ST. HELENA (1910)

A sod Civil War fort on the South Platte River, named for Colonel Christopher Morgan, evolved into a town during the 1880s. Subsequently, Fort Morgan became prominent as the seat of Morgan County and as a farming, ranching, sugar beet, and oil hub.

William J. Howlett reported in his Recollections that he said the town's first Mass in a hotel parlor. Other priests from Brighton and then from Wray made mission stops in Fort Morgan until 1910. That year, St. Helena parish was founded after J. L. Juily, an energetic Frenchman, moved to town. Initially, Father Juily celebrated Mass at the Elks Club, using the kitchen as a confessional and a dining room table as an altar.

To build a church, Father Juily and a handful of local Catholics acquired two lots, at the northwest corner of 7th Avenue and State Street, and constructed a simple, frame country church that was duly blessed by Bishop Matz on May 28, 1911. Non-Catholics joined in the ceremony after contributing much of the $3,000 cost of the 154-seat church, which had Gothic windows and an open bell tower.

The Great Western Sugar Company opened its Fort Morgan plant in 1906, sparking a boom; the town's population climbed from 634 to 2,800 in 1910. St. Helena's grew likewise, as Father Juily was followed by fathers Cornelius J. Vaughan (1920-1924), Peter U. Sasse (1924-1932), Harold Gleason (1932-1939), and Joseph C. Erger (1939-1952).

Herman J. Leite, who became the sixth pastor in 1952, wrote to Archibshop Vehr that the little frame church had become a "white elephant" and requested permission to build a larger church. "Due to the oil boom, and there is plenty of it around here," Father Leite added, "this town is growing by leaps and bounds." With over 200 families, the church overflowed at all three Sunday Masses.

In 1955, St. Helena's bought seven acres in the Park-Lane subdivison on the western outskirts of Fort Morgan. The Boulder architectural firm of Langhart & McGuire planned a modern brick church with stone trim. A square, modernistic bell tower soared overhead while the full basement contained a large hall, kitchen, and restrooms. All 600 seats in the new church were filled on October 11, 1960, when Archbishop Vehr dedicated the $200,000 edifice. The old church was moved in pieces to the new site and used in the construction of an $18,000 convent.

Edward Dinan, a Denver-born St. Thomas Seminary graduate, became the next pastor in 1968. Father Dinan began the difficult task of implementing Vatican II changes by turning the 5,000-pound granite main altar around to face his congregation. Then, he recruited three Sisters of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ, who moved into the convent and opened a catechetical center. Until the nuns left the parish in 1981, sisters Amelia, Bernadine, and Loyola also taught religion classes in Brush, Keenesburg, Roggen, Weldona, and Wiggins.

Under Father Dinan's guidance, parish activities flourished. The Catholic Youth Organization, (CYO), for instance, started guitar Masses and began visiting local senior citizens with "Hollyhock favor trays." By 1989, flourishing St. Helena's had loaned more than $300,000 to the Archdiocesan Revolving Fund to provide poorer parishes with low interest loans. By then, Fort Morgan had become a city of almost 9,000 and St. Helena's counted over 270 member families.

Pope Paul VI named Father Dinan a monsignor in 1976, when Archbishop Casey praised his "always cheerful, faithful and loving service." Celebrating twenty years at St. Helena's in 1988, Monsignor Dinan observed: "The history of St. Helena parish in not written in statistics or books; it is written in the hearts of people, and its faith is handed down from one generation to the next."