Tony and Margaret Budell spent Monday morning the same way they’ve spent their wedding anniversary for the past 60 years, making their way to the heart of Havelock to visit the church where they exchanged vows.
They weren’t expecting the scene they encountered this year on the corner of 61st Street and Morrill Avenue. The makeshift fence surrounding St. Patrick Catholic Church, the construction crews, the parishioners spread out on the lawn across the street, like they were waiting for a parade.
The Budells knew at some point the 107-year-old red-brick building was going to come down to make way for a new church next door.
They had no idea it would happen on their special day.
“We didn’t know they were going to tear it down today,” said Margaret, who attended St. Patrick’s as a child. “We came over to take pictures.”
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Turns out, they joined a growing crowd carrying lawn chairs and spreading out on blankets to watch a crane demolish a piece of their collective history.
“It’s bittersweet,” said the Rev. Troy Schweiger. “There are more than 100 years of important memories in that church -- baptisms, confirmations, weddings -- but we also are witnessing a step toward our new spiritual home.”
The parish of about 750 families had been talking about building a new church for more than two decades, Schweiger said, but a random inspection by the church’s insurance company four years ago forced the issue.
The insurance company called for an inspection, and a structural engineer said he’d certify it as safe for only another five years.
"So the decision was kind of made for us," Schweiger said.
The parish began work in earnest then, salvaging what they could and taking part in the construction of the new church. The space where the church stood Monday morning will become parking space for the new church next door.
On Saturday, when they removed the cornerstone, they found a time capsule, a small metal box they knew nothing about.
They’ll wait to open it, because Monday was about saying goodbye.
“I have really mixed emotions,” said Jackie Hart, who has been a member of the church for all of her 84 years. "I have so many memories here, some of the happiest days of my life, and certainly some of the saddest.”
Hart’s mom was baptized in the church, and married there in 1924. Jackie was married there herself in 1951, as were two of her sisters. All five of her children were married there. Her mom's funeral was there. So was her husband's.
Her grandparents were members of the church even before parishioners blessed the cornerstone of the building in 1908, just months after the original frame building on the same corner burned to the ground.
Hart’s grandparents hosted a barn dance and oyster stew supper to raise money for the church that stood since 1908.
During the Depression, the parish went into bankruptcy and the St. Patrick Church was sold at auction, only to be saved when the bishop secured a last-minute loan.
Hart attended school on the second floor and remembers standing out on the fire escape, beating erasers to clean them, eating lunch made by the mothers of the parish. Vera Hertzel remembers dances on the church stage at Christmas and how the nuns used to walk down the steep stairs backward to keep an eye on their students.
Years later, Scott Willet stomped up those stairs to school.
Once, he said, someone left the sink running in the science room, which became clear when the bucket used to catch the drainage overflowed and water dripped on the heads of students attending Mass below.
He was married there, like his parents, and remembers being in the basement when they announced President Kennedy had been shot.
The church changed over the years: a new altar and new ceilings, new artwork and new windows. A separate elementary school opened in 1961, and in the mid-'80s, the second-floor school became storage space when they added a middle school.
On Monday, students sat on the grass across the street, the younger children fascinated by the demolition work, the older ones with the same mixed emotions as their parents.
“The kids are really invested in the church,” said Principal Leah Bethune.
Like Hart.
"This building has served us well," she said.