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Vol. 16, No. 15, Wednesday, March 10, 2021 www.LamontLeader.com
The bell tolls for thee
Chipman’s St. Bonaventure Catholic Church facing wrecking ball this week BY JOHN MATHER At 9:30 Mar.8, the church bell tolled for the last time at Chipman’s St. Bonaventure Catholic Church. There wasn’t a dry eye in the small crowd of about 30 when the church, built in 1918, started being dismantled. The church, over the years has seen baptisms, communions, funerals, weddings and more. It was the place where a memorial was held for six of the 17 students killed in the Lamont bus/train accident in 1960. Many of the students on the bus had lived in the area around Chipman. Father Kristopher Schmidt from Our Lady of the Angels parish in Fort Saskatchewan gave the final blessing at the church. He said he had met with a small group of the parishioners earlier in the year and he had told them that saying goodbye to the church was very much like a funeral. “For this final prayer, I thought I would pray an adaptive version of the prayer of commendation and the prayer of committal that we would say at a funeral.” With that he gave thanks for the blessings that had been put on “all the souls that had walked through the church.” He then, along with the crowd, recited the Lord’s Prayer. Richard Mandryk, a member of the committee overseeing the demolition of the church, gave a brief overview of the church and what was saved and where the church artifacts would be relocated. “Today we gather with mixed emotions, mostly sadness to see our place of worship at this point in its life,” he said. Mandryk serves on the committee along with Rose Konsorada, Marlene Stefura, Pat Purschke, and Teresa Woldanski.
building.” “You have to Regular massremember when es at the church our forefathers stopped in 1987, built this church explained it was before Konsorada. power tools and “We went to it was all donatone mass a year ed labour and along with our money. graveyard serv“This formed ice. Then if the Roman someone wantCatholic faith in ed a special the Chipman service they community.” could book the In an earlier church.” i n t e r v i e w, She went on to Mandryk said say that at the the pews from time, it was the church had mainly due to a been donated lack of priests in and distributed the area. to several “Members of schools in the the Chipman Elk Island Church were Catholic School also part of the district. Other larger Catholic artifacts have community been put into which included storage at Our St. Michael, Lady of Angels and Church in Fort Father Kristopher Schmidt gave the final Lamont blessing of the St. Bonaventure Catholic Skaro. It grew Saskatchewan. It was decided Church in Chipman from its front steps Mar. even larger to the church 8. About 30 people came out to say good- a c c o m m o d a t e couldn’t be bye to the 103-year-old church which has to Fort Saskatchsaved after an be torn down because of a failing basement, ewan, Gibbons inspection deter- unsafe building materials and a small num- and Redwater over the years mined the foun- ber of remaining parishioners. and is now dation had administered from Fort Saskatchewan become unstable, said Mandryk. “When we looked at the costs of diocese and the Edmonton archdiomoving the church, or rebuilding the cese. “We became part of the Our Lady of church or renovating the church it wasthe Angels diocese in 2000.” n’t practical.” She added the Edmonton archdioHe pointed out that when the church had been built, codes were different cese made the final decision to shutter and there were issues with both the church. Parishioners from the Chipman area asbestos and lead-based paint in the
now attend either St. Michael, or Fort Saskatchewan. The final mass was held at the church on Jan. 16 of this year. The bell, corner stone and cross will be placed in the nearby St. Bonaventure Cemetery, which is also administered by the diocese. The work of demolishing the church has been done through the Bachelor of Technology Capstone Project at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. Konsorada added the committee was involved in emptying the church and what would happen to its contents. “The pews will go into the chapels at the Catholic schools,” said Stefura. “There will also be a few going to the school in Vegreville.” The committee is continuing to work on setting up the artifacts at the graveyard and they are creating a history book of the church which they hope to have published by the end of the year. “It will give us something to tie back to our church along with the artifacts at the graveyard,” said Stefura. “Actually,” adds Mandryk. “If it wasn’t for those people in the cemetery this church wouldn’t be here.” Attendance at the church peaked in the late 1950s and 1960s. “We might have had 100 parishioner families then, but I’m not sure,” stated Stefura. “Back when we were kids there were two weeks where sisters came from Edmonton to give us religion classes during the summer. There were potluck dinners, and picnics both at the grounds and at Elk Island Park. “That was back when the church was a centre point of the community. The ladies would put on a Valentine's tea.” the committee members added.