By Ricky Rieckert
Dear readers,
This week I’m going to finish up with the history of the buildings at Sacred Heart Parish.
When I was in grade school, there was a white house on State Street, just south of the original church, that was on the southeast corner of Fulton Street and State Street. It was the convent for the nuns, and yes they wore their habits, back then.
They were from the Order of Sisters from Concordia, Kansas. They didn’t get paid to teach, rather, they got a small amount of the School tuition money, for pocket change.
That white house, was originally the rectory, for the priests and the sisters lived upstairs in the old wooden school that butted up to the old church.
The old wooden school was most likely built shortly after the church. Jim Reiland remembered having the ceiling leak in his classroom. It was from an overflow of a toilet upstairs in the bathroom where the nuns stayed.
The new school was built and opened in 1954 for the 1954-1955 school year, where Jim Reiland’s sister was in the first graduating eighth grade class.
When I went to school there, there was a play area between the new school and the convent and church, on the west side of the new school.
There was a merry-go-round across from the convent and a grass area between the convent and church.
North of the merry-go-round was blacktop for class recess. On the east side of the new school was another playground with a fence to the east, and a couple of basketball backboards with rims, and nets sometimes.
We used that playground for kickball, with home-plate at the city sidewalk by the front of school. If you kicked it over the 10-foot high fence, it was a home run.
There were only four of us boys (including myself), and Brenda Stratman, who could stand still, behind home plate and kick the ball over the fence on to Simard Hall, an old Military Quonset Hut, and John Lemos, who kicked it over Simard Hall to the new rectory, east of Simard Hall.
Before Simard Hall was built, there was an old small building there. That building was demolished.
After Father Simard left Sacred Heart, Father John Urban Halbmaier, a Navy Captain and Chaplain replaced him.
So Fr. Halbmaier, being in the service, was able to get the Military Quonset Hut and name it after Fr. Simard.
I played and coached basketball there. It had a stage behind the south, rear, basketball backboard rim and net. The building was used for school plays and the gym floor was used for sports, meetings, and as an overflow room from Tuesday night Bingo from the new school basement. The building was equipped with with a P.A. system, so the Bingo players in Simard Hall could hear the numbers.
In addition, there were bathrooms in the basement on either side of the stage, in the rear.
I ran a stag party in 1980 in Simard Hall for my brother Randy. The only way to lock the door, was the chain and lock on the outside.
I had to purchase a two-day Dram Shop License from the Rockford Diocese, at $176 to cover alcohol accidents, which was okay, because Fr. Plesa let me use the Hall for free. I told him it would be cleaner than it was before we used it.
The Friday night stag party was a success. Then, Saturday morning my brother, three or four friends, and I completely swept, stripped, and put a new coat of wax on the floor.
After we finished, we brought Father over to show him. He was amazed and said; “Now you can see yourself on the floor. You guys went over and above. Thank-you”.
I gave Father a $100 donation in addition, in which he thanked us. He said, “You guys can use the Hall anytime that you need to.”
Now, east of Simard Hall, was a house, that was moved east on Fulton Street, to near Ohio Street, where Stan Bolt, the Parish custodian lived. One of his jobs, among other tasks, was to ring the church bells at 6 a.m., noon, and 6 p.m. every day. Everyone in the neighborhood knew what time it was.
After the house was moved, a new brick house was constructed for the new parish rectory and remains the parish rectory today.
Sadly, the original church was destroyed by fire. The old wooden school was razed, and the rectory / convent house was demolished for parking for the new church. Lastly, the new school has been closed for years.
I’ll finish with a quote from Mark Twain: “The two most important days in your life are, the day you are born, and the day you find out why.”