From UW La Crosse Murphy Library
At this point of success in his career, Mr. [Odin J.] Oyen must have remembered the difficult years of business when he still needed to establish his reputation as a competent interior decorator. The older workmen in the firm told his son, Leighton, of the time when O.J. was denied the job of decorating St. Joseph's Cathedral in La Crosse by the elders of the cathedral. They felt that O.J. Oyen was too young at age 23 to take on the job of decorating the cathedral. However, Bishop Flasch directed them to award the contract to O.J. Oyen irrespective of age. In doing so, the Bishop recollected when as a young priest assigned to a new parish, the congregation felt he also was too young to take on the responsibilities of their parish especially hearing confession and dealing with the problems of women. In terms of appreciation and business volume, O.J. Oyen and his artisans had attained remarkable acceptance in the first twenty years of business.
In the index of this book it also says that Oyen also designed
St. Joseph's Cathedral - Minneapolis, MN - 1904
St. Patrick's - Madison - 1888 & 1917
St. Wenceslaus - La Crosse - 1888
St. Mary's - La Crosse -1905
2 comments:
Just lovely!
I wish I could have been ordained a priest in this setting...whatever happened in the interim to what we have today (which is not so bad, I guess) yet...
this is a truly Catholic church in all its splendor.
How nice! I wish I could go back to 1959 before it was torn down to make room for the current Cathedral. That statue of St Joseph could be mounted in the current Cathedral in place of that rug hanging on the wall across from the cathedra.
I would love to see inside pictures of old St Mary's in LaCrosse with her double steeples. The Cathedral has a picture in the lower level.
A side by side contrast of between the presumably gorgeous St Wenceslaus in 1900 to the disaster of the 'now' St Damanio Chapel-Viterbo Univ of current day would be nice to see. When looking at the building from the outside, it looks like the church originally had a few side chapels along its side on 10th st.
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