The church received statues of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, St. Joseph holding the child Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Jesus after a Sidman couple donated the trio earlier this summer.

According to Ellen Grattan, the statues came from the Johnstown home of her father-in-law, Bernard Grattan.

Bernard Grattan had been the maintenance superintendent at the Catholic Mercy Hospital in Johnstown, which was later renamed Good Samaritan Hospital and then became Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center in 1995.

Since Conemaugh is not a Catholic institution, they did not want to keep any of the religious imagery that had been a fixture of Mercy and later Good Samaritan, Ellen Grattan said.

Newly donated statue portrays St.Joseph holding the child Jesus next to the elevator entrance of St. Mary's Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church in Altoona.

He wanted to ensure “the statues would be taken care of” after the transition, Grattan said of her father-in-law, who brought the trio home and installed them in a custom-built brick “grotto” in his backyard.

The statues remained for nearly three decades, she said.

After Bernard Grattan died in October 2023, Ellen Grattan started looking for a new home for the statues, since she didn’t have the space to accommodate them in her Sidman residence and planned to sell the Johnstown house.

“We were concerned about finding an honorable placement for them,” she said.

As luck would have it, Ellen Grattan saw an article online about the vandalism incident at St. Mary’s and reached out, in hopes that the church may need the statues, she said.

Recently donated Sacred Heart of Jesus statue is placed in the Sacred Heart Church rectory garden in Altoona.

According to Grattan, she and her husband felt so grateful when staff at St. Mary’s told her they could rehome the statues.

“God works in mysterious ways, it was a blessing, it’s kind of what we wanted — them to be in a place for them to be enjoyed and to bring comfort,” Grattan said.

The statues are carved from solid white marble, and weigh over 400 pounds each, Bartley said.

The new statue of Mary will sit in place of the destroyed statue in a small garden adjacent to the church, while the statue of St. Joseph will reside near the building’s elevator entrance.

The third statue, depicting Jesus, will watch over the rectory courtyard of Sacred Heart Catholic Church across town, Bartley said.

Father L’ubomir J. Strecok presides over both churches, so it made placing the statue of Jesus a simple affair, Bartley said.

In addition to the statues, other people donated more than $1,400 to the church in the aftermath of the initial vandalism act in March. Those funds were used to pay for a van to move the statues and a reworked security system.

Other community members donated a pole and American flag to hang next to the statue, while another individual donated a lighting system to illuminate the flag and statue pedestal, Bartley said.

All of these people will be recognized by name on a plaque installed at the base of the new statue, she added.

According to Strecok, affectionately known as “Father Lubo” to his congregants, the show of support for the church has been “pretty overwhelming.”

He was surprised to see the support come from not only church members, but people who attended other churches, and non-Christians from across the region, he said.

Strecok said it was appropriate for the new statue to depict Mary, since the church is named for the Immaculate Conception of Mary.

“It’s beautiful workmanship, it’s good quality marble, it’s a work of art,” he said.

The new statues offer parishioners an opportunity to meditate on how to best emulate the virtues of the depicted figures, Strecok said.

The original statue of Mary and child, which had sat untouched on the church’s property overlooking the Altoona High School fields for more than 20 years, was destroyed in March after what appeared to be three teenagers knocked it off its pedestal in the dark of night, Bartley said.

A maintenance worker from the high school saw three teenagers on church property about 10:15 p.m.,

and reported it to the school district police department, she said.

Church office staff arrived the following morning to find the statue toppled over and partially shattered, she said.

Despite “wonderful” cooperation from Altoona Area School District police and Altoona police, the culprits were never identified, Bartley said, noting that St. Mary’s has several security cameras dotted around the property, but they were not able to get a clear view of the suspects’ faces.

The new statue has an interior retention bar securely mounted to the base to prevent any future toppling, Bartley said.

The original statue was initially thought to be beyond repair, Bartley said, due to the extensive nature of the damage sustained.

But a man in Duncansville has offered to attempt to repair the cement statue, Bartley said. If he is successful, the statue will be relocated to St. Mary’s cemetery.

If he is unsuccessful, the statue will be buried in accordance with Catholic tradition. Any object that has been blessed by a priest cannot be thrown in the trash, Bartley explained, adding it instead must be burned or buried with appropriate respect.

The church will host a ceremony for the new statue on Thursday, Aug. 15, immediately after the

5:30 p.m. Holy Day Mass celebrating the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Bartley said. At that time, Strecok will officially bless the new Mary statue.

According to Strecok, the blessing ceremony is important because while all canonized figures are revered by Catholics worldwide, Mary receives extra veneration for her status as the mother of Jesus.

Strecok will recite a prayer over the statue and bless it with holy water.

This process is slightly different from the rite of consecration, which is a more elaborate type of blessing offered to objects and structures that touch the Eucharist, or a representation of the body of Jesus such as a church building, altar or chalice used during communion, Strecok said.

Consecration involves anointing with holy oil, while blessing uses holy water, he said.

To church member Terry Anderson, the destruction of the original Mary statue came as a shock to the community.

“It’s disappointing anytime you see that kind of thing happen to us, or anyone else,” he said.

Anderson said he didn’t think they would be able to find a replacement statue so quickly, so it was a surprise when the Sidman couple reached out and offered to donate the trio.

The show of support from across the region also came as a surprise, he said.

“The nature of the vandalism pulled a lot of the parish community together, to happen that way. So it was nice to see it installed so quickly,” Anderson said.

According to Joe Eckels, president of the St. Mary’s finance council, parishioners felt it was a shame to see the original statue damaged by vandals, but are glad that it led them to rehouse the statues from Johnstown.

Since the Grattan family was already looking for a new caretaker for the statues, it was fortuitous that they heard about St. Mary’s situation, Eckels said.

“It was lucky to have that happen the way it did,” he said. “There was definitely a silver lining to that cloud.”

Mirror Staff Writer Conner Goetz is at 814-946-7535.