Shortly after midnight on April 21, 1946, Iver Stanger ushered the last patrons out the door of his nightclub in Golden Valley.
It was more than an hour before its ordinary 2 a.m. closing time. His staff needed extra time to transform the Boulevard Café into a suitable place to hold Easter Mass at 8 a.m. that morning. They polished the floor, hung curtains over the bar and moved the band equipment to make way for the altar and Easter flowers.
Father Thomas McNamara arrived that morning carrying his folding altar and Mass kit. A World War II chaplain for the U.S. Army Air Forces in Italy, he had recently been discharged and even more recently assigned as the first pastor of Good Shepherd in Golden Valley. Easter of 1946 would be the parish’s first Mass.
Father McNamara’s first job as pastor had been to locate a place to celebrate Mass, and all attempts to secure a school or other auditorium in the area had failed. Fortunately, Stanger had donated his space and some of his musicians for use every Sunday. Almost 300 people of all ages attended Mass that morning at the Boulevard Café, passing under a sign reading “Gluek’s Beer On Tap,” rather than a cross. Still, their pastor confidently reminded them, “We held Mass in some pretty terrible places in the army, you know. This is nothing by comparison.” The resulting nightclub Masses made national news.
By 1947, Father McNamara had secured a pair of army barracks from Alaska and installed them on land he had purchased on the southwest corner of the intersection of Wayzata Boulevard and Highway 100 (the area called West End today). Amid the rapidly growing suburban Minneapolis and a shortage of building materials, Father McNamara was far from the only priest to get creative with his parish facilities. Our Lady of Victory in Minneapolis and Immaculate Heart of Mary in Glen Lake also made their home in relocated army barracks. Visitation and St. Joan of Arc parishes in Minneapolis were worshiping in the gyms of local public schools. St. Margaret Mary in Golden Valley worshiped in a hospital and Our Lady of Grace in Edina was holding Mass in the local theater. It would be a whole decade before Good Shepherd parish would find a permanent home. Many of the pastors of these new parishes were also recently returned army chaplains.
Work finally began on the parish’s church and school in the spring of 1956 about two miles northwest of the intersection of Highway 100 and Wayzata Boulevard, the site of the first, temporary church. Their new pastor, Father Francis Hayes, planned a brick and mahogany church to seat 700 and an elementary school with eight classrooms to be ready by Thanksgiving. In the meantime, a fall festival was key to funding the project, and without a kitchen to make the meal, they turned to the Boulevard Café for temporary facilities once again.
Unfortunately, facilities were not the only challenge for a growing suburban parish. The building was finished long before the fall of 1957, but the school couldn’t open because no sisters were available to staff it. The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet arrived in the fall of 1959, and this challenge, too, was overcome. Both church and school remain vibrant today at 145 Jersey Avenue in Golden Valley.
Luiken is a Catholic and historian with a doctorate from the University of Minnesota. She loves exploring and sharing the hidden histories that touch our lives every day.
