Sacred Heart Catholic Church celebrates 50th anniversary as parish

Bishop William Skylstad of the Spokane Diocese led the weekend Masses as Sacred Heart Catholic Church as the Brewster church celebrated its 50th anniversary as a parish Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 17 and 18.

Bishop Skylstad is a Methow boy, attended Sacred Heart church when he was a kid, celebrated his first Mass in the Brewster High School gym because the Sacred Heart Church that existed at the time was too small. Bishop Skylstad's experiences are an indication that there was an active Catholic church in Brewster and the Quad City area before it became a parish. Actually, the Catholic presence in Brewster dates back to the first years of settlement in the Okanogan country.

Back in the way, way, waybacks - 1890, the turn of the 20th Century - the nearest Catholic priest was a couple of days away by horseback. Catholic homesteaders and residents of the little towns that were taking root in the Okanogan County would get together at their homes for services. Sacred Heart parishioners Julia Van Loan and Mary Webster (calling themselves "collectors of cursive writing") got together and wrote a history of the parish for its 20th anniversary in 1979. The ladies wrote that priests traveled the circuit, beginning in about 1905, coming by steamboat and horseback (and later by train) from Wenatchee or Waterville.

"Once in a while Father Joseph Luyten came from Waterville by horse and buggy to say Mass in some homes," remembered Brewster pioneer Katie Wick, interviewed in 1968.

Father Luyten would set up the alter at the homes of local Catholics - maybe at Fred Deffland's place, or maybe his brother Jacob's house, or at the Wick homestead, where Katie lived with her husband Martin and their kids. Father Luyten kept riding the circuit for years, into the automobile era.

"I have never forgotten Father Luyten coming in his new limousine," Katie Wick remembered. "He parked in front of our house for the day, then he probably walked 10 miles to visit parishioners so he could save gasoline." (Or as Katie's son Joe speculated, it might have been easier to walk than try to drive on some of the roads around Brewster at the time.) Father DeRouge from St. Mary's Mission, near Omak, would ride his horse or come down on the train and celebrate Mass.

But celebrating Mass in somebody's house wasn't the best solution, so residents started looking for a spot for a church building. Actually there were two Catholic churches, one in town that was built in about 1912, and one near Monse, christened St. Louis Catholic Church, up the hill from the Chicken Creek school.

"The collector of this information feels it is a long, long three or so miles from Monse up the hill to the site of St. Louis Church, even by car," wrote Julia Van Loan.

The St. Louis church didn't last long, built in about 1915 and demolished before 1930. Brewster pioneer Myrtle (Moomaw) Morris was a parishioner there as a child, and she talked with Julia Van Loan and Mary Webster.

"To (Myrtle) the church seemed large and she remembered stained glass windows," the ladies wrote.

The church in Brewster, however, is still there. It was built through the generosity of parishioners, and even some non-Catholics. Ben Smith bought $300 worth of lumber for the first church. (Ol' Ben may have been hedging his bets, because he kept a saloon in town. On the other hand, his buddy Joe Wick told Julia Van Loan that "Ben felt there should be a Catholic church, too," since there were already a couple of Protestant churches.) The new Catholic church went up behind the St. James Episcopal Church at the corner of what is now Fourth and Hanson. The name of a Catholic church can honor Jesus (or, as in the case of Brewster, His sacred heart and love), or the Holy Family or His mother Mary or a Catholic saint, among other possibilities. The local parish or mission makes the choice.

"It depends on the devotion of the people," said Father Gustavo Ruiz, who's the current priest at Sacred Heart.

In those days it was Sacred Heart Mission; missions are a little bit different from parishes, and don't have their own priest. The priest in Okanogan or Omak came down to Brewster once a month; sometimes it was the priest from Twisp, and for a while back in the waybacks it was the priest from Oroville. The rest of the time parishioners put together the services and visited people who couldn't make it to church.

"For many years Hilda Deffland Pulsipher had a room and good meals for priests and bishops who needed to stay in Brewster," Julia Van Loan wrote. Hilda was born at the old Deffland place; second in a family of five daughters and two sons. Hilda and her older sister Emily helped their dad Jake in the hayfield in the summer, herded cattle in the spring and helped feed them in winter. She lived a lot of her life in Brewster, in a house that still stands on Indian Avenue. (Her daughter Doris Vallance was co-owner of the Quad City Herald.) "Hilda remembered Bishop Schinner coming by coach from Spokane" to participate in services in Twisp, Julia wrote. "They owned one of the first cars, so Hilda took driving lessons. She was appointed to drive the Bishop and her father to St. Genevieve's Church in Twisp. In those days 40 miles meant a two-day trip."

Sacred Heart was still pretty small; Julia Van Loan started going to church in Brewster in about 1946. "On some Sundays visiting relatives or company (of the permanent parishioners) made attendance at Mass at most around 15 people," she wrote.

But the mission grew over time. People began coming into the area during the construction of Chief Joseph Dam; people who were camping at Alta Lake or other campgrounds would come in for church. There were some Sundays where "the little old church was brimming full," Van Loan wrote. Parishioners bought a building from the dam construction site and set it up next to the church to serve as a rectory (a house for the priest).

"This building was a whopping 14 feet by 24 feet with a closet-sized kitchen, a bathroom and combination dining-living-bedroom," according to a history of the parish prepared as part of a report for the bishop in 2003.

It's up to the local bishop to decide when a mission is big enough to be a parish, Father Ruiz said. Church attendance matters when making that decision; so does the ability of the parish to support a priest. The Sacred Heart church hit the mark in late 1958. The bishop at the time, Bernard Topel, issued the decree establishing the parish on October 22, 1958.

By that time the little old church was too small; a building committee went to work on the project and came up with a proposal for a new building, which they figured would cost about $35,000. Parishioners pledged money and the parish took out a loan, and they got donations from other Catholic organizations, like the Extension Society, which gave $9,750 (and a complete set of vestments).

"Local workmen and local materials were used whenever possible," Julia Van Loan wrote. "By December 1962 it could be used. The old church pews were moved over and others were made, begged or borrowed and the heating system was in trial period." Compared to the old church the new one was huge-it could seat about 220 people. James Healey was assigned as pastor the next year and "during his service in the parish he himself built the present altar and two podiums, plus the large cross above the altar. The old church was Father's workshop."

There was always something going on at church - the Altar Society sponsored an Easter egg hunt and the summer all-church picnic and the Christmas parties. The parishioners rounded up a flatbed trailer and a tractor and went out singing Christmas carols. (There was the time when the priest got accidentally tipped into the snow off the back of the flatbed-well, probably better not go there.)

"By 1968 there had been baptisms, weddings, first confessions, first communions, an ordination and priests' first Masses since the church was built," Julia Van Loan and Mary Webster wrote. Brewster was full of enthusiastic hunters and fishermen, so there was a 7 a.m. Mass on Sundays for guys with pressing appointments elsewhere. For a while the church had a CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) basketball team that participated in a Wenatchee league.