Week
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May 1, 2002
Inside the Register
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Original Holy Family High School to be demolished
Parish
to create prayer garden and courtyard from school bricks as a memorial
By Roxanne King
If walls could talk, the original 82-year-old Holy Family High School building could tell a million tales. Those walls are coming down May 13, but the red bricks — treasured mementos of the many memories that took place within the school walls — will be used to create a prayer garden and courtyard adjacent to where the school stood at 44th Avenue and Utica Street in northwest Denver.
Those who would like to memorialize their own or a loved one's time at the school, can have names and dates etched into the bricks of the garden and courtyard. Those who want their very own keepsake of the two-story structure can buy a brick.
To enable people to say goodbye to the venerable building, Holy Family Parish is holding a walk-through and reception after all morning Masses May 5.
"They can bring a camera and take a picture before it comes down," said Carolyn Lutito, Holy Family business administrator.
Orders for bricks to purchase (beginning at $10 for a plain brick, more for one with a base and memorial plate) and to be memorialized for the courtyard (cost to be announced) are being taken now at the parish office and can be made at the open house.
Money from those sales will help fund renovations to the parish campus, which include transforming the old, vacant convent into a parish center that the prayer garden and courtyard will grace, church administrators said.
Artifacts from the high school, such as the wrought iron grates and the cross topping the building, will be used in the prayer garden, said Deacon John Smith, the parish administrator.
"That way we'll be able to keep the history," he said.
The center will be called Msgr. (Robert) Greenslade Parish Center, in honor of the parish's beloved last pastor, who died a year ago.
Tearing down the original high school, currently serving as artists' studios, is part of changes initiated when the archdiocesan-operated high school moved to a brand new facility in Broomfield in 1999.
Dedicated in 1920, the building is in poor shape and would be too costly — a minimum $1.5 million — for the parish to modernize, church administrators said. Maintenance costs, too, were prohibitive, they said.
"The parish is property rich and cash poor," said Walt Wostenberg, director of construction for the Archdiocese of Denver. "They have far more buildings and facilities than they need for a smaller parish community. Given the fact that it's very, very expensive to renovate and bring up to code old buildings, it's better to remove them."
The parish's religious education center — a small brick house — and a corridor connecting it to the convent, also are coming down. While demolition is set for May 6, the abatement of that property is already underway. The new courtyard will sit where the religious education building stood. A parking lot, which the landlocked parish desperately needs, will occupy the old high school site.
The public is invited to witness the high school demolition, which should take about a week to complete.
"They can come and see a bit of history coming down," said Deacon John Smith, the parish administrator, adding that the building will be brought down in sections, rather than through a dynamite implosion. The demolitions and subsequent renovations will cost $190,000, the deacon said. The parish plans to pay for those costs with the sale of two parish properties: a day-care facility and a rental home.
The parish is getting out of the day-care business, the deacon said, but will offer before and after-school care in the old grade school, which now occupies the newer of the two buildings vacated when the high school left. The artists' studios also will relocate to the old grade school.
Longtime parishioners and Holy Family alumni John and Margi Conway will be among those taking a last walk down the halls where they met and fell in love in the late 1940s. John, 70, recalled that his wife, then a pretty underclassman, sat in front of him in a class. She remembered it was physics.
"I attended my junior and senior year there," Margi, 69, said. "When I first came there I didn't know anyone. I think I'd only been there a month when he asked me on a date. I was 16 and now we've been married 51 years."
The couple's six children also graduated from the school, which was initially parish run.
"Obviously I'm disappointed to see a building that meant a lot to me to be coming down," John said, adding that the building housed both grade school and high school classes when he attended. Most of his primary and all of his high school education took place at Holy Family, the retired attorney said.
Boxing smokers for grade-school and high-school age boys were held in the basement, which then held an auditorium, he recalled. The school lacked a gymnasium so for basketball practice used that of neighboring St. Catherine of Siena's, he added. The few times they couldn't use the gym they ran plays in the school basement.
"We couldn't shoot balls, but we could run the plays," he said.
High school dances were also held in the auditorium.
"I remember all the boys lined up on one side and the girls on the other side and the nuns urging us to ask the girls to dance," he reminisced with a chuckle.
The teens' shy behavior was the same when Joe Pughes, 80, attended in the 1930s.
"On Friday afternoons we had a jitney dance in the auditorium after school," he said, explaining that the name came from the nickel it cost to get in. "One of the girls played the piano. The kids would go down and dance, the boys on one side, the girls on the other."
Like the Conways, Pughes remembered a warm, family-like community among the parents, students and dedicated faculty, which were then mainly Sisters of Loretto and priests.
"There was one young assistant priest, Father John Kelly, who was everyone's friend. He kept us after school one day and asked us questions about sports," he recalled. With a laugh, he added, "If we got it right he gave us a nickel. That was our punishment for getting into trouble.
"Another occasion I'll never forget is that after the football season the nuns would put on a dinner for all the players. When I think about that and realize now how little food they really had, that was really something," he recalled fondly.
Lifelong Holy Family parishioner and part-time administrative assistant Regina Bowman, 59, will watch the demolition from her window at the parish office, which sits directly across from the old high school. As a girl she lived in a house that sat on the same spot where her office is now.
"Sister Margaret Loyola could see into our window and when my brother would bring his friends over after school she would call our mother at work and say, 'Joe has 10 friends at the house,'" she said imitating the nun's low voice. With a laugh she added, "He would sit there with his mouth open and wonder how she knew."
The pastor, too, helped her single-parent mother keep tabs on the children, Bowman added. Bowman's mother's family all attended Holy Family, as did she and her siblings, the 1960 alumna said.
"I loved high school, it was my absolute favorite time of my life. I have never loved another time better," she said. "My brothers and I have a thousand memories. We love Holy Family — it was a tremendous family. A lot of the people are still in the parish."
The renowned family tradition is continuing at the parish grade school — which is growing and also undergoing renovations — and the relocated high school, administrators said.
The grade school recently partnered with St. Mary Magdalene and St. Joan of Arc parishes, which do not have grade schools, to offer in-parish tuition. To accommodate the expected increasing enrollments, projected to exceed the current 130 by 40 students this fall, the school is adding classrooms.
"We're building four classrooms on a shoestring," Deacon Smith said, adding that nominal renovations to the school will cost about $100,000. "To do it as we'd like would be $400,000, and we certainly don't have that. This is just to get us by."
The parish is hoping that alumni who attended Holy Family schools will feel their education warrants a donation to renovation efforts to help the grade school transition into the 21st century, the deacon said.
The last high school class to have attended school at the old campus will graduate from Holy Family High School this year. The high school community knew when it left that the original building would need to be demolished, said Sister Mary Rose Lieb, O.S.F., the school principal.
"It's unfortunate because of all the memories," she said. "A little piece of many of the graduates' hearts will come down when that building comes down."
The school will probably buy a brick to keep in its main showcase, she said, adding, "We might have to put something in the courtyard." Despite its long history at the old site, the high school needed a campus and loves its new home, she said. "We hopefully transferred all the spirit and pride, traditions and history to our new home to flourish in the 21st century — and we are flourishing," she said. Holy Family senior Kenny Burroughs, 17, said he likely will watch the demolition. "I think it's great that they're using the bricks because it's kind of a memorial to the old school," he said. "It's nice to see they're not just demolishing it." His memories of the old campus include having to run through rain, snow or hail sometimes to make class changes between the two high school buildings, and of sweltering in overheated classrooms on winter days when the ancient boiler malfunctioned. "It was quite an adventure," he said with a laugh. "I'll always remember (the old school) whether I have a brick or not. "I don't think it's just me that will remember, I think everyone who attended there will remember," he added. "Those who never got to go there missed out on something — a good experience." To order a brick, call the Holy Family parish office at 303-455-1664. To donate to the renovation projects, make check payable to Holy Family Church and mail to 4377 Utica St., Denver, CO 80212. Sunday morning Masses are offered at 8, 9:30 and 11:30.