Cemeteries of Umatilla County: St. Andrews
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(micro)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
Enjoy the nice drive out to St. Andrews. From what I can tell, the cemetery was established in 1847.
Catholic presence among the Indian tribes along the Umatilla River originated in 1839 when Fr. Modeste Demers baptized the infant son of Cayuse Chief Taawitoy--aka Young Chief. In fall 1847, Fr. Jean Baptiste Brouillet founded the first St. Ann's Mission in a cabin given by the Chief on the north shore of the Umatilla River. Eighteen years later (1865) Fr. Adolph Vermeersch established the second Mission site south of the river. Having constructed a log cabin that served as a school and church, Fr. Vermeersch changed the Mission's name to St. Joseph's.
The years 1847-77 witnessed a plethora of spiritual ministries in Oregon offered by a devoted group of oblate and diocesan priests. Having departed Oregon City in 1853, the Society of Jesus was absent from Oregon until 1877 when Fr. Joseph Cataldo, S.J. preached to the Umatilla peoples at the outbreak of Chief Joseph's Nez Perce War. In 1883, Fr. Louis Conrardy relocated St. Joseph's Mission to a site below Emigrant Hill; the following year the first non-log-cabin church was erected. Sisters of Mercy managed the school. In July 1888, the Mission became a Jesuit apostolate when Fr. Urban Grassi, S.J. became Mission superior at St. Andrew and embarked on the daunting projects of renovating the rundown Mission; relocating its church one-half mile east to the 160 acres of tribal land designated for a school by thirteen Umatilla, Cayuse, and Walla Walla chiefs; and erecting a school (completed in winter 1890)--the latter of which was accomplished with the financial support of Mother Katherine Drexel and the Sisters of St. Francis in Philadelphia. A populous student body generated need for an expanded plant: a second school facility was ready in winter 1892 and one year later the Mission housed a recreation center and a parish hall. The church would be relocated again in 1905 to its present site, surrounded by wheat fields and the Blue Mountains.
Fr. Grassi's successor, Fr. Leopold Van Gorp, changed the Mission's name in 1893 to St. Andrew's in honor of Msgr. J. Andrew Stephan, Director of the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions. Fr. Thomas Neate, S.J. became Mission Superior in 1895 and served in this role for nearly 40 years. However, 1895 saw the emergence of the hydra that had preyed upon other Mission schools: the cancelling of federal funds for Indian education. A 1926 fire in the girls' facilities coupled with financial hardship forced the school's closure in 1943.
Fall 1897 saw the arrival/return of Fr. Cataldo, S.J. to succeed Fr. Grassi, S.J. as Mission superior.
Called St. Andrew's, it lay east of the city [of Pendleton] in the rolling hills of northeastern Oregon, sheltered by the Blue Mountains on the east, where the Umatilla Indians hunted deer and elk. In the mission graveyard there was a tall metal cross which marked the place where they had buried Father Grassi. It was Cataldo himself who had sent him there--to die as things turned out. No doubt it was a comfort now for Cataldo to pray at Grassi's lonely grave.
St. Andrew Mission served as a base for evangelizing ventures throughout NE Oregon, to such places as Ukiah, Freewater, Umatilla, Echo, Athena, Hermiston, Gibbon, and Reith. At the initiative of Archbishop Gross, St. Mary's Parish in Pendleton became a charge of the Society of Jesus. On 1 September 1897, Fr. Victor Garrand, S.J. became St. Mary's initial Jesuit pastor. Here, as in other locations throughout the reaches of the Rocky Mountain Mission, it was said that "the Jesuits helped as much as they were able where help was needed most." Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.
The foregoing information and quotations are culled/adapted from: William N. Bischoff, S.J. The Jesuits in Old Oregon: 1840-1940 (Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, 1945) 207-211; Wilfred P. Schoenberg, S.J. Paths to the Northwest: A Jesuit History of the Oregon Province (Chicago: Loyola UP, 1982) 214-15; and materials provided by Mike Fitzpatrick, S.J., Pastor of St. Andrew Mission.
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)