St. Paul Catholic Church Submitted by Nute Chapman From Onaway Outlook August 1, 2014

Caption:  A 1959 aerial photo of the Catholic church, the school and father's house.




Caption: The St. Paul Catholic School in 1911.  The card is postmarked January 1913.




  We plan to use some of our many postcards and pictures in the next few weeks.  Some pictures have more
history than others and some may be just an interesting picture with no history.

  A lot of history can be found about the St. Paul Catholic Church in Onaway so I will just recap a few
lines to go with this week's pictures.

  The church was founded by Albert DeQuoy in 1898 and Mass was held at the home of Joseph Burbey.  Mass
was later held at Dan and P.H. Mahoney's home.

  In 1900 Thomas Shaw donated one acre of land for a church.  The new Catholic church was dedicated Sept. 8, 1901. 
This church was destroyed by fire Nov. 8, 1925.  Mass was then held at the Catholic school building for
quite a few years.

  Construction of the new church building began in June of 1950 and dedication was in September of 1952. The first
of this week's photos is an aerial photo in 1959.  The picture shows the school standing tall and I can remember
playing bingo there when the new hall was being planned.  A close look will show trucks and cars at Bud Leach's
Repair Shop.

  The message on the back of the card reads, " The church faces the street that went to the factory.  You see 
the back of the school, it is used as a parish hall now.  The sisters' home is gone.  Father's house looks
just like it did years ago, still a dumpy town tho." The card is dated August 1959.

  I would have to wonder in which part of our dumpy town did this person live.

  
 
    
From the Onaway Outlook, August 1, 2014, page 3. 


Retyped by J. Anderson