Historic Statues come "Full Circle"

A pair of statues that had gazed upon St. Paul’s faithful for more than eighty years has recently been returned to the community’s Catholic church. 

This past weekend, during Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church’s weekend Masses, parishioners were made aware of the fact that two statues—one of St. Peter and one of St. Paul—had been returned to the parish more than thirty years since having been sold at auction. The statues’ installation in the church is part of a larger, multi-phase renovation project, the first phase of which is nearing completion. 

Helping spearhead the church’s renovation, and responsible for tracking down the pair of statues, is St. Paul native Ron Sack. During an interview on Sunday, Sack said that, while he was working on an ongoing project to write a book about the architecture in the Diocese of Grand Island—which the parish of Sts. Peter & Paul is a part of—he had the idea to see if he could return the statues to their proper home. 

“I kind of keep files on churches and everything like that, and while working on our parish history, I was going through and I found some notes that I recorded about who had bought some major items from the church when they had that auction back in 1991,” Sack said. “I thought, ‘Gosh, you know, I should just see if [the buyers] still have these statues.’” 

In the early 1990s, Sts. Peter and Paul’s eighty-year-old church at the corner of Seventh and Elm streets had been razed to make way for the current church building. At the time, fixtures of the old church had been auctioned off, with Sack having discovered that a couple from Ord had purchased the statues of the parish’s patron saints. 

The statues, which were purchased by the parish for $180 apiece in 1910 from the Daprato Statuary Company’s Chicago studio, stand six-feet tall and are made of cast plaster. Originally, the statues flanked the tabernacle on the 1910 church’s high altar, with St. Peter positioned on the left and St. Paul on the right. 


Photo courtesy of Ron Sack

Thanks to the internet, Sack was able to locate the buyers of the statues and had been pleased to discover that they still had them in their possession. The husband and wife had moved from Ord to Michigan before eventually relocating to St. Marys, Kansas, where they lived when Sack first made contact. 

“I was able to track them down,” Sack said. “I thought, ‘Well, whether it is for the church or me, I think it would be great to get them back. 

“I went down there and said, ‘Would you ever consider parting with them?’” 

Sack said that the couple, who he described as “devout Catholics,” had hoped that the statues would someday find their way back into a Catholic church. 

After purchasing the statues and retrieving them from northeast Kansas, Sack had stored them in his garage until he had the idea to incorporate them into the renovation of the church in St. Paul. 

“[Father Vince Parson], and everybody, seemed very open to the idea and it just worked out,” Sack said about the statues’ ultimate return. 

After years away from a sanctuary and multiple moves, Sack noted that the statues “looked pretty tough. 

“They needed complete restoration,” he said. “They were in no state to even be brought into a church and displayed.” 

Sack sought out the assistance of Iowa artisan Kris Haase, and, along with his parents, Bill and Jan, sister, Kris Jakubowski, and brother, Jeff, paid to have the statues restored to their original state. 

“I looked at close to seven or eight statue restorers,” said Sack. “[Haase] was the best one; she was worth every penny.” 

Sack said that approaches to statue restoration can run the gamut, with the biggest difference in artisans’ work being their use of either flat or bold colors. 

In Haase’s case, Sack said that the Iowa-artisan had used original Daprato catalogs, as well as knowledge gathered over years of restoring similar statues, to guide her in returning the statues to their original state. 

“Kris has done this for decades, and she is one of the masters in this area of the country,” Sack said. “She has done many, many pairs of Sts. Peter and Paul in her history of restoration.” 

In addition to restoring the statues to their original appearance, with a few adjustments made to help incorporate the statuary into the new design of the church, Haase also added a “final touch” of gold leafing, made from real gold, to highlight the accents of the saints’ clothing. 

“[The statues] were ‘extra rich decoration and detail,’” said Sack, quoting the Daprato catalogue that the statues were ordered from. “That was the best kind you could get back then. 

“At the time, and even now, that makes them pretty expense.” 

After having delivered the statues to Haase in “bad shape,” Sack said that he and his family were happy with the final product that was returned to St. Paul. 

“We couldn’t be more pleased with what Kris was able to do with them,” Sack said. “She just does outstanding work.” 

The restored statues currently sit on pedestals in the northeast corner of the sanctuary of St. Paul’s Catholic church. Sack added that, as the church’s renovation project moves through its next phase, he is confident that the statues will be placed on proper statuary stands. 

Sack said that after he discovered the church’s original statues in Kansas, he had attempted to locate the original statue of St. Wenceslaus that had been a part of the church near Midway Corner in rural Howard County. That church, which had opened in 1895, was demolished in 1964. Sack had been told that the statue of St. Wenceslaus had been donated to the old St. Wenceslaus parish located at Tenth and Pine streets in Omaha. That parish later relocated to west Omaha, and Sack said that, in the wake of the move, his efforts to locate the whereabouts of the statue from Howard County were unsuccessful. 

Despite his latter hunt having hit a roadblock, Sack said he was pleased that the original statues of St. Peter and St. Paul were returned to Howard County. 

“To move forward, you have to respect the past and understand it,” said Sack, who noted the statues’ removal from the Catholic church in St. Paul in the early 1990s had come with controversy. “You move with the times, and you respect what is going on, but to have them come back, I think it is just fitting and proper.” 

Sack concluded by saying that, throughout the entire process, it seemed as if the statues’ return was guided by some divine assistance. 

“I am just happy that they are back home,” said the St. Paul native. “I just know that somebody upstairs was helping us get those back. 

“To know that they ended up in Kansas, far away from St. Paul, and that they actually found their way back home, that tells you that somebody wanted them to come back. 

“To have them come back, it is full circle.”