Memory Eternal

On Friday evening, February 19, the bells were ringing at Transfiguration Orthodox Cathedral in Globeville, part of a prayer service called a Panikhida for Matushka Paulette Hirsch who fell asleep in the Lord on Friday, February 12, 2010 after a brief illness. Matushka Paulette was the widow of the late Archpriest Joseph Hirsch, long-time cathedral rector, who fell asleep in the Lord on August 24, 2009.

Incense rose as parishioners sang the liturgy and Bishop Benjamin spoke about the phrase "Memory Eternal" and the fear each of us has of being forgotten. Both Father Joseph and Matushka Paulette left an imprint on Holy Transfiguration Cathedral and the Globeville neighborhood from the moment they arrived in 1984, a time when many inner-city congregations were leaving for the suburbs. The Hirschs made a commitment to bring new life to both the cathedral and the surrounding community.

Largely through Matushka's efforts as president of the Globeville Civic Association, neighbors mobilized to clean up industrial waste, install sidewalks, and reduce crime and pollution. Matushka served as president of the Association until 1996 and continued to assist that group with her grant writing, negotiation and organizational skills.

Matushka Paulette is survived by her sons David, Joseph and Benjamin and their wives and children. She will long be remembered by a parish family and the Globeville neighborhood for her tireless efforts to improve life for them in so many ways.

Lest we forget

The veterans memorial in Argo Park is dedicated to those servicemen from Globeville who lost their lives in service to their country. Two of those men, Martin Clements and John Wysowatcky, were killed in the last weeks of World War I. Martha Kulik Birch remembered, “We all came down in the hallway at Garden Place School and Smitty [John] Wysowatcky and Albert Metzger were standing in their uniforms with their big hats, and we gave them a concert before they left for war. We sang, ‘Tenting tonight, tenting tonight, tenting on the old camp ground.’ Before it ended, Smitty was killed with only two more weeks until the armistice. His mother said she knew something was wrong, even before they got the official notice, because a bird came in the house and flew all around the upper part of the ceiling and went out. John used to light the chandelier in the church before services. It was an omen.”

Martin John Clements was born in 1893, enlisted in the army in May, 1917 and attained the rank of sergeant with the Medical Corps of Field Artillery of the American Expeditionary Forces. He died August 23, 1918 as a result of wounds received in action near Chateau Terra.

John Wysowatcky was also born in 1893 and enlisted in the army in April, 1917. Serving in the infantry with the American Expeditionary Forces, he was killed in action in Argonne Forest, October 23, 1918 and is buried in Riverside Cemetery.

Photo, top, Veterans Memorial, Mary Lou Egan

Middle photo, Martin John Clements, from Globeville Veterans Club booklet

Bottom photo, John Wysowatcky from Globeville Veterans Club booklet

New Pastor at Holy Rosary Church

Father Noé Carreón is the pastor at Our Lady of Grace Church in the Swansea neighborhood, serves on the deanery for Northern Colorado, acts as an advisor to Spanish-speaking priests and is a professor of math at Community College of Denver. When Archbishop Charles Chaput first approached Father Noé about taking over Holy Rosary parish following the retirement of Father Joseph Meznar, Father Noé was understandably reluctant to accept the post. Father Noé did accept the appointment on November 7, 2009, and explained to the first newly-organized parish council on January 17, that he realized the assignment to Holy Rosary was "a calling from God."

Father Noé marveled at the beauty of the church with its stained-glass windows, statues and the pattern painted on the interior. Holding up the booklet of the 25-year history of the church, Father talked about the faith and hard work of the Slovenian and Croatian immigrants who built the parish. "Many of the founders of this church dedicated their lives, their efforts and money to this church and we owe it to them to continue their work."

Plans for the parish include repair of the church and convent and restoration of the school for religious education classes. Needed are lay readers for all Masses and Eucharistic ministers - mandating Eucharistic ministers will occur after the 5:30 Mass on Saturday January 23rd, and Sunday January 24th at 9 am. All are welcome at Holy Rosary at 4688 Pearl Street in Globeville. Sunday Masses are at 8 and 10 am, Saturdays at 5:30 pm and weekdays at 9 am. The office is open from 9 am to 1 pm weekdays and the phone number is 303-297-1962.

Hispanics in Globeville

After World War II, the children and grandchildren of Globeville’s pioneers would move out of the neighborhood and another group would take their place.

Hispanics who moved to Globeville were not new to Colorado or to America. Lalo C. de Baca came to Globeville from a farm in Las Vegas, New Mexico in 1936, but can trace his family’s ancestry to Spanish explorer Alvar Cabeza de Vaca, who traveled through northern New Mexico in the early part of the 16th century. Bea Trevino moved to Globeville from a farm near Firestone but her family’s roots go back farther. “My ancestors from my mother’s side all came from Spain. My dad’s mother was an Indian.”

Hispanics came to Globeville for the same reasons as the ethnic groups that preceded them: affordable housing, more opportunity for their children than farm life could offer and jobs that were nearby. In the 1950s and 60s, many of those jobs were in meat packing, the city’s largest industry, at ASARCO's Globe plant and in construction.

Unlike the Eastern Europeans who had preceded them, Hispanics found many of the institutions that were important to them already in place with Catholic Mass at St. Joseph’s Polish or Holy Rosary Church. Improvements in workplace safety also made forming a fraternal insurance association less of a necessity.

Today, 82 percent of Globeville's population has Hispanic heritage and the community reflects that change with church services at the Globeville Community Church at 5039 Lincoln and a Spanish-speaking priest, Father Noé Carreón, at Holy Rosary Church.

What has remained constant in the neighborhood's 150-year history is pride and neighbors caring for one another.

Christmas Memories

Larry Summers is the grandson of Carl Gerhardt, proprietor of Gerhardt Mercantile, and remembers Christmas as a youngster during the Depression. “Mrs. Metzger was a Sunday School teacher who organized the children's program on Christmas Eve at St. Paul’s German Lutheran Church. Everyone had a few lines to say and some was in German. Afterward, we each got a little bag with an orange and a pyramid-looking chocolate with cream inside. I think Grandpa Gerhardt and Mr. Schaffer probably supplied most of the stuff inside the bag."

Globeville's Poles would celebrate with a special dinner on Christmas Eve known as wigilia with mushroom soup, boiled potatoes (kartofle), pickled herring (sledzie), fried fish, pierogi, beans and sauerkraut (groch i kapusta). A lighted candle in the windows symbolized the hope that the Christ child, in the form of a stranger, would come and an extra place was set at the table for the unexpected guest.

Southern Slavs enjoyed homemade wine and delicacies not eaten at other times of the year, such as smoked meats or potica (pronounced po-tee-sa), a Slovenian nut bread.

Using the old Julian calendar, Globeville's Orthodox Slavs observed Christmas on January 7th. Elaborate church services, feasting and visits with family remained the same when the switch was made to the Gregorian calendar in 1968.

Bea Trevino's Hispanic Christmas traditions are those her family observed growing up in New Mexico. "For Christmas and Easter we make meat empanadas. For New Years a lot of us make a chicken mole, or we make menudo with hominy. In New Mexico, we do hominy with ham or pork."

Commemorative Christmas plate, a gift of the Gerhardt Mercantile. Photo Larry Summers.

Southern Slavs

Most of the Southern Slavs in Globeville were from Slovenia and Croatia but were citizens of the Austrian empire, which had absorbed their homelands, as well as those of Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Macedonia. They began arriving in the 1880s, attracted by political and religious freedom and by jobs in the Grant and the Globe Smelters.

Work in the smelters was hard and dangerous with men risking death or disability from extreme heat, toxic fumes and dust from heavy metals. To provide financial security for themselves and their families, Slavs formed fraternal societies or lodges that offered sick and death benefits while seeking to preserve the language, culture and heritage of the home country. The lodge was like a clubhouse where members felt at home and Globeville's residents had many choices: St. Jacob's Croatian Society, the American Fraternal Union, the Slovene National Benefit Society, the American Slovenian Catholic Union or the Western Slavonic Association (Zapadna Slovanska Zveza). Croatians met in St. Jacob's Hall, now the Sidewinder Tavern at 4485 Logan, and many of the Slovenian lodges held their activities at the Slovenian Home at 44th and Washington. Weddings, funerals, labor rallies, Catholic Mass and confession were held in the lodge halls until Holy Rosary Church was built. Members of the fraternal organizations petitioned Bishop Tihen for permission to build a church and then set about raising the funds. Holy Rosary was dedicated in July 1920 with Reverend Cyril Zupan as the first pastor. The church, convent and school received state historic designation in 1999.

Holy Rosary Church and convent about 1930. Photo June Jackson Egan

In 1919, Slovenian Societies hold a fund-raising bazaar 
outside the unfinished church. Photo Joseph Yelenick.

Orthodox Slavs

Carpatho-Russians came to Globeville for the same reasons as the other Eastern European immigrants: religious freedom and economic opportunity. Living in territory ruled by Roman Catholic Austria or Protestant forces in Hungary, the Carpatho-Russian's Orthodox religion was suppressed and they were treated as second-class citizens. Hearing of jobs in Colorado's mines, smelters and railroads, and of a climate similar to the Carpathian or Tatra mountains of home, many flocked to Globeville in the 1880s. Helen Kohut Capron recalled, “My grandfather Peter got a job at the smelter and it must have been a difficult job because it made him sick. The children would come home from school and find him lying on the couch in pain."

Help for men and their families came from the ethnic fraternal lodges. In Globeville, the oldest of these Carpatho-Russian lodges was the Russian Orthodox Society Transfiguration of Christ, connected to the Russian Orthodox Catholic Mutual Aid Society founded in 1895 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. In addition to providing insurance and moral support, the society’s goals included “the spread and preservation of the Orthodox Faith in America” and members of this lodge founded Holy Transfiguration of Christ Cathedral in 1898. The church has survived and prospered for over 100 years and received state historic designation in 1998.

The church about 1902, photo courtesy of Steve Klimoski.

One of the Orthodox Fraternal Societies, Sjedinjenih about 1905, photo courtesy of Steve Machuga.