Continuing with selections from my Oregon Journals, this is what my parish looked like in 2003.
Built in 1938, St
Elizabeth of Hungary church in John Day, Oregon was constructed by Fr George
Murphy, the first pastor of the parish. He became a monsignor and after his
retirement, lived with the Waltons in Long Creek towards the end of his life.
Bud Walton and his wife Katherine had built the mission church dedicated to St
Katherine between Dale and Long Creek, and they lived next to it. I enjoyed
driving there every weekend, even though I only had 6 to 10 people in attendance.
But the drive was pleasant with scenic views, rolling hills and pastures
with cows, and no traffic at all. If you’re lucky you may encounter 10 to 15 cars
driving by through the 60 miles it takes to get there. But then you’re likely
to encounter plenty of deer crossing the road, besides many chipmunks and ground-squirrels.
This mission church was a modern church, very spacious with a parish hall
underneath, which unfortunately is hardly ever used. In fact I remember using
it twice, once for a baptism of a Walton grand-child, and the other time for
the funeral of Bud himself, with a reception that followed in the hall, and plenty
of cowboys in attendance. Bud himself was a cowboy as were his two sons, who
ranches over a thousand cows in different pastures. They had lots of property, at
least one-third the size of Malta. Next to the church, they even had a small
cemetery, mainly for family burials. Father George was buried there, and he had
dug up his own grave in the ground. Moreover he had crafted his own casket
which he used as a bookshelf while he was still alive. I enjoyed saying Mass
there, in spite of the small congregation, and I embellished further by buying
a few icons for the walls, which were pretty bare and empty. And when the
grand-children of Bud showed up for Christmas and Easter, the crowd would at
least double in size.
Another mission church I had was in Monument, but this
was actually a trailer transformed into a chapel, which was perfect for the 6
to10 people that would show up once a month. Monument itself was very small,
next to the John Day river, which made the surroundings very green and lush.
Besides, along the river they had various orchards that grew cherries,
apricots, peaches, pears and apples. I used to enjoy picking bunches of
cherries off the trees and the Thomas family who ran them gave me abundant
apricots and other fruit when they were in season, normally in the summer
months. This little hamlet is out of the way and to reach it you have drive
through the only road that goes through it.
The third mission church was in
Seneca, 40 miles south of the parish. Like Monument, it is secluded with one
main road running though it, but the main road leads to the other big town of
Burns, 80 miles south of John Day. Seneca has the record of the lowest
temperature ever recorded in Oregon, and the 6th lowest in the Continental USA,
that of –54 degrees Fahrenheit recorded in 1933. Seneca was the coldest place in the contiguous United States for 30 nights between July 1, 2015, to
June 30, 2016. The small church was built in 1960 by a person who was
one of my parishioners, Andy Radinovich. While I was stationed at John Day, it
was closed, but I opened it up on two occasions, when Seneca organizes the Annual
Oyster Feed. There was actually a nice crowd in attendance, and I even rang the bell to
welcome the people. Most of these hamlets have Feeds where they welcome everyone
for an extravaganza of food, whether it’s oysters, shrimp, crab and of course
everything is washed down by plenty of beer!
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