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The history of Sacred Heart Church began in 1904 when Reverend Peter Pitass was assigned to organize a new parish that would serve the Polish people on the south side of Batavia. 

Father Pitass bought a house on the corner of South Jackson Street. The first floor was rebuilt into a sanctuary, and the second floor was a residence for the priest. A barn was rebuilt for the school. 

The parish grew and needed a new home. 

In 1917, the Church moved to the corner of Sumner Street and Swan Street. He purchased about half an acre of land on that corner from Edward Suttell, enough for a church, a school and a social hall. 

Building materials were so expensive the parish built only the basement. That was then used as a church until a better one could be built. 

Starting in December 1928, Reverend Stanislaus Cichowski served as pastor for the next 26 years. 

During March 1942, Tonawanda Creek rose in the worst flood in Batavia's history. The Church was underwater for weeks, destroying everything except the cement foundation. Reverend Alexander Jankowski succeeded Father Cichowski in building and rebuilding the Church and school. 

In 1954, Reverend Leo Smith blessed the cornerstone of the Church, which was to be built on the foundation that had been in place since 1915. 

In 1966, the congregation burned the mortgage they had taken out to fund the Church and surrounding buildings. 

There was also a large open play area to hold Sacred Heart’s Lawn Fete in July. 

In 1974 the school closed, and the parish men built a large social hall on the north side, transforming the former school building into the Sacred Heart Community Center. 

The little Church that took many years to build is now facing the last chapter of its life as the doors will be closed permanently.  

When this happens to your church, you lose the memories of baptisms, Holy Communions, Confirmations, weddings, anniversaries, and funerals. 

One memory I will always treasure was going to Mass with my father-in-law, Henry Starowitz. I was so proud to walk down the aisle with him. By this time, he was legally blind, but somehow, he would stop at every pew and say hello to a fellow parishioner. He counted the pews. 

Sacred Heart is my church. 

My Mass was at 4 p.m., and I always sat in the pew near the Paul Starowitz stained glass window. That is where my mother-in-law and father-in-law sat. Most people had a pew they called their pew.

Sacred Heart Church was where I would sit in front of my friend, often called St. Patty. I always looked forward to seeing her at Mass. I would go to the Sacred Heart Statue and light my weekly candles with a Peca-Starowitz tag on my candle. 

This church was where our grandchildren were baptized. 

The Easter season was when, years ago, a life-sized statue of our lord was laid out on its side during the Easter Vigil. I have to admit that it was a little scary, especially for our daughters. 

We loved the Sacred Heart Lawn Fete because it was a lawn fete run by the parishioners. It featured a golumpki dinner, waffles, Polish and Italian sausage, and the best beer tent. My father-in-law was always in the garage, in charge of the money. 

Since I live on the south side, I am privy to hearing the real church bells ring five minutes before and on the hour. I tried to imagine that years ago, those bells called churchgoers to church.

I am writing to ask the parishioners to share their memories of the little church on the south side of Batavia. The one thing we all have in common is the sadness we feel. Sacred Heart Church was just remodeled; financially, it is a secure church. Today, I went by the church to take a picture of my church, and a gentleman was mowing the lawn. He looked at me and asked me to hold on; he would move so I could take a picture. 

I say this with tears in my eyes and sadness in my heart. Goodbye, Sacred Heart; our loss saddens our hearts. 

No one knows the church’s fate and the surrounding building, except we will not have our church on Sumner Street as our church.

My earliest memories began at East School on Main Street, Batavia. It was kindergarten, and I only remember it had a wooden playhouse in the classroom.

We had rest time on the floor every day, and it was a half-day session. 

I began school at the new John Kennedy School on Vine Street in 1955 in first grade. I attended John Kennedy School until third grade. I still remember the song “This Is Our School, John Kennedy, the Colors Gold and Blue.”   John Kennedy’s new school was in our back yard, so we could walk through the field and get to school.  My youngest brother, John, remembered that route because he decided to walk home on his first day in kindergarten. I can’t imagine his teacher looking for him!

The following school I attended was St. Joseph’s Catholic School. I entered there in fourth grade. That was the year I met my best friend, Cathy. 

We all have so many memories of the nuns in the Catholic school. My memories are no different. The one thing I remember coming from a family of six was that it was hard to follow my brother Sam; we were nothing alike, and the nuns couldn’t wait to emphasize that. I remember my teacher telling me to stop talking; evidently, I didn’t, so she made me stand in the back of the room in a small corner. I was on the side of the school that faced a group of trees. I was fine. I watched a bird build a nest on one of the branches; it was much more interesting than what Sister Kathleen was teaching. When the principal entered the room, we all had to stand up and say good morning, Sister Mary Evangelist!

I also know that the year "Ben Casey" and "Dr. Kildare" were popular television shows.  Sister Mary Pius was not happy with me again.  I had a picture of Ben Casey taped to the inside of my desk. When I opened my desk, his picture was in my face. Unfortunately, Sister saw me looking at the picture and slammed my desktop down. My best friend liked  Dr. Kildare but was smart enough not to flaunt his picture. I can honestly say that there were times you feared the wrath of your teacher.

Does anyone remember what we were told about wearing patent leather shoes? 

One year, Sister Estelle asked me to come to the front of the room. She told the class to look at my uniform. I was wearing some of my lunch! It was a little embarrassing. I told my husband about this, and he burst out laughing because whenever we went out to eat, and I had spaghetti sauce, I would always come home wearing it.

Another thing I remember is that my youngest sister had a problem staying in her seat, so to help her remember, the nun tied her to her chair. I remember my father saying if you have a problem with my child, you have my permission to discipline them. He also stated that when we got home, he would discipline us. This time was different; he contacted her teacher and said not to tie his child to a chair. What if there was a fire? She was never tied to her chair again, but I can’t guarantee she did not continue to get out of her seat. 

You can’t forget the mission babies. The Sisters would ask us if we had any lunch money change we could donate to the missions. We could pick a name when we had earned enough money to help a mission baby. I was so excited the day they named the mission baby Anne. 

The next chapter of my education was at Notre Dame High School. Again, I was compared to my brother, an excellent student. I do know my conduct mark was always lower than his 99%. The day I wanted to see if I could fit into a locker in our locker room was funny. I could, but Sister Edward Ann, Dean of Students, stood there when the locker door opened. She did not think that was funny. 

You can’t forget the beautiful navy blue uniform, long-sleeved white blouse, and the bolero! They were so attractive, especially to someone who weighed barely 100 pounds. 

I went on to college and graduated in 1972 with a BS in Education. I was a teacher, and my first job was at Wolcott Street School in Le Roy. I loved my time there as a third grade teacher. I knew what kind of teacher I wanted to be. The most important thing I knew I would do was to create an atmosphere where children felt safe and respected, and I would provide them with an atmosphere for learning and always knowing they were loved. 

This is my disclaimer for my early years: I’m 74, so my memories might be fuzzy. 

In the fall, when the LeRoy Music Boosters posted that they would be raising money by having businesses or families decorate trees on Trigon Park, I thought it would be a neat opportunity to include the Le Roy Barn Quilt Trail. 

After 10 years, since we first started the Le Roy Barn Quilt project to commemorate Le Roy’s Bicentennial, the project has been revitalized with the help of the Genesee County Chamber of Commerce Tourism Office. In fact,
the Barn Quilt Trail just received a prestigious award from the New York State Tourism Alliance.

So, I signed up for a tree and started painting small wooden squares with the Le Roy Barn Quilt designs. I knew that I wanted to include the Genesee Solar Eclipse design, and I made a couple of those with the 6-inch squares. And then I measured off the “Railroad Crossing” design from Crocker’s Hardware, and the new barn quilt that’s on No Finer Diner.

That was followed by “Jell-O Jigglers” and “Nancy’s Fancy” from the D and R Depot Restaurant. I also included the beautiful blue and purple design that was on Ruth Harvie’s garage. Some designs were just too small to transfer to the 6-inch squares, but I included “Dash Churn” from the Stein Farm, and a great apple design. I also wanted to include the design that is on the former home of Nancy and Bruce Baker on East Main Street. That wood square is only 4 inches square, and hangs from the top of the tree. I included the barn quilt that’s on the outside of the Stafford Town Hall and the “Women’s Rights” pattern that hangs in the Le Roy Village Hall. I loved including the new barn quilt design that hangs in the window of Mama Chavez’s Taqueria on Mill Street.

I was painting the red, white, and blue barn quilt that hangs on Irene’s Walter’s barn when I heard of her passing, so like some of the other trees on Trigon Park, this tree is a memorial tree. Just before I put back the paints, I decided to include the “Ingham Rose” barn quilt that is on Candy Bower’s house in Le Roy – an important part of Le Roy’s history. The wood squares had to be varnished and then drilled so they could be attached to the tree. That turned out to be a
bit more challenging than I hoped, but I had enough wood squares painted and varnished in time to hang on the tree.

As I was taking this photo, with the tree in the rain, I thought that this is a great
opportunity for folks who are looking for something to do with their families in the rain. Pick up a barn quilt map at Crocker’s Ace Hardware on Lake Street in Le Roy, or at the Woodward Memorial Library or the Genesee County Chamber of Commerce Tourism office and go on a scavenger hunt to look for the big barn quilts. There are over 100 of them just in Le Roy and Stafford. And with the map, you can go up on line and learn all about the stories of the barns and the people and the barn quilts.

Lynne Belluscio is the historian for the town and village of Le Roy.

One of the best things to keep in mind when writing a newspaper column—or if you're getting started on a serial blog here on The Batavian, wink wink—is that you will write better the better you know your subject.

On that note, Daily News reporter Matt Surtel proves me right and then some in his column on today's op-ed page. His style is fun and quirky, true to its theme, but above all else, it's informed and well-written, and that's what makes it so enjoyable.

Surtel writes about his longtime obsession with the comic strip For Better or For Worse, introducing me to the devoted and surprisingly zealous fan base of the strip that will end its original run Sunday and start over from scratch. Start over from scratch? Well, you see, this comic strip followed a family in real-time for 30 years, and now it will start over, reducing the kids to toddlers and going at it all over again.

Surtel does not shy from passing judgement on some of the strip's characters, calling out one of them as a "gigantic, stupid dweeb," or lamenting the "stupid mustache" of another whom he describes as a "boring milquetoast loser."

Ha!

All in all, this is a great column from a reporter I wouldn't mind hearing more from aside from the usual beat reporting. I've never read For Better or For Worse, but by the end of the column, I shared Surtel's disdain for that "milquetoast loser" who finagled an otherwise ambitious and interesting gal into a mediocre suburban pantomime of life, love and marriage. Damn that Anthony!