Students and staff in the elementary school held a celebration on Friday morning, March 20, to mark the 88th anniversary of the laying of the cornerstone for the elementary school building. Music teacher, Mr. Joe Clark, led the students in song and Mrs. Bauer talked with the students about the history of the elementary building. The celebration ended with students and staff reciting the verse on the cornerstone. (video below)
Father Rupert Goebel helped break ground for a new elementary school building on September 20, 1926. It was also during Father Goebel’s tenure as pastor that the Sunday envelope system was introduced as a result of the first financial campaign. It was on March 20, 1927, that the cornerstone was laid by Bishop Stritch. The Right Rev. Samuel A. Stritch, D.D., Bishop of Toledo, Rev. F. E. Malone, Chancellor of Toledo, and members of the Mansfield clergy and community took part in ceremonies which started at 8 a.m. on the morning of March 20, 1927. Arriving at the new building, Bishop Stritch, surrounded by the remainder of the procession, placed in the cornerstone a document, several religious coins and a coin dated 1926.
Rev. Stritch commended the congregation on constructing such an “edifice in order that their children might receive an education.”
The cornerstone reads:
“Erected to our children
that they may honor their parents
That they may serve their country
That they may love their God
That they may save their souls.”
The architect was William R. Perry of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who designed it in Lombardesque architecture. Built at a cost of $250,000 and with Leo Herman of Bowling Green, Ohio, as general contractor, the elementary school granite building included 21 classrooms. In September of 1927 the doors were opened to almost 700 students. Originally, the top floor was used as a dormitory for the Franciscan sisters for whom there was no room in the House of Seven Gables. The high school took over the entire red brick building and all the portable structures were sold.