Brief History Of Holy Spirit Parish Church Building Millvale, PA

Translated from Old German Script In 1914 Church Dedication Book by Terry Schiebel

1. Rev. Father Michael Dangelzer-Vision of a New Worship Site
 
Father Michael Dangelzer had a vision for the parish to build a new church. Each year, by prudent management of capital, and with investment of new revenue, the building fund was increased, such that in January 1, 1912, the handsome sum of $52,289.00 was raised.
Unfortunately Fr. Dangelzer fell ill in October of 1912 and passed away on November 3rd, 1912.
 
2. Rev. Father Louis Spannagel-Building of the New Church       
                               
Rev. Father Louis Spannagel followed Father M. Dangelzer, on November 11th, 1912.
Almost immediately after his arrival, he had to get to work with the building of a new church, because even with four Masses every Sunday, the old church turned out to be too small to accommodate the parish, which had now grown up to 650 families. The Rev. Mr. Bishop Canevin was delighted to give his permission to build this new church. On March 9, 1913, the parish elected a building committee consisting of the following gentlemen: Joseph Balker, Ignatz Guentner, J.P. Kress, Frank Pschirer, Peter J. Ritter, Ambrose Sirlin and Louis Spreng. On the second Sunday after the election , the committee convened and chose Rev. Father Spannagel as President, Peter J. Ritter as Vice-President and J.P. Kress as Secretary. The highest merit must be acknowledged to all the members of the building committee, because all managed their often arduous and responsible duties with the greatest diligence, and all worked well together in unity up to the time for the completion and dedication of the church.

St. Ann's Church was founded in 1874 as the first Catholic Church in Millvale and consisted of about seventy-five German and thirty English speaking families.  Some of these early German Catholics founded their own school in 1876 in an effort to educate their children in Christian values and to maintain their German heritage.  This German population continued to grow and in 1886; they received permission to build their own church and separate from St. Ann Church.  St. Anthony Church was founded.  In 1887, St. Ann's built its own school.

Both parishes grew and thrived in Millvale and both experienced changes that resulted in erections of new church buildings.  Building of the current St. Ann Church was completed in 1924 in response to a growing congregation and in 1914 , a new St. Anthony Church was built for the same reason.  However, in 1936. as St. Anthony's prepared for a fiftieth anniversary celebration, a tragic fire caused great damage to the interior of th Church and major repair work was done.

Due to declining enrollment and rising expenses in 1989, St. Anthony's and St. Ann's schools merged into Holy Spirit Regional School.  Respectively, in 1994 due to declining parish censuses and rising expensed, ST. Anthony's and St. Ann's Churches merged into Holy Spirit Parish.  Both worship sites were maintained until February 1998 when St. Ann's worship site was closed and St. Anthony worship site officially became Holy Spirit Parish.