Last rites for St. Mary's School, convent

No longer used by St. Mary's parish of New Ulm and deemed too expensive to maintain or convert to another use, the school building and the convent are facing the wrecking ball in a few weeks.

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Mike Grausam's relationship with St. Mary's Elementary School goes deep.

Every school day began with the ring of the bell, which signalled the Catholic mass that began each day.

At noon, the bell rang the Angelus. At the end of the day, the sound of the bell was a joyous noise because it marked the end of the school day.

His relationship with St. Mary's started with his grandfather. His father was baptized and married there. It was at St. Mary's that Grausam, his brothers and sisters went to church, served mass and studied in the classrooms.

On Sunday afternoon, Grausam, a member of the St. Mary's parish committee in charge of the old school and convent, was one of many parishioners, neighbors and former students who came through the old school for one last look just to remember, just to say goodbye, just to give St. Mary's its last rites.

Like Grausam, LaVonne Reitter came back for one more look. She has lived only a few houses down from St. Mary's on the opposite side of Minnesota Street since she joined the parish in 1948. Her children attended school at St. Mary's and often came home for lunch.

"I'm very sad to see it go," she said.

After years of trying to find a redeveloper and a new use, the parish is going ahead with its plans to tear St. Mary's down.

But before that happens, Grausam and Paul Sabatino are selling off as much of the moldings, floor boards, doors, windows, bricks and trim as they can before the school is sealed off for asbestos removal. Once the asbestos is gone, the school and the convent will come down. The proceeds from the sales will go to the Church of St. Mary.

"This is not a moneymaking thing," Grausam said. "It's so it won't go to waste. I mean, maple floors for 10 cents a board foot? You can't even buy maple for ten dollars a board foot these days."

The school's bell, the statute of Mary that sits in an alcove at the top of the school's face, the blocks of concrete that spell "St. Mary's School" and "St. Mary's Convent" and the school's 1922 cornerstone will be saved. Plans for the lot are uncertain. The parish might use it to increase parking for the Church of St. Mary or turn it into a park similar to the Fr. Berghold memorial near the Way of the Cross.

The parish of St. Mary's was organized and incorporated in September of 1911. Construction of the two buildings was delayed by World War I. The first service in St. Mary's was in February of 1923. It originally cost $80,000 to build and was designed in the shape of a Roman cross. It was built with Springfield brick and trimmed with stones. It served solely as a school from 1970 to its closure in May of 1999.

The pews and statues that graced the original sanctuary were auctioned off long ago, but now the colored glass on the windows has also been salvaged and much of the floor is gone. After the church moved a block northward, the cavernous space served as the school's library and offices.

Walking out of the sanctuary and down the hall to the right of the main stairs, Grausam remembers some of the classrooms, like Room 103, which is just to the right of the sanctuary. That was the first grade and the room just around the corner, 104, housed second graders. Behind the blackboards in each room are coat rooms, the boards on some still have the names of their users written on pieces of tape.

"This building looks so much better from the outside than the inside," he said as he made his way up the stairs to the second floor of classrooms. Along the way, he points out that the railings were also sold off, just to put them to better use.

"We've had parents that have come in and taken out chalkboards and the railings. I had a lady that came in and cried because she went to school here," he said.

Up on the second floor are more classrooms. Grausam also remembers Room 203, which was the principal's office before it was converted to a classroom.

"I spent a lot of time in here," he said with a smile.

The basement cafeteria was another place that was popular among students, who played basketball in the same room when they weren't eating the lunches that the cook, Minnie Behnke, made in the kitchen across the hall, Grausam said.

At one point, St. Mary's was a part of a chain of three Catholic elementary schools in the New Ulm area that were ultimately consolidated. Each St. Mary's class held anywhere between 30-35 children.

"It's closure, " Grausam said. "At first there was remorse, but when you see people taking things out and using them in their homes, it makes you proud and you can be happy that it's not in a hole. We have such a throwaway society. This is too good to throw away."

A 1989 task force looked at remodeling St. Mary's and St. John's (in Searles) schools but the final analysis found that the cost of trying to bring the buildings up to current-day codes was greater than the expenses of building an entirely new building on a central campus near Holy Trinity Cathedral.

Three developers looked at St. Mary's between 1996 and 1998 and the task force discussed possible uses with a daycare group, RiverBend Alternative School, church youth groups, the New Ulm Catholic Diocese and Martin Luther College -- all to no avail.

In 1998, the St. Mary's parish sought help to find viable housing development groups and also approached the New Ulm Heritage Preservation Commission about a historic site designation. It also sought -- and lost -- tax credits that would have helped redevelopment. During that time, another developer considered a housing project but determined that the cost of retro-fitting St. Mary's would be too high for renters to afford.

The St. Mary's pastor and parish council reassessed the situation in 2001 and determined that it couldn't justify keeping the buildings and concluded that it wanted to request the New Ulm HPC to decertify St. Mary's, demolish the buildings but keep the land as parking space and for any long-term use.

The parish met with the HPC in 2002 and asked the commission for a permit to demolish the school building; the commission denied the request. The New Ulm City Council later revised a city ordinance that repealed the 1998 designation with an extended delay to allow the parish to find a bona fide offer; three inquiries came in but none presented a viable business plan or any efforts to work with the city to make sure current variances would be followed.

Now that the parish has funds on hand and has a demolition permit, it is ready to resume its demolition efforts.

The break-up and sale of pieces of St. Mary's began almost one week ago and attracted antiques dealers, architectural salvage experts, memento seekers and others who heard about the school through word-of-mouth.

Daniel Balge and his brother, John, spent part of Sunday afternoon removing the floor from Room 205. Balge, who lives in New Ulm but has no connection to the school, said he plans to use the maple flooring to remodel his house.

"This must've been state-of-the-art at the time and you can tell that the people who used it loved it," Balge said. "I can understand the sadness and why some people feel bad to see it go."

Outside, Paul Sabatino pulled some bricks from the front of the convent's stoop, wiped them off and handed them to Reitter, who loaded them into her sedan and thanked Sabatino from the window of her car as she drove up the street.

He unlocked the door to the convent and went inside. There, he pointed out the numerous signs -- mushrooms growing, mold creeping towards the ceiling, paint curling off the walls -- that the convent is, in fact, condemned.

"Mike and I were in there the other day and there was more rain coming in that outside," he said.

As Sabatino walked back into the school, a neighbor came out with a handful of old window handles, thanking Sabatino as he headed back across the street.

"It'll be one week until we turn it over to the asbestos removal. They'll have it for a week and then it comes down," he said.

Materials in two classrooms, some flooring, some door molds and some doors are still available by appointment only. Anyone interested can call Grausam at 327-6843 or 359-9349 or Sabatino at 354-5735 or 354-5734.