Painstaking process will renew treasured pieces of parish history
Many Catholic families preserve religious heirlooms — a christening gown, a mother’s rosary beads, a well-worn breviary. For Vince Shumate and other members at St. Elizabeth of Hungary in Pocahontas, about 115 miles west of Roanoke, their family treasures are on the ceilings and in the sanctuary of their white, wood-frame church. The 10 original oil paintings adorning the church are over a hundred years old and are being restored and preserved with a $26,000 grant from the Diocese of Richmond.
“I really never thought it would happen in my lifetime,” Shumate said. “Everybody up there is just so appreciative and so glad this is happening.”
Most of the 8 feet by 12 feet canvas murals show scenes from the life of Christ; one focuses on the parish’s patron saint. All date to 1919 and are the work of Theodore Brasch of Cincinnati, who was a friend of the pastor at the time.
A picture of the Last Supper covers the wall behind the altar. Another painting depicts Christ asking the children to come to him. One is a representation of the temptation of Christ in the desert.
“All of these paintings are originals,” said Judy Dotzel of Trinity Artisans, a family business in Mountain Top, Pennsylvania, that has the contract to restore Brasch’s work. “His portraits are beautiful; the drapery is beautiful. He would have had models come in and pose and sketch them and get the right look, the right positions. He was skilled in all areas: the water, the sky, the portraits. They’re stunning.”
Diocesan archivist Edie Jeter first saw the art about seven years ago during a tour of parishes as part of her work as vice chancellor. She started looking for experts that would assess the work that needed to be done and the estimated cost.
“Most of the people who are doing restoration like to do that in their own studios,” she said, which would mean removing canvasses nailed to plaster walls. “We’re not trained to do that. We don’t know what to be looking for. We needed someone to come in and tell us exactly what needed to be done.”
Trinity Artisans was willing to do the evaluation on-site.
Dotzel and fellow restorer Chris Norton came to Pocahontas in July, talked to parish members, and even cleaned a couple of small spots on a mural at the front of the church.
“It caught my eye because it was like a beam of light came through the roof,” Shumate recalled, “and all she did was take dirt off of it.”
Dotzel and Norton returned in October to start taking the dirt off all of the paintings.
“They love their church. They’re very protective over it, and I think they felt kind of threatened if the murals had to be taken out of the church,” Dotzel said.
“We believe they made the right choice in not doing that,” Norton added.
For two to three weeks at a time, Dotzel and Norton commute from 40 minutes away in Tazewell and climb onto scaffolds provided by Earl Thompson, a painter from nearby Princeton, West Virginia, who put a fresh coat on the church interior a few months ago.
Daubing the canvas with cotton balls dipped in any of a dozen solvents, they wipe away the coal dust, candle soot and other sediments that have collected on Brasch’s work. On a good day, they can clean about a square foot of canvas in an hour.
But cleaning isn’t all they’ve had to do.
They discovered that some artist about 40 years ago had re-painted part of one canvas, right over the original. All that paint and the underlying grime had to be removed before that section could be touched up.
Murals in the sanctuary had been painted outside the canvas edges onto the plaster wall, which had developed cracks and other damage. The restorers had to replaster those sections and, working from photos, recreate the borders of the paintings.
One mural on the ceiling did have to be removed because the canvas had come loose in the middle, showing bubbles and cracks. Shumate said it took four people to take it down and place it on a table in the back of the church for repairs.
Overall, Dotzel said the work is going well.
She and Norton returned to Pennsylvania the week before Christmas and plan to come back in February to complete the restoration, probably by later that month or in early March. Until then, parishioners will continue to celebrate Mass in the church basement as they prepare to mark the church’s 125th anniversary.
A longtime parishioner and member of the church maintenance committee, Shumate said about 20 people show up for Mass most Sundays; sometimes they can’t help but wonder how much longer it will be until they can gaze at their prized artwork.
“At one time, Pocahontas was a booming little town,” he said.
All the immigrants from the east coast – mostly Hungarian, who came to mine Pocahontas #3 coal and who brought their faith and their families with them – are long gone. Many of the buildings in the town’s commercial district are abandoned and neglected.
“Right now, it’s dead,” he said. “And we always wonder, we hope we don’t get closed down.”
Jeter said the bishop’s signature on the restoration contract is a sign that he’s also planning and hoping to keep the church going.
“To bring these murals back with such vibrant color, it just speaks a lot to all of us that there are things in our families that we would want to do this as well,” she said. “We would want to save those things that are important to our families.”
Coming back in the middle of winter to finish the work is fine with Dotzel and Norton.
Back home “we measure snow in feet, not inches,” Norton said.
They’ve been engaged for a while, but the pandemic has delayed their wedding plans. They’ve been talking about possibly getting married at St. Elizabeth. If they do, they can probably count on a good number of guests at the reception who are grateful for the work they did to preserve the parish’s Catholic heritage.