GUARDIAN ANGELS (1953)

After a census-taker found 147 Catholic families in the flourishing Chaffee Park, Chaffee Heights, and Berkeley Hills areas of Northwest Denver, lay activist Fred R. Van Valkenburg wrote to Archbishop Vehr in 1951, asking that a new parish be created. Even before this request reached the chancery, the archbishop had begun negotiating: In 1953, he paid $13,400 for a 3.8-acre church site. Leonard A. Redelberger was appointed the first pastor, and John K. Monroe was commissioned to plan the new church.

Father Redelberger began saying Masses on July 12, 1953, in the North Denver Knights of Columbus Hall, while church construction progressed. Father Redelberger, a young product of St. Thomas Seminary, was an amateur carpenter who worked side by side with parishioners to assemble the pews, make furniture, and install the oak paneling. An $80,000 loan from Bosworth, Sullivan & Company and a $15,000 loan from the archdiocese helped to complete the brick church for approximately $155,000. Archbishop Vehr solemnly blessed the newborn church of the Guardian Angels on December 15, 1954.

Funds have been raised over the years with Christmas card and boutique sales, bake sales, teas, an annual summer bazaar, father-son breakfasts, and Friday and Saturday evening games at the Pot of Gold Bingo Hall. After the church construction debt was reduced satisfactorily, Father Redelberger and his congregation undertook construction of a school. Denver architect Henry J. de Nicola designed the $160,000 brick school, which was dedicated April 2, 1962. Franciscan sisters from nearby Marycrest Convent, who had been conducting parish catechism lessons, agreed to staff the school, which opened in the fall of 1962 with kindergarten through sixth-grade classes. Seventh and eighth-grade classes were added later, as were the 1969 gym and 1984 library.

A shortage of sisters later forced the Franciscans to withdraw from the school, where twenty lay teachers are now led by Principal Mary Gold. Sister Evangeline Spenner, OSF, remained as pastoral assistant, while sisters from various other orders have handled religious education. These sisters and lay teachers have developed an Individual Guided Education Program which allows each student to advance according to his or her academic abilities and energies.

The founding pastor was forced to retire in 1966 because of a heart condition. He died six years later and was succeeded by John J. McGinn, who oversaw construction of a new rectory and formation of a parish council. Subsequent pastors have been Monsignor William V. Powers, Joseph Sullivan, and Samuel J. Aquila, who left to pursue studies in Rome in 1987, when he was replaced by Robert J. Reycraft. Father Reycraft and his flock still find strength in the theme of the parish's 1954 church dedication:

Every church has its patron saint, but no church will have so many people in heaven directly interested in its welfare as does this one dedicated to the Guardian Angels. This parish will have as many patrons as there are souls of parishioners, for every person has a Guardian Angel.