Mission's cross restored in Nespelem

It lay on the ground for years after the church burned in 1948, having spent its history as the cross atop the steeple at the old Sacred Heart Mission since 1916.

On Saturday, the members of the mission attended a special mass led by the bishop of Spokane, then went outside to bless the old cross where it now sits restored in its new home.

After the old church burned, the cross lay in the rubble for years, forgotten in the grass that grew up around it. But its cover of tin, around a wooden box structure inside, meant it wasn't finished.

Jackie Cook of the Colville Tribes' History and Archeology Department said that "at least three years ago" they went up the little hill above the current mission to look at the old burn site and the cross that had fallen from the top of the burning church.

"I convinced the program manager that we needed to take it back to the office, and we needed to have it restored," she said, "and so it sat in our work shed for another couple of years."

That's when the department hired a maintenance specialist. Sean Gromberg "took it upon himself to restore the cross," she said, carefully removing all the nails through the tin, replacing the hollowed and burned cross inside with a new solid wood one, replaced all the nails and sealed it.

"It now weighs about 300 pounds," Cook said.

But it's not going up on a steeple. The History and Archeology staff installed it on a new concrete pad in front of the current church, at an angle that looks back up the hill to where it once stood and also ahead in the opposite direction to its new mission.

"And so when I saw it up ... what I got - it looks like it's home," Cook said. "It looks like it belongs right here, and it's very close to where it was."

Cook said the work was funded by a patron who lives in Wenatchee.

Among those attending the ceremony were two tribal elders Cook said were likely the last two who had prayed in the old church - Barbara Aripa and Alvina Cawston.

"Alvina and I were on catechism there many years ago," Aripa recalled. She remembered when it burned. "I went around opposite to look at it," she said. "It made us cry."

Cawston also remembered "the catechism classes, the nuns and the priests who came to teach us, and playing on the hillside in the sand."

"The sand is still there," commented Nancy Armstrong-Montes, drawing laughter.

"I hope this cross will be a reminder and inspiration that life goes on, our faith goes on, but we have to work at it," said Rev. Joseph Fortier, known to most in Nespelem as Father Jake.

The Most Rev. Thomas A. Daly, bishop of Spokane, said that after lying in the grass for decades, the cross has "come home now. And this cross will be a sign that no matter the struggles, the difficulties, Christ is with us."

The priests prayed for a blessing on the cross for that effect. Steve Abrahamson smudged smoke on the cross and all who attended.

Afterward, all enjoyed a meal and conversation under the mission's outdoor cover.