Father Dale Grubba is leading the $850,000 effort to restore the little-known Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Endeavor and transform the property with walking paths, gardens, Stations of the Cross and the renovation of a former school and church. The shrine, which includes a glass mosaic pieced together by a pair of nuns with Wisconsin roots, was built in 1964.
ENDEAVOR—Joeann Daley and Kathleen Stagney were novice artists and never thought their mosaic of the Blessed Mother and a child with roses would last more than a few years.
The nuns, then in their early 20s, mixed cement by hand and used shards of colorful glass. The green came from empty bottles of 7UP soda, and the blue from discarded jars of Noxzema and bottles of Milk of Magnesia. Red glass was harvested from the taillights of junked cars, and, in one instance, a new vase purchased from a gift shop in Wisconsin Dells was smashed on purpose to add in a little amber. The brown was sourced from beer bottles collected at local taverns.
Missing glass and ceramic components of a tile mosaic at Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine would be replaced as part of a restoration.
The Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine was created in 1964 to honor the migrant workers and their children who came each year to harvest onions, carrots, potatoes and other vegetables grown in the fertile muck of farms surrounding this small village north of Portage.
There was also a school and a church to serve the families, who came from Mexico, Texas, Puerto Rico and the West Indies. A boy of about 6 years old was convinced to pose for Stagney as she drew the outline for the mosaic on the curved wall of the shrine house that faced the bay windows of the church sanctuary.
“I thought it would have been already demolished. I had no clue,” Stagney, now 80, said last week from her home in Cleveland, Ohio. “He took the pose that I saw in a picture from way long ago. I had him kneel right there and I sketched on the wall as I looked at him.”
In this image from 1964, Sister Joeann Daley, on the ladder and then known as Sister Gratiana Daley, and Kathleen Stagney, then Sister Lucan Broderick, are seen creating the mosaic at Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Endeavor.
The school and church have been closed for years. The shrine, too, had over the years fallen into disrepair and was crumbling, unlike the multimillion-dollar Guadalupe shrine constructed in La Crosse beginning in 2001.
But an 80-year-old priest who knows a thing or two about promotion and history is leading the $850,000 effort to restore the shrine, bring new uses to the former school and church, and create gardens and walking paths.
Father Dale Grubba, the priest at Catholic parishes in Neshkoro and Princeton, has a penchant for marathons, is fond of shooting off fireworks following midnight Mass on Christmas and was tutored in marketing by Humpy Wheeler, former president and general manager of Charlotte Motor Speedway. Wheeler was one of the masters of promotion in the early days of NASCAR whom Grubba met decades ago when he would offer up the invocations at racetracks around the country.
“I’m just so impressed with the enthusiasm of Father Grubba. There’s a spiritual need at this time and it’s a whole new generation,” Daley, 80, said last week from her home in the village of Shorewood outside of Milwaukee. “This new endeavor at Endeavor is to reclaim our humanity.”
‘Don’t say no’
Grubba was raised on a farm just outside of Endeavor and spent 10 summers working 70-hour weeks at a local chicken processing company. He once smoked and weighed 250 pounds but took up running and ultimately became an award-winning cross-country and track coach at Holy Name Seminary in Madison. So Grubba, who has run the Boston Marathon 11 times and the New York City Marathon 18 times, the last five times on a hand-pedal bike, never blinked when he was approached about taking on a multiyear restoration project of the shrine property in the twilight of his pastoral career.
This rendering shows the proposed layout of improvements at Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Endeavor.
“When a challenge comes, no matter what it is, don’t say no,” Grubba said last week during a tour of the property. “Because if you do, you’re closing the door on what might be a great possibility and something you’re really going to enjoy.”
The shrine property was developed after farmers in the early 1950s began using the local muck beds to raise crops. Migrant workers followed, which led Bishop William Patrick O’Connor, head of the Madison Catholic Diocese, to establish a center in Endeavor that could serve those who came to toil in the fields. The first services in 1957 were held outdoors with an alter strapped to a trailer and concrete blocks and planks used for pews. The school was constructed in 1958 and staffed with Dominican nuns, followed by construction of the church building in 1960.
This image from the 1960s shows the crude pews composed of planks and cinder blocks that were used to seat those attending mass before a church was constructed at what is now Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Endeavor.
Masses were conducted in Spanish, seminarians would help transport children to school, and priests from Montello and Portage would come to offer up daily masses during summer school. A medical educational hygiene program was created in 1963 in which doctors volunteered their services, with some visiting nearby migrant camps. Dances and rummage sales were held in the school building, and in 1963, according to historical records, 105 children were enrolled in the school.
Honoring migrant workers
The Spanish-type grotto was built in 1964, and Daley and Stagney, who were teaching in Catholic schools in suburban Chicago, were recruited to spend the summer making the mosaic. It depicts a boy, Juan Diego, who is said to have been walking on a path on the Hill of Tepeyac in Mexico City in 1531 when he encountered the Virgin Mary and blooming red roses on a cold winter day.
“The whole reason for doing it was to honor the migrant workers and to let them know they were valued,” Stagney said of the shrine and who grew up in Wisconsin Dells, where her father was a well-known physician. “It has lasted and now it has its voice.”
A school was established in the late 1950s for the children of migrant farm workers who came to the Endeavor area each year. A church and shrine would follow.
And so far, Grubba is staying true to his philosophy, which could help bring more people to this Marquette County community of 468 people that has been bypassed by Interstate 39. The village is known for its free community dinner held once a month at the grade school but is home to only a smattering of businesses, including a single bar and a convenience store on the edge of town.
Colored windows featuring hand-drawn Stations of the Cross share a wall inside a chapel at the Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Endeavor. Father Dale Grubba, who was raised in Endeavor and is a priest at Catholic parishes in Princeton and Neshkoro, is hoping improvements to the property can be completed in the next two years.
Grubba has also recruited some of the fearless entrepreneurs in nearby Wisconsin Dells who bring expertise in financing, fundraising and marketing. He started with John Van Wie, the longtime owner of Dells Lumber & Construction, but who died in early 2020. Grubba credits Van Wie, who now has a glass memorial candle at the shrine, with bringing his daughter, Suzi Ellington. Grubba also recruited Tom Luek, founder of the Wilderness Resort; Kelli Trumble, the former state tourism secretary and founder of Sundara Spa; Carla Minsky, a marketing professional who has spent years promoting Wisconsin Dells businesses; Joe Leute, a photographer who specializes in fine art and commercial work and has a studio on Mirror Lake, and Eric Schuchardt, a landscape architect who teaches at UW-Madison.
About $120,000 has been raised for the project and about $40,000 spent on shoring up the structural integrity of the shrine house. But $730,000 more is needed.
A rosary shares the arm of a chair that Father Dale Grubba uses once a week to pray. The chair gives Grubba a panoramic view of the Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine outside.
Grubba, who prays in the church once a week while seated in a worn green lounge chair that offers views of the shrine, was approached in 2015 by a community group that no longer was using the property and asked him to take it over. Grubba agreed and also paid the back taxes of about $6,000 out of his own pocket.
This rendering shows improved gardens and Stations of the Cross planned for Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Endeavor.
“I walked around and I thought, man alive, what did I get myself into. It’s in need of a lot,” Grubba said. “But I went up to the shrine and I prayed to the Blessed Mother and I said you know, I’m just the passenger in this deal, I’m not the driver. You are. And if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen because You want it to happen. And really it’s been amazing how that has happened.”
Stagney left the sisterhood nearly 50 years ago, went on to have a family and for many years had a 6,000-square-foot glass studio with seven kilns in the basement of a former Catholic church in Cleveland, where she would create large fused-glass pieces installed in homes and businesses. She and Daley both studied art at Rosary College, now Dominican University, in River Forest, Illinois.
A church on the grounds of the Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Endeavor was converted to a community center but a plan is underway to bring the church back to its intended use.
Daley also grew up in Wisconsin but on a farm east of Columbus. She attended a one-room school near Astico, where she learned art and science from Wisconsin Public Radio’s School of the Air. Her teaching career has included stints at the Sinsinawa Mound Center in southwestern Wisconsin, Montana and Italy. She also had a studio at Whitefish Bay Dominican High School, where she served as an artist in residence until 2015 doing metal etchings.
“Our soul needs to have beauty. It needs to have art,” Daley said. “The beauty of this shrine in this little hamlet will help us to reclaim our souls.”
Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Endeavor
The shrine, constructed in 1964, is being restored and the property an $850,000 upgrade.
This rendering shows improved gardens and Stations of the Cross planned for Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Endeavor.
This historical image from 1965 shows a nun teaching guitar as part of a school for migrant children who came to the Endeavor area each year with their parents who worked at area farms.
This image from the 1960s shows the crude pews composed of planks and cinder blocks that were used to seat those attending mass before a church was constructed at what is now Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Endeavor.
What is now a parking lot was used more than 50 years ago as a volleyball court at a school and church for migrant families in Endeavor.
In this image, believed to be from the 1960s, nuns and other volunteers serve up a meal for children at a school created by the Madison Catholic Diocese for migrant families.
A school was established in the late 1950s for the children of migrant farm workers who came to the Endeavor area each year. A church and shrine would follow.
Dominican nuns were instrumental in educating migrant children who came to Endeavor each year.
This rendering shows the proposed layout of improvements at Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Endeavor.
This rendering shows the new landscaping proposed for Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Endeavor.
Seating would be added under a plan to improve Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Endeavor.
The Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine is seen through the windows of a chapel on the grounds of the shrine in Endeavor.
A collection of votive candles not used for years occupy a wall inside a chapel at Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Endeavor.
Comprised partly of glass shards from discarded Milk of Magnesia jars, whiskey and beer bottles and automobile tail lights, a mosaic created in 1964 by a pair of Catholic nuns is the centerpiece of the Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Endeavor.
Father Dale Grubba is leading the effort to restore the little-known Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Endeavor.
A church on the grounds of the Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Endeavor was converted to a community center but a plan is underway to bring the church back to its intended use.
Father Dale Grubba is leading the $850,000 effort to restore the little-known Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Endeavor and transform the property with walking paths, gardens, Stations of the Cross and the renovation of a former school and church. The shrine, which includes a glass mosaic pieced together by a pair of nuns with Wisconsin roots, was built in 1964.
Colored windows featuring hand-drawn Stations of the Cross share a wall inside a chapel at the Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Endeavor. Father Dale Grubba, who was raised in Endeavor and is a priest at Catholic parishes in Princeton and Neshkoro, is hoping improvements to the property can be completed in the next two years.
A rosary shares the arm of a chair that Father Dale Grubba uses once a week to pray. The chair gives Grubba a panoramic view of the Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine outside.
Missing glass and ceramic components of a tile mosaic at Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine would be replaced as part of a restoration.
Pews are stacked inside a church on the grounds of the Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Endeavor. ,
Barry Adams covers regional news for the Wisconsin State Journal. Send him ideas for On Wisconsin at 608-252-6148 or by email at badams@madison.com.
January 11, 2021 at 01:00AM
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Beer and soda bottles, Noxzema glass and the Blessed Mother getting new life in rural Wisconsin - Madison.com
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