St. Helen parishioners anticipate 75th anniversary

Friday, Aug. 07, 2015

ROOSEVELT — Saint Helen Parish in Roosevelt will celebrate its 75th anniversary on Aug. 16 with a Mass and a reception; the Diocese of Salt Lake City is invited to attend. 

The Mass will be celebrated by Monsignor Colin F. Bircumshaw, diocesan administrator. 

“We are really looking forward to this celebration,” said Scott Allen, parish council president. “We have also invited parishioners from some of the Catholic churches close by in Colorado and Wyoming. Our parish is very small, with about 40 families; it includes two missions: Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha in Fort Duchesne and Holy Spirit Mission in Duchesne. 

Sheila Landry, who heads the anniversary committee, said the missions are always included in events that St. Helen Parish holds. The parish is in a rural setting in the Uintah Basin and it “is made up of people who mostly work in the oil fields,” she said. 

The parish is small and rural and “we are all included,” said Kathryn Larson, who has been a member for more than 15 years. “It is a multi-cultural congregation; even our priests have come from around the world to serve this mission church.”

The history of how the parish was started has some twists and turns. 

In 1937, Bishop Duane G. Hunt invited the Paulist Fathers to establish a foundation in Utah. Paulist Father Maurice Fitzgerald moved to a cottage in Vernal in 1938 and was joined a year later by Father Robert J. Murphy. The two priests conducted chapel missions in the area using a trailer that they named St. Paul’s Chapel. It was donated by actress Loretta Young, according to The Salt of the Earth by Bernice Maher Mooney. 

The land acquired for the church came from Mary Harmston, wife of Edward F. Harmston, founder of Roosevelt, who deeded the land to the Diocese of Salt Lake in 1949. Mary Harmston gave the town its name in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt.

In 1940, the Paulists moved from Vernal to Roosevelt, which was more centrally located and had more Catholics. That year’s census numbered 145 Catholics in Roosevelt.

The present rectory on the Harmston property served as the church and residence for three Paulist Fathers; the front room was dedicated as the chapel. The parish was established under the name St. Helen in honor of Ella Hennesey, in whose memory significant funds had been donated to the Catholic Church Extension Society for this purpose. 

In 1944, Benedictine Father Leutmer, then the parish’s pastor, purchased the Stoddard property and farm house across the street from the rectory and converted it into a church, which was dedicated by Bishop Hunt on Oct. 14, 1945.

What: 75th anniversary celebration 

Where: St. Helen Parish, 433 East 2nd North, Roosevelt

When: Aug. 16, 11 a.m. 

All are invited.