During a four-month salvage job at the former St. Ladislaus Church in Natrona, Rachel Brown climbed into the ceiling and crawled through walls to research architecture at the 120-year-old building. “I was in places of the church that people hadn’t been in 100 years,” said Brown, who wasn’t a member of Guardian Angels Parish but is a resident curious about local history.
“I wanted to honor the church and trace back through the changes.” Her goal was to save items that made the church special and prevent those treasures from heading to a landfill. She rescued stained-glass windows, solid oak pews, marble window sills, statues, classroom desks from an adjoining school, glassware, hat racks and more before the demolition.
Some of those items will be on display permanently at the Alle-Kiski Heritage Museum on East Seventh Avenue in Tarentum. Brown will host a free presentation to launch the exhibit at 2 p.m.
Sunday , July 14 . She’ll give a detailed timeline of the church history and take questions during the two-hour event. Jim Thomas, museum curator, believes the church exhibit will draw strong interest from the public.
“There was a lot of emotion involved in the closing,” he said. “People are still crying over it. It was such a beautiful building, and a lot of people don’t understand why it went the way it did.
“This will be very informative.” St. Ladislaus, founded in 1893 and built in 1903, was impressive for its domed sanctuary, ornate carvings and .
