bernie Seitz,  Pat Strohmaier and Ray Gapp.  Later, we saw the latter two in a different light when they worked at Sandpoint High School.  

At St. Joseph's on a hot summer Sunday morning, one of my brothers fainted while we late commers stood crowded in the vestibule of the church.  Down he went, but other parishioners caught him, and he came back to life fairly soon. 

On another hot day, another brother split his tuxedo pants at the altar (discreetly so)  while serving as part of Bill and my wedding party, while that same day yet another brother, a young pre-teen at the time, wished he could have a mustache like the other men in our wedding party. 

At that church on an August day 27 years later, the Young Loves, Willie and Debbie, were married by both a Catholic Priest Fr. Tim, John, Malachi (many names) O'Donovan and Presbyterian minister Nancy Copeland Payton.

The wedding party that day rode from the church through town to the reception in a trailer pulled by a Ford tractor driven by my brother Kevin. 

The church, which held its first Mass in 1907, holds so many other family memories, like when my sisters joined the Wooden family and Marie to play guitars and flutes for Saturday night folk masses.  

It wasn't always the nicest place for those of us church members because I can remember a few times when angry priests let their emotions get the best of them, sometimes with kids and sometimes with grownups. 

I can also remember the always reliable ushers over the years like Dan Hannigan and Gene Driggs and Jack Bopp and Bernie McGovern. 

 And, there were women of the church who served in the altar society and attended to whatever tasks were necessary for the church operation to go smoothly.

  Among the standouts in my mind and era were Lasean Driggs, Irene Sundquist and Sally Sharp and Eleanor Wilson. 

My mother sang in the choir with notables like Bud and Betty Brown, Paul Greenleaf, Margarete Fallat, Jackie Brown, etc. Too many names to remember them all. 

During Mass, we, as children, were always fascinated with what went on in the choir loft above in the back of the church. Often we were reminded to turn our head around and pay attention to Mass. 

As young adults, things changed in the choir loft as late church goers would often sit up there for Mass. 

Many of us remember the Saturday night Mass when some kids in the choir loft brought along their Kentucky Fried chicken, sneaked some bites during mass and threw some of the residue down on worshippers below. 

I think a priest got really mad about that prank.

The Mass itself changed over the years that I attended St. Joseph's.   We went from familiar Latin phrases like et cum spirituto to all English, and we participated more in the Mass as time went on.

The church structure itself evolved over the years with new doors (donated by the Brown family) and easier steps to climb and a handicapped access. 

The altar area also went through some major changes and the church received an addition to allow more seating room, office facilities and a church hall.

  Across the yard, a pastor's residence was built.

After a new, much larger church was constructed in the western part of Sandpoint, our old St. Joseph's was sold. It now functions as an events center. 

But in the minds of those who attended St. Joseph's for many decades, as long as we are alive, it will always be our church. 

Years ago, my mother sketched and then painted the card above.   Her piece appears on the church recipe book, and when she was still producing her greeting cards, she would paint seasonal aspects to the scene, including the Christmas season as seen above. 

There's definitely a sentimental and nostalgic feeling any time I drive by the church, which if it could talk, it could fill volumes about the many happenings and people who worshipped, among other things, within its walls. 

Happy Friday.