Photos by Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Electrician Pio DiPofi shows a box kneeler at St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, Strip District, that contained old rosaries, prayer cards, pictures and other items, some more than a century old.

By Ann Rodgers
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Shortly before Christmas, electrician Pio DiPofi pried open a 114-year-old box kneeler that ran for 200 feet along the balcony rail of St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in the Strip District.

In the hollow where he planned to run wiring for the church's ongoing renovation he saw dirt, soot and something more colorful. He reached in and carefully pulled out two very old holy cards -- images of Jesus and the saints that are often used in Catholic prayer.

"When I looked at them, I was amazed," he said.

	Items found inside the 114-year-old box kneeler include a torn prayer card of the Holy Family, above, a photograph, below, and another prayer card with an ornate floral border, bottom. Click photos for larger versions.

As he continued to work his way along the kneeler, he found more and more holy cards, along with a 1905 pocket calendar, Depression-era campaign buttons, 19th century coins, a vast collection of children's rosaries and antique gum wrappers that probably were once hastily hidden from patrolling nuns. Derris Jeffcoat, the sacristan, has been collecting the items, cleaning and preserving them as best he can, with advice from the nearby Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center.

The earliest holy card he can find with a date of printing is from 1891, when the church was built. The oldest coin is a one-cent piece from 1825.

"There are hundreds and hundreds of things," Mr. Jeffcoat said. "We've got a whole history of bobby pins."

The church is part of St. Patrick-St. Stanislaus Kostka parish, created in a 1993 merger of those two with another Strip District church, St. Elizabeth of Hungary.

St. Stanislaus was founded in 1875, when the Strip District was a teeming tenement neighborhood called Bayardsville. The first Polish ethnic parish in the diocese, it grew quickly. The present church was its third, dedicated July 31, 1892.

The architect was Frederick Sauer, a German immigrant who came to Pittsburgh as a teenage stone mason and carpenter. He rose to create some of the most beautiful churches in the region, including St. Mary of the Mount, Mount Washington, and the St. Mary Magdalene site of St. Maximilian Kolbe parish in Homestead.

At St. Stanislaus, Mr. Sauer followed the desire of the parishioners for a church like those in Poland. The result is a magnificent baroque and romanesque building, with murals covering its vaulted ceiling. Jesus, Mary and the saints are represented there, along with important scenes of Polish Catholic history. One such mural depicts Jan Sobieski's defeat of the invading Turkish army at Vienna in 1683.

During the Great Depression, the neighborhood became one of the notorious shantytowns known nationally as Hoovervilles. In the St. Patrick's Day flood of 1936, water rose so high that pews floated in the nave. Nine months later the "banana explosion," in a nearby warehouse where methane was used to ripen green bananas, caused serious damage. Each of the gold-domed towers lost a 40-foot section that could not be repaired, lowering the church's once-soaring profile.

But the balcony with its hollow kneeler was unscathed, and worshipers continued to lose small items in its cracks.

There's a notice of service changes to the Pittsburgh Railway trolleys, effective Feb. 1 1902. Many items -- including the 1905 pocket calendar -- are written in Polish. A small campaign button proclaims "Roosevelt: Labor's choice."

Mr. Jeffcoat picked out a wrapper for Hershey's mint gum. "I didn't even know that Hershey's made chewing gum," he said.

Some of the gum wrappers were found among a large number of children's rosaries in a section where children once sat. Mr. Jeffcoat imagines children hiding gum wrappers from nuns, but wonders if they played tricks on each other by dropping rosaries through cracks.

The holy cards fascinate him. Some are far more ornate than those of today. A favorite, which he spotted when Mr. DiPofi first uncovered the cards, is cut out in the shape of the Holy Family, with Mary, Joseph and Jesus gathered around a carpenter's bench. A broken corner can probably be repaired, Mr. Jeffcoat said.

Some have punched lace borders in paper or foil, rather like fancy valentines. A surprising number are written in French on the front, with English or Polish prayers on the back.

The Strip District long ago ceased to be a residential neighborhood -- St. Stanislaus school closed in the 1950s. But today, with new development, the parish in the Strip is reviving. Though its 270 families make it tiny by diocesan standards, attendance has increased 5 percent annually for the past three years, Mr. Jeffcoat said.

He wants to preserve the holy cards and other items as part of an ongoing display to acquaint the many visitors with the parish history.

"We are certainly going to catalogue these and translate everything that is in Polish. We will preserve them and keep them in a rotating display in the church, so people can see them," he said.

Meanwhile, the renovation continues. "We're not done here. We may find a lot more stuff," Mr. DiPofi said.

	Rosaries, political buttons and nails were found inside the box kneeler.