Courtesy of Dick Russ, WKYC-TV

Veterans memorial saved at local church by deconstruction

CLEVELAND — A plaque honoring veterans from a church being demolished will be saved and given a new home.

The six-foot-tall memorial will be carefully removed from what remains of Saint Catherine’s Church on East 93rd Street.

It was first noticed last Friday as demolition of the old structure was underway.

The church was closed at the end of 2007 and was recently sold to a charter school, which opened next door. All the sacred obejcts had been removed from the church over the years.

Over the weekend, a second matching plaque, which had been damaged, was found in the remains of church wall which had been taken down.

“These were not sacred objects, so they were not taken with things like the altar, statues, and so on,” said Robert Tayek, spokesman for the Diocese of Cleveland.

It was not known who had originally installed the memorial plaques, or when. Each contained about 250 names.

“We’re going to take the plaques down and we’re going to donate them to the Catholic Cemeteries Association so that they can go ahead and put them into a memorial they already have there,” said Pharon West, of Imagine Schools.

A veterans section of Calvary Cemetery contains war memorials retrieved from other Catholic churches which had been closed over the years, including St. Margaret of Hungary, and St. Hyacinth.

Catholic Cemeteries Association Director Andrej Lah told WKYC efforts would be made to properly and respectfully house and display the veterans memorials from St. Catherine’s at Calvary Cemetery.

The church’s cornerstone was also removed Monday and, in a hollowed out area under the stone, a copper box was discovered. The “time capsule” had been placed inside the cornerstone in October, 1915, as construction on the church began.

“Inside the cornerstone we found a copper box, and inside the box was a whole story of Cleveland from almost a hundred years ago,” said Joe Rettman, president of Deconstruction Management, Inc., which is supervising the deconstruction of St. Catherine’s.

The box contained newspapers from 1915, coins, religious artifacts, photos, and other objects people had placed into the time capsule.

“We were so excited,” Rettman said. ”This is the first time this box had been opened since October 24, 1915. We did not know we would find so much real history from Cleveland. And because it was copper, everything survived in excellent condition.”

The contents of the time capsule will be turned over to Holy Spirit Church in Garfield Heights.

That church, which was formerly known as St. Timothy’s, was merged with St. Catherine’s and St. Henry’s several years ago. The new church was called Holy Spirit.

WKYC-TV

 

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