Charting S.F.'s Holy History

In a city distinguished by its neighborhoods, its diversity, its openness and its geographic setting, few things narrate San Francisco's history better than the growth of its Catholic parishes.

And few parishes demonstrate this with more vividness than St. Gabriel's, a church and elementary school in the Outer Sunset that stands as a veritable symbol of post-war San Francisco.

The parish is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, a testament to its ability to shift with the city's demographic bursts and to its fervent bedrock patrons. A number of festivities will be held this weekend for past and present parishioners, including a cocktail reception Saturday that is expected to draw close to 500 people.

Five decades ago, St. Gabriel's was a dream built on sand dunes. It was part of the great Irish migration from the Mission to the Sunset and Richmond districts that saw the gradual establishment of such parishes as St. Monica's, St. Anne's and St. Cecilia's.

You could trace the city's population shifts just by looking at the the founding dates of some of its older parishes: St. Francis of Assisi in North Beach (1849), St. Brigid's in Cow Hollow (1860), St. Dominic's in the Western Addition (1885) and Most Holy Redeemer in Eureka Valley (1900).

And you could tell the ethnic makeup of the city by looking at its national churches: St. Peter and Paul, St. Paul of the Shipwreck and Immaculate Conception were the Italian parishes; Our Lady of Guadalupe was the Spanish church, Notre Dames des Victoires, the French.

But without exception, each parish's founding was predicated on the city's explosive growth, and following World War II, that meant in the new suburban frontier way out west of Twin Peaks.

There were only a few houses sprinkled amid the sea of sand then

--and people like Alice Murphy could live in the same house and literally be transferred into three different parishes as the Catholic church continued its grand expansion and constantly shifted parish boundaries.

``There were huge fights over the boundaries, and the pastors were very jealous of their territories,'' said Jeff Burns, a history teacher at the University of San Francisco and Cal State Hayward who serves as the archivist for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese. ``At the time, the church was very strict that you had to belong to whatever parish you were in. That's not the case any longer.''

St. Gabriel's Spanish-style church opened in 1942. Early parishioners were most grateful that it included a sidewalk where they could stop and empty sand out of their shoes. But within the next 10 years, as the school and auditorium were built, a small city of row houses sprang up around it. Whole city blocks went up in less than a year. The baby boom was in full bloom.

``It seemed like if you closed your eyes, another block was up and another hundred people were living there,'' said Claire Holl, who sent seven sons through the new school. ``It was unbelievable how fast it grew.''

By the early '60s, St. Gabriel's was bursting at the seams. It had gone from a few hundred students in the early years to 1,200 -- making it the largest Catholic elementary school west of the Mississippi.

As the last of five children in my family to attend there, I can personally attest to its astonishing size. There were 50 or more uniformed kids in each class, and there were three classes in each grade, 1-8. There was no kindergarten, simply because there was no room. Recesses were split because even though the school covered most of a large city block, you couldn't fit that many kids in the space. Fire drills were a special adventure.

Parishes then were the center of most Catholics' social and cultural circles. There were dances, festivals, bingo games -- and other creative forms of fund-raising.

``The people took ownership of the school, and they were very passionate about it,'' said Sister Pauline Borghello, the school's principal since 1982, who served as a young teacher at the school in the '60s. ``The level of participation and passion was just enormous.''

Anyone who doubts that need only look at the huge outcry that greeted the archdiocese's decision to close nine churches a few years back. Former Archbishop John Quinn cited declining Mass attendance and the cost of seismic retrofitting for the need to ``suppress'' a number of parishes, and the reaction was close to mutiny. People still put up protest banners at St. Brigid's on Van Ness, where the the fiercest battle against the closures took place.

But though St. Gabriel's and the other parishes felt the effects of the city's demographic shifts, it has weathered the storm and is thriving today as a school of 500 students.

So the parish and memories of a key part the city's history remain. Only the sand dunes have gone.

©1998 San Francisco Chronicle   Page A19