School's out forever

A demolition crew broke down the brick exterior of the former St. Joseph School Wednesday. The land is being cleared for a new Catholic church to replace the current St. Joseph Church, although a construction date is not yet set. [Click to enlarge]

A Le Mars landmark for more than a century was demolished Wednesday.

St. Joseph School, completed in 1905, was torn down to make way for a new Catholic church.

A handful of the more than 2,000 students that studied in the building's classrooms gathered Wednesday to take pictures and watch the school be reduced to a pile of rubble.

The name "St. Josephs School" graced the school building for more than 100 years, a sign of the school's religious heritage. The name stone was salvaged during the demolition process Wednesday morning, along with the cornerstone. [Click to enlarge]

"There was lots of reminiscing," said the Rev. Kevin Richter, pastor at St. Joseph Catholic Church, which will be eventually replaced by the new church building. "People were pointing out 'That was my first grade room, that was my third grade room.' There were lots of stories."

Weeks ago, crews removed the asbestos, the roof and much of the internal construction of the building. Wednesday's demolition barely took three hours.

"It started about 8 a.m. and by 11 a.m. it was down to the foundation stones," Richter said.

Bicycles lean against the St. Josephs School building when it was used as an elementary school in September 1978. The building housed fifth through eighth grade students until the spring of 1998. At that time, all students moved to the new addition at Gehlen Catholic School starting in the fall 1998. [Click to enlarge]

Both the cornerstone and the stone above the entrance that bore the school's name were saved.

"We'll probably open the cornerstone to see if there's anything in it," Richter said. "And the sign I imagine we'll use somehow in the outdoor patio area at the new church."

The cornerstone reads "1901," which is when construction began on the school. The $23,000 project was finished in 1905.

Sr. Joan Stoffel, who attended first through fifth grade at the school from 1939 to 1943, watched the demolition Wednesday with mixed emotions.

"It's demolition, yet it was an empty building. It would have been harder if it was being used for a school now," she said. "It's moving forward into the future, but it does hold a lot of memories."

She could point out where each classroom had been in the building.

"In the third grade room we had double desks -- the wood and iron ones -- where two children could sit at side by side," she said. "And the first grade room had a closed in porch. We had a sandbox there, and sometimes we'd do plays and have it fixed up like a zoo."

And once during recess in first grade, she remembered, she and about five other girls snuck away downtown, crossing the railroad tracks, to go buy penny candy.

"Of course we didn't get back in time. We five girls got sent to the princpal's office," she said with a smile. "I imagine that the sisters (the nuns that taught at the school) had a good laugh that night."

Connie Schnepf, who went to St. Joseph School in the 1960s, was in town Wednesday to visit her mother Alvina Neubel, and stopped to watch some of the demolition.

Schnepf has fond memories of the school, although she does remember the nuns who taught there as being "very strict."

"And there was a statue of St. Joseph next to the school. As a kid it seemed very large," Schnepf remembered. "I wore glasses then, and I didn't like wearing them, so one day at recess I set them on the statue."

When she went home from school that day, her mother asked her where her glasses were. Taking a trip back to school, Schnepf found that they were gone.

"I guess St. Joseph didn't take care of my glasses very well," she laughed.

During lunchtime at school, Schnepf remembers walking across the street to eat lunch at a friend's uncle and aunt's house. The playground was also a distance away.

"I don't think they had too many barriers as to where you could go," she said.

The playground was simple, she said. She remembers only a merry-go-round.

"Life was very simple then," she said. "We jumped rope, played on the merry-go-round and played four square, and marbles, too."

Schnepf, who now lives in Chicago, said that it might have been more emotional to see the school go down if she still lived in town.

"It sat empty there so long. I knew it was going to happen eventually," she said.

Before the site of the former school is entirely cleared, a group will come pick up the bricks that will be engraved and sold. Some of those bricks will be placed along Memory Lane at Gehlen Catholic School.

"Next week a contractor will haul away the remaining brick, which they have other uses for. At that point they'll take the foundation stone, too, which they also have use for," said Richter. "Very little of the building will go to a landfill."

The campaign for the new 28,000 square foot church, which will cost about $8 million, began in the spring of 2007 when a plan to consolidate six county Catholic churches was halted.

The new church will be built to replace St. Joseph Church, the oldest in the county. The building's soft brick and the need for building renovations spurred the decision.

Along with the old St. Joseph School, the parish's garage and rectory will also be demolished to make way for the new church.

The new facility will include a social hall and parish offices.

The construction date for the new church won't be set until further into the fundraising process.

The Diocese of Sioux City requires that 50 percent of the cash be on hand for construction to begin, Richter earlier noted that St. Joseph's Finance Council wants to have 70-75 percent of the cash on hand, roughly $6 million.

"The pledges are coming in very well. We have over $1.7 million in hand and $4.7 in pledges," Richter said. "That makes me optimistic that three years from now we could be starting construction."

While the parish is anticipating the construction of the new church, Richter said, that doesn't necessarily make seeing the old school go any easier.

"It's always sad to see a building like that go," he said.