Tossed and recovered decades ago, two Stations of the Cross are returned to historic Portland church – Here is Oregon

After more than 40 years only three people knew the artifacts existed: A man in California, his mother in Texas and a woman storing them in her Southwest Portland home.

Kate Chester had been given the two vintage Stations of the Cross, but had no idea where they’d come from. Even so, Chester, who attends St. Clare Catholic Church in Southwest Portland, understood the spiritual significance. Stations of the Cross, 14 of them, depict the last day of Jesus Christ’s life. At the stations, typically displayed in churches or church yards, the faithful reflect on Christ’s sacrifice and spend time in prayer.

In December, Chester was hired at University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. She was scheduled to fly from Portland to South Bend on Jan. 20. In the meantime, she had to empty everything from her house so she could, in the coming months, put it on the market. Chester had to be ruthless about what to store and what to toss.

As the days turned into weeks, though, she was haunted by what to do with the Stations of the Cross in her second-floor guest room. She could drop them off at a nearby Goodwill Industries donation center, or put them on eBay, where pieces, less beautiful than her two, were selling for $500 or more.

But matters of faith are not logical or practical.

So, before she left Portland for good, she made it her mission to return those two artifacts to the church where long ago they’d offered parishioners a contemplative message of hope.

She did it.

And what began one afternoon more than 40 years ago ended on Jan. 5, in a moment all involved now see as an example of faith and humanity.

***

If Kate Chester closed the circle, the gentle curve began four decades ago when Dody Androsky spotted two Stations of the Cross in a dumpster outside Portland’s St. Patrick Catholic Church, 1623 N.W. 19th Ave.

“Oh gosh, I’m going to cry just thinking about that day,” said Androsky, who calls herself a devout Catholic. She now lives with her daughter in Bastrop, a small Texas town about 30 miles southeast of Austin. She and her husband used to live in Beaverton and had raised their children at nearby St. Cecilia Catholic Church. When the children grew up and left the house, the couple enjoyed exploring Catholic churches throughout the Portland area.

“I think we hit every Catholic church around here,” said Androsky. “We liked St. Patrick’s because we were originally from Pennsylvania and that church reminded us of churches there.”

St. Patrick Catholic Church, on the National Register of Historic Places, was built by Croatian and Irish immigrants and has been operating for 130 years. Tom Androsky owned a dump truck business a few blocks from the church. One afternoon, he and his wife walked by St. Patrick’s, then undergoing renovations. Dody Androsky happened to spot the artifacts.

“I can’t tell you the exact month,” she said. “This was in the late ‘70s. I know it wasn’t on a Sunday because the church was closed. Anyway, we were walking, and I saw them in the dumpster with other debris from inside the church. They are blessed and shouldn’t have been thrown out. I’m going to cry again just thinking about that day.”

There was a moment of silence on the phone as she gathered herself, and then she plunged back in.

“I told my husband to climb in that dumpster to rescue them,” said Androsky. “There was no question he’d do it for me. He was a good husband, and he was a good Catholic.”

The couple carried the two Stations of the Cross — No. 2, Jesus falls the first time, and No. 11, Jesus is nailed to the cross — to their car and drove home. Once there, they inspected them. Dody Androsky thought the plaster reliefs were in remarkable shape despite a chip here and there, some dings and small chunks missing from the wooden frames. She assumed the damage came from being tossed in the dumpster. She wrapped the pieces in bath towels and had her husband haul them to the attic. She had no plans for them. Saving them from destruction was good enough for her.

When Tom Androsky died in 2001, it fell on the couple’s children to go through the family home, deciding what to keep and what to sell as their mother planned to move out of state to be with her children. Her son, Mike, who had been living in California for decades, flew to Portland and oversaw emptying the attic.

“That’s when I found these two Stations of the Cross,” he said. “I knew nothing about them. I didn’t know what to do with them. My mother had no idea what I should do. But she told me there was no way they could be thrown out or sold. I get it. I’m Catholic, but it’s not like I was going take them to back to California to hang in my house.”

Stymied, Androsky finally told his mother he knew the perfect person to take care of the two stations. He and Kate Chester, locker partners their sophomore year at Beaverton High School, had kept in touch over the years.

“Kate’s a lover of art, antiques and beautiful things,” he said. “I figured she’d have an eye for them.”

He called Chester, told her he was back in town and had a gift for her. He’d be over soon.

“When I opened the door,” Chester said, “Mike told me to close my eyes. He went out to his car, came back and told me to look. On the floor I saw two Stations of the Cross.”

Androsky explained the situation.

“She didn’t have to take them,” Androsky said. “I wasn’t going to force them on her. If she’d said no, I’d have to figure something out to make my mom happy.”

Chester said yes.

“I grew up Catholic and I have a love of all religions and faiths,” said Chester. “I understand the differences and similarities. We are all learning and asking why.”

And now they were hers.

Chester refused to hang the stations on the wall as it would make them permanent. She considered herself a caretaker. She didn’t know what to do with them but believed the day would come when she’d have an answer. She carefully placed the two artifacts on the floor, gently learning them up against the wall, and in that way the stations became part of the landscape of the room, joining other works of art.

When it came time to move, Chester grappled with the same dilemma Dody Androsky and her old high school friend had faced. She called Mike Androsky to see if he’d could provide her any history on how they came to the Androsky home.

“I’ve got to be honest,” said Androsky, “until I heard from Kate, I’d completely forgotten about those two stations. I told her I’d see if my mom could help.”

After Dody Androsky explained how the stations were found, Chester called St. Patrick’s to leave a message for the pastor, Father Tim Furlow. When he returned her call, Chester explained the mysterious turn of events, telling him what she wanted to do during her last few weeks in Portland.

“I told her I’d love to have the artifacts back,” said Furlow.

Thrilled, Chester called Androsky, who then called his mother to give her the news.

“I was overwhelmed,” said Dody Androsky. “I’m sorry. I feel like crying again. She was such a good caretaker. I feel God’s hand and presence in all of this.”

***

Furlow grew up four blocks from St. Patrick Church, but because of parish boundaries went to St. Mary’s Cathedral, also in Northwest Portland. He attended Holy Trinity Catholic School in Beaverton, graduated from the University of Portland and studied for five years at Pontifical Universities in Rome, preparing to become a priest. Four years ago, he was assigned to St. Patrick’s.

“When I got here, I noticed that the historical murals and art had gone into disrepair,” he said. “I began researching, looking at old photos and eventually found out that a majority of mural work had been painted over in the 1970s, just covered with paint.”

“The Catholic Church believes we are connected to our ancestors and God through beauty,” he said. “By encouraging goodness, truth and beauty we are automatically orientated to the Being itself, to God.”

In the early 1970s, he said, things changed.

“There was a tacit iconoclasm that crept into the church,” said Furlow. “There was a belief that you must simplify and destroy the beautiful images in order to orientate yourself to God.”

Furlow now thinks the church’s original 14 Stations of the Cross were taken from St. Patrick’s walls as part of what he said was the new philosophy on the role of art in the church. He has no idea what happened to all of them but suspects work crews, not understanding the spiritual significance, tossed two, along with other debris, in the trash.

“Spiritually,” he said, “it feels like my parents threw out my grandparents’ photo albums.”

Furlow said the parish is raising money for a $3 million renovation, which includes removing the paint covering the hidden wall murals, as well as restoring artwork and the altar.

When Chester walked into his office with the two Stations of the Cross, wrapped in towels, just the way Tom and Dody Androsky had taken them into their home, Furlow saw it as a spiritual sign.

The plan, he said, is to have craftsmen make 12 more Stations of the Cross to match the two Chester returned. When that happens, Furlow said, the 14 stations now hanging on the walls of St. Patrick’s, far less ornate and colorful than the originals, will be carefully removed and donated to a Catholic church that cannot afford their own.

Less than two weeks before Kate Chester left Portland, a four-decade journey ended.

“It warms my heart,” said Chester. “They were with me, and now they’re back where they belong.”

— Tom Hallman Jr

503-221-8224; thallman@oregonian.com; @thallmanjr