FRIDAY POTPOURRI: RECTORY HISTORY: STEP INTO MY OFFICE

One visits the offices by walking down a long sandstone walk boarded by flowers and azalea bushes that bloom beautifully in the spring.  Steps lead up to the arched front door of the rectory.  When I first arrived at the parish, the steel screen door was terribly rusted and a host of assorted and abandoned call boxes decorated the door frame.  One of my first official acts concerning the rectory was to clean this area up and make the house more inviting.

Everything electronic save for the doorbell was removed.  The thick, heavy wooden door was removed, sanded, stained, its hardware cleaned, and rehung.  Flags were hung on either side of the door; one the flag of the United States, the other the Vatican flag.  A priest friend who is did not approve of this touch looked at the Vatican flag and snidely comment, “What? Is the pope in residence?”  “No,” I responded dryly, “and neither is the president of the United States.”  It also makes a great marker when telling the pizza delivery guy where to drop off the pizzas.

Finding a new quality screen door was going to prove to be more difficult.  A shop was found that made special order screen doors.  The dimension were given to the man behind the counter immediately surmised, “So, you must live in West Akron.  We get a lot of strange doors from that part of town.”  Unfortunately the price he quoted was far too high to justify.  So were the doors we found through online sites.  Strangely enough, after making such a big fuss about the project, a good quality door was found at the local hardware store for a reasonable price.

The font entry was now ready.  The grounds crew had planted giant pots of flowers on either side of the door below the flags, and, at my sister’s insistence, geraniums bloomed from the cement planter at the second floor window over the door while verdant vines hung down softening the ornate stone arches. 

Just past that front door one finds himself in a small reception hall with a barreled ceiling with a dark, slightly ornate lighting fixture hanging from it.  This is the original office area and would be the first area indoors to experience my meddling.  Here, a picture of the pope, the bishop, the former pastor, and a composite of all the former parochial vicars were hung.  It was an act that felt a little exhilarating and, to be quite frank, a little sacrilegious to move the former pastor’s portrait over to where the former pastors were hung and replace the vacated space with my own image.  Finishing the job I winced at seeing my picture.  I have spent the rest of my time here studiously avoiding looking at it, the only time it requiring my attention is when a pope or a bishop changes.

     

To the right, the former pastor’s office, was now the office of the parish secretary and with her the parish records, various forms and envelopes and stationary of all kinds, an anachronistic typewriter, FAX machine, office supplies, mailboxes, and in general, anything that would not fit anywhere else.  Across the hall in what was the secretary’s office was now inhabited by the copy machine, copy paper, stapler, cutting board and all things copy machine related.  

It was announced that monies had been set aside in the previous year’s budget (before I arrived) to put drop ceilings in these rooms and that the workmen would be arriving within a week.  I probably overreacted but my abhorrence was real.  There are a few materials in modern architecture that I detest more than drop ceilings.  “Somebody call them immediately and tell them not to come!  Don’t let them anywhere near this house!  There will be no drop ceilings!”  I needn’t have been so dramatic.  They just shrugged and said, “Okay.” 

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: PARISH HISTORY: NOT QUITE THE END OF AN ERA

It is a busy end of the year!  Apologies for no posts this week!

1965

The Second Vatican Council closes and in the next city over, a baby named John Anthony Valencheck was born at Barberton Citizen’s Hospital.  Forty three years later he would become the fifth pastor of St. Sebastian.

1968

Forty years had passed since the founding of the parish.  It had weathered many storms and stood up against crippling debt, one of the worst economic downturns in history, a word war, and a huge reduction in its boundaries, but it still stood out as a shining example of the very best in Catholic parishes.  Monsignor Zwisler was the mighty captain at the wheel for the entirety of those four decades, but now, at 80 years of age, it was time to retire and The Rev. Charles Byrider to be named the second pastor.

It is generally thought that this year marked the beginning of the Byrider era and in many ways it did.  But the influence of Monsignor Zwisler was far from over.  He would continue to live at the parish and his shadow of influence would continue.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: PARISH HISTORY: SOME DREAMS TAKE LONGER THAN OTHERS

The 1950’s began the next major phase in the life of the parish.  For one, the population in West Akron was growing considerably.  The number of students in the school was beginning to demand more space.  This year would see the foundation of the convent laid.  It would eventually house more nuns than their temporary quarters in the school, space that was needed since more students would require more teachers.  Their living space on the top floor of the school would now be turned into additional classroom space allowing the school to expand without having to build.

It must have been about this time that the dream of having a parochial high school had faded, though the parish still owned property on the other side of South Hawkins Avenue.  At one time the whole area west of Hawkins Avenue at the Mull intersection was envisioned by the city as a cultural center.  Already located not too far from this location was Good Park Golf Course.  Known as being among the finest municipal golf courses in the United States, the 18-hole J. Edward Good Course, designed by Bertie Way, opened in 1926, two years before the parish was founded.

The vision for the rest of the area was much different from what we see today.  The plan shows gridded streets much like the rest of West Akron. Behind Byrider Hall was to be a broad parkway.  All around the parish property was to be housing lots.  What is now Byrider Hall would have been on a city block virtually by itself.  Further, it was thought for a while that on the corner to the north, the Akron Board of Education would be built.  In the late twenties there was talk of moving the University of Akron, the art museum, and the library here.  This would make West Akron (then known as Maple Valley - which is why we still have Maple Valley Cleaners) an ideal spot for a Catholic high school.  Then the Great Depression brought all these grand plans to a screeching halt.  

By 1950 it was clear that none of this would take place.  A remnant of this one time dream can be found by taking a walk in the woods behind the former Perkins Middle School.  Hidden amongst the trees is a cement street sign marking the dreamed of intersection of Sunset View Blvd West and Good Park Avenue.  With those dreams permanently changed, new plans for use of the parish land was formulating.  It would not be until 75 years later and the closing of the public school that the possibility of creating these roads once again would be revisited.

UPDATES:

This series is focused on the history of the parish up to when the founding pastor, Msgr. Zwislwer, dies.  But there are two developments that have since taken place that seem interesting enough to put this stricture aside for the moment.

FIRST UPDATE:  Last week there was the story of the ordination of Fr. Dannemiller SS at St. Sebastian Parish.  As it turns out we still have Dannemillers in the area and thanks to some inquiries made by one of our industrious workers here we found out that Fr. Dannemiller eventually left the priesthood, got married, and was eventually a father Dannemiller of a different sort.

SECOND UPDATE:  As it ironically turns out, the land reported above which eventual became Perkins Middle School and a number of football and baseball fields is once again being re-envisioned into a developed neighborhood.  Once planned streets and housing lots are being proposed by the city to be begun sometime in the next year or two.  It won't be the cultural center once proposed but families will hopefully be moving into the dream houses thought of almost a century ago.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: THE HISTORY OF ST. SEBASTIAN PARISH: PART I INSTALLMENT IV OF IV

This will conclude the prehistory.  Next week we begin with the founding of the parish.

The houses being built west of St. Vincent were largely for middle class and wealthier people of Akron owing to the fact that the stench, from the factories that brought people to the area in the first place, tended to be carried east by the winds.  Some notable residences within the current parish boundaries include Stan Hywet Hall built between the years 1912 and 1915 by the Siberling Family and  Elm Court, the estate of Arthur Hudson Marks built in 1912, which is just a few blocks from the church. 

As the city extended westward so did the need for Catholic institutions.  In 1923 the Akron Dominican Sisters purchased Elm Court to become their provincial house.  It was dedicated on October 14^th, 1923 and the very next day the sisters opened an academy for elementary and high school girls.

As of yet however, there were no parishes west of Saint Vincent.  But then on July 1^st, 1928, (this was the same year the first regular television programming is broadcasted and at the Democratic National Convention in Houston, New York Governor Alfred E. Smith becomes the first Catholic nominated by a major political party for President of the United States) a letter was sent to The Rev. Hilary Zwisler, at the time pastor of St. Barbara Parish in Massillon, from Bishop Joseph Schrembs, informing him that the Diocese of Cleveland was establishing a new parish in the West Hill area of Akron and that he was to be the man to carry the project out.  

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: THE HISTORY OF ST. SEBASTIAN PARISH: PART I INSTALLMENT III (OF IV)

One more installment after this and we get to the founding of St. Sebastian Parish!

1907 saw Akron’s next Catholic parish established.  Annunciation formed and The Rev. R. A. Dowed had the first Mass in a frame building at the southeast corner of East Exchange and North Arlington Streets.

Akron continued to grow and prosper and was expanding outward toward the infirmary and began to surround it.  In 1915 the county asked the voters of Summit County to allow funds that were set aside for the upkeep of the infirmary to be used to move the infirmary elsewhere.  The measure was passed and in 1916 new property was purchased in Munroe Falls.  The land of the old infirmary was sold to Philip H. Schnieder of the Central Reality Company for just over $300,000 that same year.

In 1919, a year after the end of the First World War, St. Martha’s Parish was established as a division of the parish of St. Vincent.  That same year St. Paul’s was established, the first pastor being The Rev. James A. Hanley who was chaplain of the 165^th Infantry during the World War.

St. Peter’s Lithuanian came next whose tabernacle is now in chapel of the St. Julie Blliart School at St. Sebastian.  The Syrians organized their parish of St. Joseph in 1904.  St. John Slovak Parish was established in 1907 in St. Bernard’s chapel.  The Polish who began worshiping with the Slovaks at St. John Parish established the parish of St. Hedwig in 1910 with a Mass at St. Vincent, their last pastor, the Rev, Thaddeus Swirski, taking up residence at St. Sebastian when the parish closed.  Then a community of Hungarian Catholics met in the basement chapel of St. Bernard and established the parish of Sacred Heart in 1915.  It would be another 13 years before the next and final parish was founded in Akron.  

For a time, Akron was the fastest-growing city in America.  Its population exploded from 69,000 in 1910 to 208,000 in 1920. People came for jobs in the rubber factories from many places, especially from West Virginia and various parts of Europe thus explaining the number of nationality parishes. Almost one-third of those residents were immigrants and their children.  (Among the factory workers in the early 1920s was a young Clark Gable.)  Space was needed for this explosion of people and developers looked for land to develop.

The burgeoning city pushed westward and soon those areas once thought to be country became developed neighborhoods.   A trolley brought city folks out to homes at the fringes of the city.  The turnaround for the trolley heading west is what is now called Will Christy Park located in the eastern area of the present parish boundaries.  The land that was formally the County Infirmary was purchased by the Central Reality Company and began to be developed in earnest.