St. Pius X History Page

History

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Reflections on our Parish Community

Like all parishes, St. Pius was born out of necessity. The far northeastern portion of Dallas was at the beginning of a building boom that would transform thousands of acres of rolling black land pasture into a community. The year was 1954. Dallas was growing at a rapid rate and thousands of families were moving from cities like Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and New Haven. The new Texans taxed to the limit the public facilities of the city.

Dallas had a progressive new Bishop, Thomas K. Gorman, a man who thought "big". He had come here two years earlier from the Diocese of Reno which embraced the entire state of Nevada. He was a Bishop ahead of his time - a builder of churches and schools, of universities and seminaries. He was a man sent by the Holy Spirit to respond to the demands of a changing city, one whose Catholic population was increasing more rapidly than anyone anticipated.

Bishop Gorman established five new parishes in Dallas in 1954. Among them was St. Pius X. The parish was established February 26, carved out of the easternmost portion of St. Bernard Parish. There were 192 families in the new parish when the founding Pastor, Monsignor Vincent Wolf, first walked across the black gumbo soil of the church site located far out on a country road with the unlikely name of Gus Thomasson.

It has been said that "only those who can see the invisible can do the impossible". There was nothing to be seen by Monsignor Wolf that day but cotton; but he was a man who could see the invisible. He didn't see cotton fields. He saw a church, a school, a convent, but most of all, a community of Catholics who could see with him the invisible future. Together, pastor and parishioners set out to accomplish the impossible by turning a field of dirt clods and chopped cotton into a parish, a real Christian community.

Sometime in 1954 Monsignor Wolf commissioned F.J. Woerner & Co. to produce a study to determine configurations of the various buildings that would be needed on the property. Three outlines were produced and the one selected was used to guide construction of all buildings conceived of at that time. But sometimes we are tempted to measure progress and accomplishment in terms of brick and mortar, and St. Pius X has an impressive amount of that. But people make it a place of worship or a center of learning.

And after all, people are what St. Pius X parish is -- people who have done the impossible because they could see the invisible. That first year was one of hardship as well as fun. There are memories of bingo games in the back yard of the rectory at 2736 San Vicente; of daily Mass in the rectory dining room/chapel; of the parish bazaar held in the uncompleted Casa View drug store and of moving the portable altar onto the stage of Casa View School auditorium each Sunday so the community could celebrate Mass together.

First altar at Casa View school

Our first assistant pastor Father Raphael Kamel was assigned in April right after he was ordained. This is Father Raphael saying Mass in our first church. We were watching the parish grow in numbers each week and listening to the piano being played during Mass because there was no organ.

It was a great day on May 29, 1954. We became legitimized on that day with the canonization of Pope Pius X, and parishioners proudly claimed to be the first parish named in honor of the new saint. We celebrated with a field Mass on the Church site, with Auxiliary Bishop Augustine Danglmayr as the celebrant. Marie Gorman became the first religious vocation from the parish when she entered the Sisters of the Holy Ghost and Mary Immaculate on August 15, 1954, the Feast of the Assumption. Appropriately, Marie took the name of Sister St. Pius.


That was a year of beginnings. It was a time of starting traditions--traditions that are as rich and as strong today as they were then. The Men's Club was organized, the Ladies Society with its circles was established, and the St. Pius X Choir was founded. But there was one central thought in everyone's mind: to build a church and a school.

As plans for a church progressed, it was a thrill to see the field come to life growing buildings instead of cotton. In making this dream come true, another tradition was begun--fund raising to meet the needs of our parish community. There was an early recognition that the parish had no

great wealth and no great poverty. It was a community of struggling young families, all strapped with mortgages and the expenses of starting and rearing a family. But there was also the realization that all shared in the responsibility of providing for the parish's needs. Our present Budget Sunday is a far cry from that first fund drive when the men gathered at Casa Linda Lodge; but it is a direct and proud descendant.

Speaking of pride, that was the key word on May 29, 1955 when the first Mass was celebrated in the newly completed church auditorium (our present Parish Hall). It was a hectic and happy day on May 28 as parishioners moved the altar into place and cleaned up the last of construction debris.

That same year witnessed the beginnings of St. Pius X School, modest of course with five classrooms and a cafeteria; but like the mustard seed, it was destined to grow. The Sisters of the Holy Ghost and Mary Immaculate were invited to administer and teach in the new school. From the start, they enlisted dedicated lay teachers as their co-workers in the classroom. Sister Mary Fintan was named the first principal, a post she would hold until May of 1959.

The first St. Pius X football team should probably be described more in terms of the beginning of a dynasty rather than a tradition; but the great program of sports and sportsmanship had its roots in that first school year. Other "seedlings" planted in 1955 that have grown to giant proportions were the first Cub Scout Pack, Boy Scout Troop, Explorer Post, Girl Scout and Brownie Troops.

History is a tender combination of beginnings and endings. In 1956, we lost our founding pastor (left), Monsignor Wolf, who was made rector of the co-cathedral in Ft. Worth. Monsignor Thomas S. Zachry served as interim pastor for two months. Then, on May 24, 1956, Father Thomas W. Weinzapfel was named pastor.

This was an important time in the history of our parish community. The original parish community had grown from 192 to 700 families. It was during that time that the parishioners and pastor decided to undertake their first major, fund-raising campaign. Money was needed at that time to build four more classrooms and a convent to house ten sisters. A building committee was appointed that was to evolve into another key parish group, the Finance Committee. The pictures below show the addition of the classrooms and the new convent.

Aerial view of the first construction phase

The convent is in the rear of the property, the 4 new classrooms were added on the west wing of the school.

Nuns in front of the newly completed convent

Another St. Pius X tradition, that of reaching out to others, began in 1957 with Operation Understanding. It was a program to welcome our non-Catholic neighbors to the Church to visit, see and understand what their Catholic neighbors were doing up there on the hill. More than 200 visitors were shown through the Church and School during the Open House.

New things were still happening. The nurses of the parish organized the Health Committee to assist in the school health program. The first Christian Family Movement group was organized by Father Weinzapfel, and the first of many "Welcome Nights" was held. Another new addition to the parish was a second assistant pastor, Father Charles B. King, who had been ordained earlier in Rome.

Aerial view of the second construction completed

And we were still growing. Ground was broken for eleven additional classrooms. By 1958, we had grown to 900 families when Bishop Gorman dedicated the completed classrooms and a two room addition to the temporary rectory on San Vicente.

The tradition of awards that have filled several trophy cases had already begun by the school teams, but the entire parish started getting into the act in 1958 when Bishop Gorman awarded the parish the Bishop's Award for Operation Understanding. That same year, St. Pius X pledged twice what any other Dallas parish pledged for the construction of the new St. Paul Hospital.

Al Salem looks over convent expansion plans with the foreman

By 1959, we had reached 1,000 families and reached for more brick and mortar, too. The capacity of the convent was doubled to 20 rooms in June. Sister Mary Eulalia was named to replace Sister Mary Fintan. St. Pius X won the Bishop's Award again, this time for its Budget Sunday program.