St. Mary’s altars, tabernacle live on

It turns out the bells of St. Mary’s weren’t the only elements saved from the Lake Church Catholic church.

Three altars, statues of saints Peter and Paul and a tabernacle were removed as well and have found a new home not far away.

St. Francis Borgia in Cedarburg bought the items in 2021 and kept them in storage until this year.

The church recently completed a multi-year restoration project of its south church that had the Catholic artifacts make their way from their northern Ozaukee County home with Luxembourg roots 20 miles south to a church founded by Jesuits in an area of Irish and German heritage.

St. Francis Borgia Director of Administrative Services Leif Nygaard said St. Francis Borgia Catholic School maintenance worker Gary Fatla made the connection to buy the items. Fatla lives in Fredonia and attends Divine Savior Church.

The items, although they are 139 years old, still provided a surprise. St. Francis Borgia’s plan was to paint the altars, but something interesting was found when some of the old paint was stripped away.

Original gold mosaics dating to 1885 revealed themselves.

“It’s really cool that the mosaics were found. I never knew they were there,” Belgium area historian Kevin Wester said.

Wester, who has published a book on the history of Lake Church, has an idea of why and when the altars got painted.

“My hunch is there was a renovation done. I bet it was in 1965,” he said.

Nygaard is happy the original mosaic was restored, especially since it saved the church from having to repaint the altars, he said.

The three altars have gone through design changes over the years. Wester said the Vatican’s emphasis on simplification led to domes on top of the main altars being removed.

The nature of their journey is a little different than that of St. Mary’s bells, three of which were placed in a memorial in the adjacent cemetery while the school bell was sent to a new Salvatorian Catholic secondary school in Masasi, Tanzania, through Father Jim Weyker, a Belgium native who spent decades as a missionary there.

Saving the bells, one of the few treasured elements former members wanted to preserve from their church, became a parish effort that included a capital campaign to build the bell memorial.

The fate of the altars, however, was largely unknown.

“Most people had no clue that they were saved. They thought they were in the church and house,” Wester said.

The St. Mary’s Church building was converted into a house and purchased by a Sheboygan couple.

Wester knew what happened, however, and posted photos in the Facebook group I Grew Up in Belgium. Many former St. Mary’s parishioners commented that are thrilled that the altars have found a new home nearby and are back in use. Some have visited St. Francis Borgia to see them.

“That’s why I wanted to post it, so people would know,” Wester said.

Transferring the altars to the church was one thing; moving the tabernacle was another. Nygaard estimates it weighs about 1,800 pounds and had to be moved in several pieces.

Nygaard said St. Francis Borgia’s renovation is largely complete, but air conditioning has yet to be installed.