St. Mary's Catholic Church (Davenport, Iowa)

St. Mary's Catholic Church was a parish of the

History

St. Mary's Parish

St. Mary's was established as a parish of the

In 1883 the church acquired a new pipe organ that was built by the Moline Pipe Organ Co.^[7] One of the organist at the church was Célestine Fejérvary. She visited Europe ten years later and while she was in Belgium she acquired a painting by Guido Reni, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin for St Mary's.^[7] Both the organ and the painting remain in the church.

In 1898 St. Mary's helped establish a new parish in the northwest section of Davenport, Holy Family. The

At the turn of the 20th century, the parish initiated a building project that established the school and

A new reredos was built in the early 1940s that incorporated the Reni painting. A faulty smoke stack leading to the chimney created a fire that did an estimated $50,000 in damage to the church on Christmas Eve 1947.^[9] The fire mainly damaged the west side of the church, which included its altars. Christmas Masses were moved to the school auditorium. The Rev. Leo Kerrigan was the pastor at the time.

In the late 1980s, the city's Spanish-speaking community came to St. Mary's. Liturgies were celebrated in English, Spanish, and eventually in Latin.

A tornado struck Davenport on October 6, 2016. It did some damage to the church and other parish buildings. The church was repaired, along with several other Catholic churches in the city, in the summer of 2017.^[1] Repairs were also made to the rectory, parish center, and a shed.

In October 2019, Bishop

In December 2020, the parish complex was purchased by Humility Homes & Services.[12] It is a nonprofit organization operated by the Davenport-based religious order of sisters the Congregation of the Humility of Mary. Humility Homes provides housing and services for people who are homeless. Plans call for the former convent to be used for office space, housing for women in the former rectory, and the former church will be converted into the Fresh Start Center where people who are establishing homes can acquire the necessary items for free. All the religious and liturgical items in the church will be removed. The former school will continue to serve as a gathering space for community groups, especially the area's Hispanic community who were associated with the parish. The campus will be referred to as the Jubilee Center.^[12]

Parochial school

The parish established a school a year after the parish was formed.^[8] The church acted as the first school building. A larger school building used by the parish was built by the Rev. Michael Flavin two blocks to the north of the church. The Sisters of Mercy had already been teaching in the school when the new building opened.^[5] The current school building was built by Msgr. J.P. Ryan directly across the street from the church in 1901.^[13] The Sisters of the Holy Cross replaced the Mercy Sisters at this time.^[14] Sister Mary Engelbart, OSC served as their first superior. The school was only for girls until 1931 when the high school girls began attending Immaculate Conception Academy.^[8] The parish continued to support its own school until declining enrollments forced it to merge schools with neighboring St. Joseph parish. The merged school was named Holy Trinity and it continued into the 1990s when St. Mary's ended the merger.^{[citation needed]}

Architecture

The four buildings that form the parish complex sit across the street from each other and visually form a unified complex.

The rectory was initially built in either the Italianate or Romanesque Revival style to match the church next door. Its style was changed about the time the convent and school were built in 1901.^[8] They were both designed in the Colonial Revival style.

• 
  The church in 2013
• 
  The Moline pipe organ
• 
  Rectory
• 
  Convent
• 
  School (Parish Hall)
• 
  First school building

Pipe organ

Moline Organ Co. pipe organ (1883) features two manuals, 18 stops, slider chests and mechanical key action.

Stoplist:^[15]

References

External links

Media related to St. Mary's Catholic Church (Davenport, Iowa) at Wikimedia Commons