ST. JAMES (1904)

Every day since 1950, Tillie McBride has walked up Newport Street to the corner of East 13th Avenue to open St. James for Mass. And every afternoon at 3 o'clock she goes back to clean the chalices, put out fresh purificators, change the altar cloths and priests' albs, and replace any candle less than an inch long.

"People like Tillie McBride," noted St. James's pastor, Michael W. Gass, "are what make a parish work. Such lay people are the salvation of the church with their commitment to parish life, to the lay ministry, and to the social concerns of the community."

Tillie McBride and the parishioners of St. James's have seen the parish grow with the East Denver neighborhood of Montclair. The Baron Walter B. von Richthofen, a German adventurer, founded Montclair in 1885 and promoted it as the "Beautiful Suburban Town of Denver."

In this pioneer suburb four miles east of the city, only a few homes, farms, and ranches, as well as the Baron's Castle at East 12th Avenue and Olive Street, had sprouted on the prairie by 1900.

Nevertheless, Bishop Matz decided to establish a parish there, which would also serve Park Hill to the north, Aurora to the east, and the sparsely developed area around Fairmount Cemetery to the south. Initially, the boundaries were Colorado Boulevard on the west, Cherry Creek on the south, St. Augustine's parish in Brighton to the north, and St. John's in Yuma to the east. The only other congregation east of Colorado Boulevard at that time was the lovely little St. Luke Episcopal Chapel, East 13th Avenue and Poplar Street, which survives today as a designated Denver Landmark.

Bishop Matz sent the chaplain of Mercy Hospital, Hugh L. McMenamin, out to Montclair to organize the parish named for St. James the Lesser. Father McMenamin rounded up thirteen Catholic families and said Mass for them in the Montclair Town Hall (demolished and replaced in 1936 by Denver Fire Station 14) at 1426 Oneida Street. Father Mac, who would become the best-known priest in the diocese, was transferred from St. James's on the prairie dog-infested eastern fringes of the city to the cathedral downtown. Before leaving, he purchased four lots for $360.

Father James M. Walsh, who succeeded to the pastorate in January 1905, initiated catechism classes taught by the Sisters of Mercy from Mercy Hospital, in the town hall. The sisters continued to offer religion classes there or in private homes in Montclair and Aurora until St. James School was built in 1948.

In 1909, Father Walsh resigned as chaplain of Mercy Hospital and moved in with the family who lived at 1205 Oneida Street. He began devoting his full time to building a modest, one-story stone church, which Bishop Matz dedicated on November 7, 1909. Father Walsh, in 1920, acquired a large frame house at 1284 Newport as a rectory. He also helped build and tend to a mission church established in 1910 in the Southeast Denver suburb of Sable.

Father Walsh stayed with the small parish until his death on March 9, 1937. Growth seemed to bypass Montclair and its little Catholic chapel. Park Hill to the north grew and launched its own parish, Blessed Sacrament, in 1912; Aurora established its own parish, St. Therese's, in 1926. Meanwhile, Montclair remained a sleepy suburb, with its one-priest parish headed by Mark W. Lappen (1937-1938), Charles M. Johnson (1938-1940), and William V. Powers (1940-1969).

Not until Denver's post-World War II boom did Montclair become the suburb that Baron von Richthofen had forseen sixty years earlier. With the help of GI and FHA loans, many families began building new homes. Suddenly, St. James's became one of the fastest growing parishes in the diocese. In the tiny stone church, children at Sunday Mass had to sit on the altar steps.

Among the new families moving in were Charles and Matilda McBride. Sargeant McBride, like many of the neighborhood newcomers, had served at Lowry Air Force Base during World War II and had grown to like the quiet East Denver neighborhood with its beautiful parkways--Sixth Avenue, Monaco, Richthofen, and Montview.

"During the 1950s," Tillie McBride recalled in 1985, "large Catholic families lived in the areas around the church. Why, there were thirty-three children in the eight houses across Newport Street from the school."

We sent all eight of our children to St. James. They learned discipline and got a good education. If kids didn't behave, Father Powers would head to the homes of parishioners, walk right in and ask, "How's everyone behaving today?" He knew most parishioners by name. And he really inspected his altar boys closely. First, he looked down at their feet to be sure their shoes were shined and tied. Hands had to be scrubbed clean, hair trimmed and combed. When my boys came out onto the altar they looked like little angels! If they slouched or mumbled their Latin, Father Powers would stop the Mass and correct them: "Kneel up straight! Say that again, slowly!"

Father Powers and Archbishop Vehr asked the Civilian Production Administration, a World War II federal agency controlling building materials, for permission to build a $166,000 church and school. These requests were denied until August 26, 1946. John K. Monroe designed a three-story school building with a garden-level church, which seated 550 (the old church had accommodated only 180).

This school was completed in 1948 when the old house at 1205 Oneida Street, where Father Walsh had first lived, was purchased for $15,000 to serve as a convent for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. With the help of a $25,000 remodeling and addition, it became home for as many as thirteen nuns. As the high tide of suburban growth swept through Montclair, the school bulged with over 800 students. There was a nun in practically every classroom, and classes with as many as fifty children. By 1955, the school was so crowded that Father Powers bought the bungalow at 1327 Oneida Street and converted it to additional classrooms.

St. James's bought the block of land between Oneida and Olive streets and East 8th and 9th avenues as a high school site. After its purchase in 1956, the block was converted to an athletic field. In 1958, a new garden-level church was constructed on the north wing of the school and a gymnasium added on top of the church in 1964. Father Powers started bingo in the 1960s, which made as much as $4,000 a night, to help support his parish of over 1,200 families. In recognition of his building efforts, Father Powers was promoted to monsignor before his retirement in 1969.

Father Clement DeWall was named pastor and carried through parish plans for a new church. The pioneer little stone church, which had been renamed Walsh Hall, was demolished in order to build the rectory. Next door, groundbreaking on January 15, 1974, began for a contemporary church. Architect Victor Langhart created a low-ceilinged composition of boxy rooms reminiscent of the catacombs. The new church could cozily seat a small weekday Mass or accommodate as many as 600 for larger services. The confessionals accommodated either traditional anonymity or face-to-face reconciliation. Father DeWall, a promoter of Vatican II reforms, shocked some parishioners by introducing altar girls and by working closely with neighboring St. Luke's Episcopal, Montclair Methodist, and Montclair Lutheran churches.

Father DeWall resigned as pastor in 1976 and was replaced by Michael F. Kavanaugh, remembered by Tillie McBride:

Father Kavanaugh was a wonderful pastor. He was an old-fashioned, conservative priest, a pious man, and a real character. When the architect of the new St. James asked Father Kavanaugh how he liked it, Father replied, "Why didn't you build a church instead of a taco house?"

Father Kavanaugh also installed an electronic Angelus, which he played full blast at 6 A.M., noon, and 6 P.M. until a few late-sleeping Protestants raised a ruckus about the dawn call to rise and pray. Father Kavanaugh was followed in 1981 by Robert Harrington, whose untimely death in 1986 grieved the parish. "Father Harrington," recalls Tillie McBride, "was a people's priest. He would come to Mass early to greet people individually and ask how they were. He also completed our wonderful stained glass windows. He was a strong supporter of the school, the twice-a-week bingo games, and he launched our annual fall carnival."

Despite the best efforts of its pastors, St. James experienced a fate common to Denver parishes. Young child-raising couples were increasingly concentrated in the suburban areas; new parishes such as Risen Christ on South Monaco as well as Queen of Peace and St. Pius X in Aurora boomed. Montclair saw its children grow up and move out. The land bought for a high school was sold to the city in 1978 and became Denison Park. After the last nuns left the convent, it was sold for $140,000 in 1975 to the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, which established there the National Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect. This center, founded by Denver's famous Dr. Henry Kempe, has subsequently become a national leader in uncovering and treating child abuse.

Only slowly did the older couples die or move out of the neighborhood where they had raised families. As younger couples with children moved in, St. James School continued to attract pupils, retaining a healthy enrollment of 200-300 during the 1970s and 1980s. The parish population stabilized in the 1980s at about 1,000 registered families.

Michael W. Gass, a native of St. Paul, Minnesota, and a 1977 graduate of Denver's St. Thomas Seminary, became the tenth pastor of St. James's in 1987. Father Gass says he is most impressed by how "the parishioners deeply care about one another. Despite the ethnic, economic, and age diversity, the people of St. James make it an exemplary family of faith."