He's now 82 and living in the same house two blocks from the school. He presumes the smashed statue is still resting somewhere under the parish grounds.
For 100 years, many Catholics on Portland's north end have called Holy Cross Parish their spiritual, educational and social home. They have come to the holy grounds loyally for weekly Mass, joyous baptisms, hopeful first Communions, happy weddings and heartbreaking funerals.
Over the years, the school held boxing matches with home-grown talent as well as sing-alongs, some with pitchers of beer. A favorite of students in the 1960s were hot-dog days, when moms boiled up large vats of wieners and delivered homemade muffins to school.
Ebbs, flows
In 1902, a small group of Catholics began meeting for Mass at the newly founded Catholic college on the bluff overlooking the Willamette River. The neighborhood was new, still covered with stands of fir trees.
By 1904, the Catholic community had grown. In September of that year, worshipers dedicated a small church with a large potbellied stove. The first pastor was Holy Cross Father John Thillman, a 43-year-old native of Luxembourg and an official at the college.
In 1910, Leo Maguigan's parents wed in the new church. His father had recently come over from Ireland.
In 1912, the priests built a boys' boarding institute. Older students helped the priests tend the boiler in the basement of the school, among other duties.
In 1916, the Holy Cross priests turned over operation of the parish to priests of the Archdiocese of Oregon City, later renamed the Archdiocese of Portland. The Sisters of St. Mary of Oregon came to operate the school and open it to girls.
Life had its ebbs and flows in the early years. In 1925 the parish rejoiced as a native son, John Dunn, was ordained a priest. A few weeks later, Father Dunn was called to baptize a sickly infant parishioner named Francis Mayhew. The boy died three days later.
In 1936, Holy Cross Parish reported to the Catholic Sentinel that the congregation was 'doubly blessed by having an efficient and zealous organist and choir director, as well as a composite unit of splendid voices.' The parish Young People's Club was meeting regularly and had just chosen three one-act plays to stage at what was called the 'Little Theater Movement.'
In January of that year, a holiday dance was given at the church hall that month, with a live orchestra. Admission was 25 cents.
Just six months later, the young and handsome pastor, Father Thomas Keenan, died after his car soared off a steep embankment on Willamette Boulevard.
Back home
The tragedy came not long after Leo Maguigan and his friends broke the statue. The death was hard on the children, but they moved on. That summer, Maguigan and buddies hung out with kind-hearted University of Portland varsity athletes and went swimming in the river.
In 1937, Maguigan and his sports cohort made it into the Catholic grade-school basketball championship game. Holy Cross lost by a single point to St. Philip Neri. Maguigan, though he made friends with some St. Philip folks, still bears a minor grudge.
Meanwhile, Lebanese Catholics settled near the parish. Maguigan says they 'just melded into the community,' along with the Irish, Croatians and Italians. He recalls no ethnic conflicts.
During World War II, the parish held regular blood drives to support the war effort. Many new Catholic workers came to the area, employed by local shipyards.
Maguigan joined the Army and served as a guard of Nazi prisoners and then as a radio operator in the Philippines.
When the war ended, he returned home and attended the University of Portland on the GI Bill. He became a parole officer, and he and wife Helen raised eight children in his childhood home. Born between 1953 and 1965, all went to Holy Cross School.
The Maguigan kids recall bringing home multiplication tables and other drills given them by the sisters. Classes had as many as 50 students in those days.
The Maguigan back yard was a hub of play for other parish children, with Army, football and parades as the main events.
Through the woods
In the 1930s, when she regularly walked through the North Portland woods to Holy Cross School with her sisters, Millie Simkins would keep an eye out for snakes. It didn't help that her brave younger sibling Rose would pick up the slithering reptiles and dangle them at her squeamish elder.
A member of the parish for 80 of her 82 years, Simkins was born Milica Erceg in Croatia. She was just more than a year old when her parents brought her to the United States.
Simkins has received most of her sacraments at Holy Cross. She expects to have her funeral there and then be buried along with her mother at the family plot.
She grew up in a two-bedroom house near what is now the Columbia Villa housing project. Five girls crowded into the same bed. They milked cows, tended chickens, harvested vegetables and polished the floors. To get extra money for the family, they picked berries.
In one class photo from Holy Cross, Millie's petticoat peeks from her skirt hem. It was fashioned of old flour sacks.
'We were as poor as church mice,' she says.
On the way to school, the girls carried bottles of milk to the sisters as a way to pay tuition.
Simkins recalls a community of siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles as tight-knit and raucous. In one of her earliest memories, the adults launch into an argument and a large oak table gets overturned.
Two brothers were born somewhat later than the girls, when the family had moved into a large house. One of the young fellow was pious, trying to make Catholic converts as he sold newspapers in front of University Drug Store.
Simkins has kept her old Holy Cross diploma. It hangs in her sewing room just above a row of well-organized scissors. An old report card shows top marks in spelling and geography and so-so grades in math.
Simkins, even now diminutive in size but grand in energy, had a leading role as Boots Woodruff in the school play - High Pressure Homer. She was talked of as an aspiring actress.
She admits she was not very well behaved in the classroom. One of the teachers isolated her and another ne'er-do-well in a cloak room as punishment.
'That didn't do too well,' she explains. 'We could just do our giggling in there.'
Simkins had no time for boyfriends, or many girlfriends for that matter. There was too much to do around home.
'We played together,' she recalls of her siblings. 'We had our own little ball team.'
At Mass, Simkins always sat in the second row from the back and still does. It gives her a good view of all the people she has prayed with over the years, she explains.
On the bus
During Betty Lageson's student days in the 1930s, what was then St. Cecilia Parish in Kenton did not have a school. The pastor drove a bus full of his kids, including Betty, the mile or so to Holy Cross.
'I remember this being very big but I saw a picture of it and it was rather small, a big van really,' Lageson says.
She recalls the old three-story school, with its four classrooms, auditorium, small library and dark wood floors.
The Sisters of St. Mary of Oregon seemed alien yet heroic, a 'whole separate sort of entity.'
For one spring musical, she portrayed a villain and sang off key, she says.
In the 1960s, she sent her own children to Holy Cross School, helping usher in a new building.
The 1962 Columbus Day storm blew the roof off the old school. That sped construction of the new school, which was completed in 1963.
Old-timers recall the procession of students carrying books and desks and other things from the old school to the new.
Lageson volunteered in the school library and loved it.
Now, she has great-grandchildren attending Holy Cross.
Walking distance
The old church, which seated about 300, was adorned with painted plaster statues, an elaborate altar and a choir loft. On the exterior, it was simple.
'It reminded me of an old-fashioned Protestant church in the boondocks,' says George Fortun, 80.
A native of Anaconda, Mont., Fortun came to the University of Portland in 1950 on the GI Bill and decided to stay in the neighborhood.
He has always lived walking distance from the church, one of his life's epicenters. He has bidden a final farewell to two wives from the place and seen his nine children receive sacraments there. Even when he was widowed with three young girls, it was where he forged a friendship with God.
'That was what really kept me going, my faith and my parish,' he says.
There was social fun - dances, sing-alongs, card parties.
'I don't think we went to anything except a parish activity,' he recalls of the 1950s and '60s. 'We couldn't afford anything else, and it helped the school.'
Fortun was given charge of one dance, and he played mostly Guy Lombardo records. 'I don't think it went over very well,' he says. 'They about threw me out over that.'
It was too stodgy for the crowd, which at times liked to have rowdier fun, like jitterbugging.
Fortun served as usher at the first Mass in the current church, held on Christmas, 1949. The new house of worship was twice the size of the old. There were six Masses on Sundays.
'We thought it was wonderful,' he says. 'The church was full most of the time.'
Fortun, who retired as an insurance branch manager, helped form the first parish school board in the mid-1960s. He hired one of the first lay teachers.
He also served in the St. Vincent de Paul conference and ushered for 40 years.
Fortun now lives in Assumption Village, a retirement community built on the site of the former Assumption Parish.
Busy, but fun
Father Thomas Jackson, say Fortun and others who remember him, was gentle and hard working. He also had administrative acumen.
A convert from Judaism, the stout priest would serve as pastor between 1936 and 1956. For years, he lived on the top floor of the school building. Near the end of his days on earth, he oversaw construction of the current church, rectory and convent.
In a large box-shaped house just down the street from the church lives Frances Keagbine. She and her late husband Francis raised 10 children in the parish. They arrived in 1954 when Francis began study at the University of Portland.
The Keagbine clan occupied an entire pew and usually sat near the front.
The children attended the parish school, walking in rain or shine. Frances made thousands of school lunches, volunteered in the cafeteria, and library and monitored the playground, which was all mud in the winter and hard clay in the summer.
Her husband helped the sisters when their convent furnace went on the fritz.
'It was busy but fun,' she says of the life then. 'I would do it all over again.'
Over the years, she has seen children receive the Eucharist, get confirmed and marry their sweethearts in Holy Cross Church. She has attended funerals of an infant daughter, a 21-year-old son, her husband and a granddaughter.
'It is the comfort of parishioners that helps you get through those hard times,' she says.
Loyal Harvey
Through sheer determination, a dog named Harvey became an honorary student at Holy Cross School during the 1960s.
The kindly but stubborn mutt belonged to Don and Shirley Cole and their children. Harvey so loved the kids that he would follow them to school, lying down outside the windows of their classrooms.
When Sister Eusebia Vandehey, principal through the 1960s and '70s, asked the Coles to keep Harvey at home, they attempted to keep him inside. But if the door even cracked open, out he scooted.
Impressed by the canine loyalty, Sister Eusebia relented.
'Sister finally said, 'OK, Harvey can stay, but no other dog can stay,'' Shirley recalls. 'At teacher's conferences, the teachers would talk more about the dog than our kids.'
A cradle Catholic, Don joined the Navy and was stationed on the Oregon coast in 1952. On leave, he hitchhiked into Portland and by chance made his way to North Portland.
He met Shirley and the two hit it off.
They wed at Holy Cross in 1954, with Don wearing his Navy blues.
'That was the only suit I had,' he says.
When revelers showered the couple in rice, Father Edmond Bliven brought out a broom and began to sweep up. Soon, Shirley's brother took the broom and finished the job.
The Coles set down roots in the parish and as they had children, got deeply involved in parish life.
'I spent most of my time at Holy Cross,' Shirley says.
For his part, Don volunteered to coach CYO football. But he found the uniforms in a deplorable state. Operating by the dictum that sometimes it is better to seek forgiveness than permission, he spent about $160 on new pants and jerseys. He had the store send the bill to Holy Cross.
On the way home, he went to pass on news of the purchase to Father Valentine Moffenbeier, pastor from 1956 to 1968.
'He came out of that seat about six feet; he levitated straight up and said, 'What?'' Don recalls. 'Then I got him calmed down.'
The team won a championship, and that seemed to assuage the tension.
Shirley, who became Catholic at the parish in the years after the marriage, recalls her conversion as an 'exciting time.' Now, she looks through old photos of her wedding and her children's first Communion, and all are set at Holy Cross. The Coles have two grandchildren now at the school.
They even had to hold a funeral for their son in the church. They recall the kindness and spiritual guidance given by Father Wayne Forbes, pastor from 1981 to 1988.
'Holy Cross has been a part of our life for 50 years, and we've never regretted it for a minute,' Shirley says. 'You meet the nicest people. It's been a wonderful place to be and I hope it's here forever.'
No vacation from God
In the mid-1960s, the liturgical changes brought by the Second Vatican Council were welcomed by some, accepted bitterly by others.
John Adams just rolled with it.
'I liked the Latin Mass, but I never questioned anything,' says Adams, 91, a retired post office worker. 'I'm what you call a peaceable man, I guess.'
In keeping with council teaching, laypeople could distribute Communion. Adams became the first lay minister of the Eucharist in parish history in 1980.
Adams donates to the school endowment fund and each year gives a trip to Reno the school can raffle off. He makes doll beds for the raffle.
When it was time to build a new church in the 1940s, he went from house to house urging parishioners to give. He ushered, led bingo and even had a short stint as a song leader. Adams was a key member in a nighttime prayer group who adored the Eucharist in the church from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
He also served at daily Mass for about 20 years until arthritis slowed him.
As far back as 1956, Adams ran the St. Vincent de Paul food bank out of his house, delivering food whenever needed.
He says his record of being intrepid goes back to a conversation about St. Vincent de Paul leadership with Father Carl Wachter, pastor from 1968 to 1980.
'After 20 years I was getting so that I thought someone else could take over,' Adams says. 'All he said to me was, 'There is no vacation from God.' So I thought there was no use arguing about it.'
New culture
Martha Kovach, longtime parish worker, was also one of the early Latino members of the parish. She came in the mid-1960s, having grown up in Mexico.
Though Holy Cross Church seemed austere to her tastes, nurtured in Baroque Mexican churches, she felt welcomed, and she treasured the Eucharist. But she felt that she stood out.
That feeling changed in the 1970s and '80s, when more Latinos began to call North Portland home. At the same time, archdiocesan officials decided not to isolate Latinos in special parishes, but to have them join in their neighborhood communities.
The Spanish-language Mass now celebrated at Holy Cross has its roots in the Legion of Mary. In 1991, Kovach and other volunteers went door-to-door to find Latino Catholics who were not coming to church.
Father Cathal Brennan, pastor from 1988 to 1998, encouraged the project.
After hearing that Latinos mistook the church as Protestant, Kovach added an image if Our Lady of Guadalupe. Now, parishioners of all kinds pray before the image.
The first Spanish Mass, held in 1992, had 50 people. Just a few years later there were regularly 400.
Last fall, for the Latino Day of the Dead commemoration, as many Anglos as Hispanics brought photos of dead loved ones to place on an altar of remembrance.
Rooted in the daily
Because of the priest shortage and the decreasing population of Holy Cross and other North Portland parishes, four parishes were linked and called the North Portland Catholic Community in the early 1990s. A committee was made up of three pastors and two lay representatives of each parish - Holy Cross, Assumption, Blessed Sacrament and Queen of Peace.
Masses stopped at Blessed Sacrament and Assumption. They were put to use as a Byzantine Catholic Church and an assisted-living village. A few years later, Queen of Peace was transformed into a new Catholic high school.
The changes were hard for members of those parishes. But most remained. Last year, a new prayer garden was constructed using statues and pews from Queen of Peace.
Holy Cross is home to some 'extraordinarily dedicated Catholics,' says Father Dave Gutmann, pastor since 1998.
'I've been impressed with the intense loyalty of parishioners to the neighborhood and to their church and their faith community,' says the priest. 'I am also impressed with the number of people who have been here a long time.'
Father Gutmann is thankful for the influence the University of Portland has had on the parish. Both institutions are among the oldest in the neighborhood.
Of late, Father Gutmann has hoped to position the parish to be 'welcoming and supportive' in the face of unemployment and other local economic struggles. He began a networking and support group for people out of jobs.
The hospitality will be necessary, he says, as young families move into the area, which is still affordable by Portland standards.
Columbia Villa is going through redevelopment. A new northern light rail line opened this spring.
With the church, the school, the new De La Salle North Catholic High, the University of Portland and Assumption Village assisted living, the Catholic community tends to have life covered in North Portland, he says.
'We want people to move in and spend their whole lives here,' he says, for incentive adding that so far there are no traffic jams in the district.
The state may open a new prison within the parish boundaries. It, too, will be part of parish outreach.
'There is something unique about this parish,' Father Gutmann says. 'It's really rooted in everyday life.'
