LeRoy, Holy Rosary Parish

Full Size, 118k

As more local Catholics began attending mass at LeRoy, instead of driving from LeRoy to St. Patrick's or St. Oswald's, a larger facility was required. Mass began being said in a room over Pirie's Drug Store. Catholics in LeRoy had also been attending other religion's services, before mass was said over the store, due to having no vehicle or not wanting to travel the roads out of town. As mass attendance continued to grow the LeRoy Theatre was used for mass.

Fr. George Brodner recalls his first visit to LeRoy: "I went to LeRoy and found that the priest from Sinnett was coming to LeRoy and saying Sunday mass upstairs in Ed Pirie's new Drug Store. It was a nice place: new, clean and finished up. All one room. This was fine, but soon Ed decided to divide that space into rooms, and so I had to find a different place to say mass. The good Catholics soon found out that I could use the theatre. It was not the most inspiring place to have mass, but I was glad I could say mass somewhere. The theatre looked like all theatres looked the day after the Saturday night show, with popcorn boxes, programs and paper all over the place. The ticket office was my confessional."

Lot 8 of block 6 in LeRoy was obtained as a building site. While the basement was dug and the foundation poured, 10 men from LeRoy travelled to Dysart, Sask. Here they carefully dismantled a wooden shed located on the farm of John

Brodner, the father of Fr. George. This lumber, which had an estimated value of $4,000, was hauled back to LeRoy on a big truck. Work progressed rapidly. The studding for the walls was erected on Nov. 2, 1949.

Building continued throughout the winter and spring of 1949 50 as weather allowed. Each member family of the parish was asked to donate $10 to have a pew built.

The original Stations of the Cross were purchased by the parish. An afternoon was picked and the stations were blessed by Abbot Severin Gertken and Fr. George. Chris Weisgerber would then carry the blessed station to Bernard Jansen, who in turn climbed up a ladder and hung the station in its proper position along the interior side walls of the new church building. The new church building was blessed by Abbot Severin on June 19, 1950.

Preliminary work began almost immediately. Then the actual construction began. First the basement extension was dug, forms set up and the buildings extension's foundation poured. Clem Schueller and Ray Ehlert were the chief carpenters for this monumental task.

Pastors at Holy Rosary, LeRoy:
Fr. George Brodner-1948-1956
Fr. Roman Schneider-1956-1960
Fr. Alphonse Ludwig-1960-1970
Fr. Florian Renneberg-1970-1975
Fr. Alfred Engele-1975-1978
Fr. Edward Benning-1978-1982
Fr. Florian Renneberg-1982-1988
Fr. Daniel Muyres-1988