By Ricky Rieckert
Dear readers,
This week, I’ll continue with Aurora’s churches and influential persons, with Sacred Heart Parish on Fulton Street, on the East Side.
Sacred Heart of Jesus was the very first Catholic Church in Aurora, dedicated in 1848.
The Parish began with German, Irish, and French immigrant members. Today, Latino Catholic’s are a big part of the Parish family.
The original Sacred Heart Church was severely damaged by a windstorm in 1852. A second Church was built on the West Side, and it burned down in 1869.
French members had left before it burned down, and opened Sacred Heart at the southeast corner of State Street and Fulton Street in 1875.
In December of 1998 a fire destroyed the Church. A 15-year-old, with a previous arson conviction, confessed that he started the fire, with a lighter, “for the fun of it”.
The judge dismissed the charges on an investigator technicality and the Rockford Diocese never pressed charges.
What a damn shame. That beautiful church and the wedding anniversaries, baptisms… are all just memories.
I had my First Communion and Confirmation there. My good friend, Jim Reiland, was married there.
He and his sister and brother, all went through eight grades of school at the Parish. His mother played the organ for masses for years.
I went to daily mass there every day before school. After Sunday Mass, I would catch up with Bernie Weiler and his sister with the collection baskets and buy the mercury dimes, buffalo nickels, and Indian head pennies.
After high school at East Aurora, I remember Sunday Masses, where a lot of people my age would be sleeping, while Mass was going on.
Actually, one given Sunday, Fr. Jerry was saying Mass, and after the Gospel, he started his homily, at the alter, holding up a piston from his race car, Padres Goat. He said does anybody know what this is?
Man did he get a rise out of the sleeping gear heads. One replied: Father, that’s a piston from a 327 General Motors engine. It worked, he got everyone’s attention.
Next week, I will write about my involvement with Sacred Heart Parish at 17 years old.
Have a great week, stay warm, and be safe.