> ----------
>From: Brian Kenny - MCDOT
>To: 'x AzTeC SASIG'; 'x Netzwerk'
>Subject: The Most Definitive Adobe Building Restoration in the Southwest
>Date: Thursday, January 02, 1997 7:57AM
>
>[ AzTeC / SWA SASIG ]:
>
>http://www.mrt.com/archnews/mission.html
>1884 adobe Carmelite monastery -- Stanton TX redicates historic mission
>
>STANTON - The 1884 adobe Carmelite monastery that offered spiritual life to
>the old Marienfeld community, now Stanton, was re-dedicated Sunday in a
>hope-for-restoration ceremony that bespoke unity, old-time religion,
>remembrance of the past and hope for the future. The three-story,
>112-year-old Gothic monastery, which later was converted to a convent and
>abandoned following a 1938 tornado that destroyed the Our Lady of Mercy
>Academy, was built by the Roman Catholic order of Carmelite friars and
>settlers on a hill here. Restoration of the monastery reflects the unity of
>"building together'' and signs of new hope, new life, new opportunity and
>new blessings that were extant in the original settlement more than a
>century ago, said the Rev. John Benedict Weber, an Illinois-based Carmelite
>friar and historian who presided over the re-dedication ceremony. "The
>early settlers, the earliest friars, and earliest sisters ... are smiling at
>us because we are doing what they did. We are building together (through the
>restoration),'' Weber said to a tent-full of folks and others on the
>monastery's first-floor veranda. The monastery, now in a state of
>quasi-disrepair, is being restored under the guidance of the Martin County
>Convent, Inc., at a cost of $600,000 over a five-year period. Exterior and
>interior of the building, which was modified for use as a convent as part of
>Our Lady of Mercy Academy, is to be restored to its Carmelite monastery
>origin, including cedar-shake shingles and the whitewashed four-foot-thick
>abode walls. And much of the inspiration for the restoration comes in the
>community's sense of history and heritage, through the historical research
>of Weber who formerly lived in Texas, and in the leadership of neighboring
>Grady schoolteacher John Kennady, who observed that "by only appreciating
>the past can the future be bright.'' Kennady projected that the restored
>monastery is "going to be the definitive restoration of any abode building,
>probably, in the Southwest.'' In quoting New Mexico architect Paul G.
>McHenry Jr., Kennady said that Stanton's Carmelite monastery is unique and
>"frozen in time.'' Further, Kennady said in quoting McHenry, "All steps
>should be taken to preserve this one (adobe building). Old photos, mockups
>and museum exhibits can never provide the same experience as walking through
>history in the real thing." In wake of the restoration and "long after we
>are gone and are no longer remembered,'' Weber said the hill-top monastery
>will remain "a site of
>great promise and a site of great hope. "And I hope today that the original
>settlers are putting their blessing on it from their place in Heaven,''
>Weber said. "And I am sure they are smiling upon us.'' Weber's research
>took him to Rome where he studied original letters and records, in both
>German and Latin, that reflected correspondence between the Carmelites in
>Stanton and in Rome. To the original settlers, the monastery site,
>including the Saint Joseph Catholic Church, and, later, the academy, "was
>not just the origins of their town but it was a real symbol of the kind of
>life they could have here .... happiness and prosperity,'' Weber said. And
>the restoration today is a "sign of people coming together for the common
>good again.'' In quoting from the 1897 writings of Carmelite Friar
>Telesphorus Hardt, who served in the monastery from 1886 until his return to
>Europe, Weber said "the local settlers didn't have any money, so all the
>work in building all these buildings had to be done by the men of the town
>working together with the Carmelites. "Some days we worked as
>brick-makers,'' Weber said, quoting Hardt. "Sometimes we were brick-layers.
>Other times, we were carpenters and blacksmiths. Some days we were
>plasterers and still other times, we were roofers.'' The church's adobe
>walls were four feet thick, and the brick work was double-layered to
>withstand the "fierce West Texas wind,'' Weber said quoting Hardt. Prairie
>grass then was 2 to 3 meters (up to a yard) tall, Weber said in reflecting
>upon Hardt's experience. Rabbits, prairie dogs, tarantulas, scorpions,
>centipedes and rattlesnakes abounded. And songbirds and birds of prey, such
>as eagles, hawks and vultures, were common over the "staked plains'' of West
>Texas. But the huge buffalo herds were gone, and the antelope herds were
>dwindling. Around the community in the mid-1880s were ranchers and their
>"thousands and thousands of heads of cattle, horses and sheep." Weber noted
>that the drought of 1885 and into the late 1880s forced many original
>settlers into bankruptcy "because they couldn't keep their herds, and they
>couldn't maintain the property that they were still paying money on,'' Weber
>said. "Many of them sold their ranches and their herds and went to work for
>the Texas & Pacific Railroad, and moved to Big Spring, Colorado City,
>Midland, Dallas.'' That exodus, noted Weber, eroded the financial base of
>the Order of the Carmelites. By 1900, the Carmelite friars had been
>succeeded by the sisters of Our Lady of Mercy Academy. "It is important to
>remember and to preserve the past,'' Kennady said. "We are only stewards of
>this historic site for the future generations
>and in memory of these ex-students (of the academy). And the efforts of the
>Carmelites will be forever remembered."
>
>
Anita Cohen-Williams
Information Specialist
Auto Club of Southern California
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