This is also home for parishioners

St. John Vianney Parish was founded in 1949 on a five-acre tract of land between Farr Road and Walnut Road just north of Valleyway. That same year, a temporary church was built, which is now part of the school.

Then, in 1953 a grade school and a convent for the sisters was built and in 1959 a gymnasium was added. In 1988, the present church was constructed. The parish rectory had been a house on Farr Road and is still the rectory. There has been a history of construction.

When Father Richard Poole was pastor – he is now a U.S. Air Force chaplain serving in Afghanistan – the home of Keith and Betty Reckford, who are former parishioners now deceased, at 403 N. Walnut Road, became available. The parish bought the property with the intention of providing housing for the elderly.

Many elderly parishioners were thrilled at the prospect. When they would no longer be able to, or want to, maintain their current homes, they would be able to sell them and live close to the church where many of them have been coming for Sunday and daily Mass for years, and where their children had gone to school.

They were dismayed that they would not be welcome in the neighborhood that had become a second home for them in their church activities. I too was dismayed by the many signs “Wrong Place, Wrong Time” or “Save Our Neighborhood.” Has it all come to this?

Rev. Charles Skok

Senior priest

Spokane Valley