Doors of old St. Nicholas Church swing open again
Boarded up for nearly a decade, the original 107-year old St. Nicholas Catholic church in Gig Harbor was re-opened Sunday as a parish hall, gleaming in fresh paint and polished floors.
“We so thrilled to have it open again,” said Frank Bannon, who, with his wife Annette, headed the restoration project.
Built in 1913, the white, wood-frame church with its squat, cross-topped belfry is a classic in the American country church style. It is believed to be the last structurally unaltered original church in Gig Harbor.
It had been boarded up so long, many younger parishioners had never been inside until Sunday, when the Rev. Mark Guzman reopened it with a blessing.
Closed in 1959 after the modern St. Nicholas was built nearby, the old church has led a perilous existence for the past 60 years, said Annette Spadoni Bannon, whose family has been the parish for generations.
“It’s expensive to keep an old building in repair,” she said. “Some pastors wanted to tear it down, make it a parking lot. We had to save it several times, with bake sales and fund drives.”
Escaping demolition
Restoration had continued, off an on, since 1973. The Peninsula Historical Society leased the basement from 1981 to 1997. But it was board up in 2011 because of structural problems and the expense of upkeep.
In 2013, Annette Bannon succeeded in getting the old church included on the “Most Endangered Properties” list of the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation. The priest at the time was not pleased.
“Oh, he was so angry!” Bannon recalled, shuddering. He saw only additional expense for the parish, she explained.
But the current pastor has encouraged the project, she said.
“Father Guzman realized our parish needed to rebuild, restore and reunite,” Annette Bannon said.
Besides, she added, the parish is growing along with Gig Harbor — it now includes about 1,500 families — and the space is needed again. It will be used for youth groups, catechism classes, Knights of Columbus meetings and other needs, supplementing the existing parish hall, built in 1970.
The Bannons and a hardy group of volunteers spent the last several months cleaning, painting and waxing. The boards came off the windows two months ago.
“The light flooded in, and it was like God was speaking to us,” said Frank Bannon. “An alleluia moment!” chimed in his wife.
It was also something of a miracle, she joked, that neither of them, both in their ‘70s, fell off a ladder while unboarding the windows.
The church also got a new furnace — “it was 43 degrees in here last December,” Annette Bannon said — and a new water heater.
An immigrant church
The original St. Nicholas was the project of immigrants, many of them fisherman from Croatia or Slavonia.
“Gig Harbor was an immigrant town and a big faith community,” Annette Bannon said. “If you weren’t Catholic, you were Lutheran.”
For many years, dating back to the 1880s, a visiting priest from St. Leo’s in Tacoma had said Mass in various homes, taking the ferry across the Narrows.
In 1913, a group of about 50 families started a campaign for their own church.
The original petition to the diocese, in ink on yellowed paper, shows the amounts each parishioner had pledged. It reads like a roster of early Gig Harbor.
Pasko Doratich gave $20, Peter Skansie, $25, Nato Stanich $15, Andrew Gilich, $25. This was at a time when a working man took home maybe $2 a day, often less.
The fishermen also put the arm on their suppliers. Nordby Fisheries gave $10. Pacific Net and Twine chipped in $50.
A load of sand and gravel for the foundation was delivered by barge, courtesy of Andrew Foss.
The first service in the new church was held on Easter Sunday, 1914, with the Rev. Ignatius Vasta, S.J., of St. Leo’s officiating. The first baby baptized there was Anna Stanich; the first couple married were Annie Ross and John Nasko.
There was a grand occasion in 1917, when Bishop Edward O’Dea came all the way from Seattle to hold the first confirmation of boys and girls.
St. Nicholas was served by visiting priests until 1919, when it was assigned its own pastor, the Rev. Hubert Mertens, who served until 1930.
When the old church was mothballed in the 1959, its bell was rehung in the new church, where it still announces Sunday Mass. The ornate, filigreed altar, reaching nearly to the ceiling, wound up in the chapel at McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary.
The old stained-glass windows were also incorporated into the new church, replaced in the old church with plain yellow frosted glass.
Annette Bannon confessed that she’s got her eye on those stained-glass windows.
Her voice dropping conspiratorially, she said, “We’re going to try to get at least two of them back.”
This story was originally published January 29, 2020 at 12:00 AM.