Buffalo News: The story of St. Ann’s Church is the story of Buffalo

Buffalo News

(By Joan Wickett) She stands almost in defiance, her shell showing the signs of battle against weather, age and neglect. A victor over attempts of vandals and hierarchy alike to tear her down, St. Ann’s Church at Emslie Street and Broadway remains after a century and a quarter as a monument to the dedicated immigrants who built her.

Many, like me, have personal attachments to her. My grandfather was one of the German carpenters who volunteered to work on her. It was at a social event at St. Ann’s that he met my Polish grandmother and wooed her. They wed in the newly completed church. Their children, and their children after them, were baptized under her dome. My mother and her siblings were taught in her school – in German at first and then English as World War I left its anti-German impact. My sisters and I all graduated from her halls. Her business school was the preparation forum for many of the city’s secretarial pool. My grandparents and parents were buried from her.

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