Students build Wayside Shrines to ‘bring the face of Christ to passersby’

By Bill Doyle | CFP Correspondent

When Susan Holmquist and her family traveled to Italy, France, Spain and Portugal, they were impressed by the wayside shrines they saw that contained paintings of the Blessed Virgin Mary, crucifixes and angels.

“It felt like a constant reminder,” Mrs. Holmquist said, “lifting us up, and we really loved that experience.”

The Holmquists didn’t know of any wayside – meaning roadside – shrines in the U.S. So when they returned to their home, Hillside Farm, in Sterling they wanted to build their own.

When friends found out what they planned to do, they informed them that the Diocese of Worcester had built 98 wayside shrines in 1956. The Council of Catholic Youth and the Diocesan Rural Life Apostolate constructed small, roofed crucifixes on Catholic-owned property near the intersections of highways to assure greater visibility.

The Holmquists are parishioners at St. John the Evangelist Church in Clinton and they homeschool their children. They decided to offer a weekly artisan building workshop for high school and junior high students who are also homeschooled. Hillside Farm Tutorials is a community of Catholic home educators. They begin each day with morning prayer and a Catholic catechism tutorial.
The wayside shrines were one of the artisan building projects that the students built in the Holmquists’ barn.

“The point of this project,” Mrs. Holmquist said, “is to get the face of Christ and his Blessed Mother out into a world where there’s so much ugliness that we have to see. So we wanted to bring that mission of bringing the face of Christ to passersby.”

The Holmquists spread the word about their tutorial and the wayside shrine workshop through the homeschool community email group, the Guardian Angels Home Educators. The students also learn about gardening and farming, math and language arts.

The wayside shrines are built of wood and are decorated by gluing such pictures as the Blessed Virgin Mary with Jesus Christ or the crucifixion to the surface, a craft called decoupage. The shrines stand about 15 inches high and 12 inches across.

Twenty-two students, seven boys and 15 girls, aged 12-18 each worked on a wayside shrine for an hour a week for 12 weeks through Oct. 30. Mrs. Holmquist’s husband, Randy, and the high school boys cut a lot of the wood to size with the proper angles.

A few younger siblings tagged along and built their own.

Francis Penny, 9, of Christ the King Parish in Worcester made one of Jesus Christ. It’s in the backyard for now, but the family plans to build a mount for it in the front yard in the spring.

“It’s beautiful,” Mrs. Holmquist said. “So that’s proof to us that little kids can do big things too.”
Francis’ sister, Lydia, 11, also made a shrine. Their 15-year-old twin siblings, Henry and Sophia, helped them with staining and assembly.

“Wayside shrines are a powerful aid,” said their mother, Jackie Penny, “reminding us that God is always present in his creation. As a family we needed that reminder, so I bet others do as well.”

The 22 students in the workshop live in Sterling, Princeton, Gardner, Templeton, Lancaster, Lunenburg and Worcester, and as far away as Nashua and Temple, New Hampshire.

Mrs. Holmquist built a wayside shrine of her own last spring to learn how to do it and she was able to help the students build theirs. Her’s hangs on a tree in her yard.

To protect the shrine’s wood, she used spar urethane, which she also used while working on boats with her father when she was young.

“Everyone who has seen it thinks it’s great,” she said. “It’s been extremely positive.”

One student’s shrine hangs on chains from the portico of his family’s home. Others asked how to affix them to posts.

Most of the students’ shrines will be placed near their homes, but seven students sold their shrines. Mrs. Holmquist said she found wayside shrines for sale for up to $600 on the website, Etsy, but she realizes that would be too costly to purchase for most families with young children so the families decided to sell theirs only for the $50 cost of materials.

Lydia Penny sold hers to benefit the school. So did Phoebe Holmquist, 16, and Greg Holmquist, 14, but the shrine that Hugh Holmquist, 11, built was attached to a tree on the family property. Hugh’s shrine depicts the crucifixion of Jesus Christ to be a reminder of Christ’s suffering and love.

“I think everyone will think it’s very beautiful,” Hugh said, “and maybe they’ll want to make one of their own and put it up in their yard.”

Mrs. Holmquist has come across only one of the 98 wayside shrines from the 1950s. A friend heard about Mrs. Holmquist’s wayside shrine project and told her that a shrine is located near her home at the intersection of Legate Hill Road and Route 12 in Leominster. That shrine is shaped like a diamond around a crucifix. Mrs. Holmquist went to see it this fall.

“Oh my goodness, I was so inspired,” she said. “It was so, so beautiful and to know they were here when I thought there weren’t any in America was very beautiful.”

A friend later showed her the book, “There Were Giants in Those Days,” a history of the Diocese of Worcester written in 2000 which described the wayside shrine project from the 1950s. Mrs. Holmquist said she would love to find any of the other shrines. If they’re stored away in an attic or a garage, she would be willing to help restore them and put them back on display.

Mrs. Holmquist plans to have homeschooled students build more wayside shrines in the spring. There’s already a waiting list.

A mother of one of the students asked Mrs. Holmquist if she could teach the mothers how to build wayside shrines and she hopes to do so.