Cross Often Seen In A Spiritual Light
Thirty-nine years ago today, volunteers threw a switch, illuminating a 60-foot tamarack cross they’d built on a hillside high above St. Maries.
The Jaycees chapter that erected the cross has long since dissolved. Many of the volunteers have moved away or died.
Still, except for the occasional power outage and vandalism, the lights on that cross have glowed over the small city ever since.
“Probably to some people it means nothing, but it totally amazed me how some people found that as their spot of spirituality,” said Ginny Gaines, treasurer for the cross fund. “You’re driving home at night, you’re tired, you’re a logger, and all of a sudden you have that cross to focus on. It brings out your spirituality.”
Such was the case with Sam Taylor, a retired engineer for the now-defunct Milwaukee Road railroad.
The cross can be seen from several windows at the Washington Avenue home where Taylor lived, but he wasn’t content with that.
When he and his wife remodeled their home in 1962, he ordered a large picture window for the living room wall - the better to see the cross.
“I think it gave him inspiration,” said his widow, Babe Taylor. “It was just something that you could look up to.”
Sam Taylor died a year ago at age 81. His wife decided the most appropriate way for mourners to remember him would be to donate to keep the cross lighted. Electrical bills and replacement 15-watt bulbs come to about $450 a year.
“He loved the cross so much,” said Babe Taylor. “I knew that would be a good memorial to him.”
Such memorial donations are fairly common, Gaines said. In 1994, for example, dozens of people sent in donations in memory of 22 St. Maries people who died that year. So many people have donated, in fact, that the cross fund has slowly built up to more than $8,000.
“They have just taken it into their lives,” Gaines said. She said the money is more than enough to replace the cross if a forest fire burns the hillside.
The cross was erected in 1956, when a group of Jaycees members hauled the main pole up the hillside with a Jeep. A few people borrowed winches from a local sawmill, and other volunteers jackhammered and blasted the hole.
“We put in blue bulbs - we thought it would look good for Christmas,” recalled Jerry Botts, a retired Washington Water Power Co. lineman. “But the fog rolled in and we had to go back up and replace the bulbs.”
In 1988, a new crop of volunteers replaced the pole with one made of longer-lasting cedar.
The cross sits on private land owned by David Holstein, Botts said. He said he’s never heard anyone challenge the propriety of having a religious symbol towering over the city.
“I don’t think if any hate groups came in that it’d be too healthy for them,” he said.
“That was brought up once by someone, and boy, it was never brought up again,” said Gaines. “The person would be tarred and feathered, that’s all there is to it. That cross is part of St. Maries and will always be part of St. Maries.”
Babe Taylor hopes that’s true, and she intends to ask that any memorial donations for her go to keep the cross lighted.
“I think it does something to our town,” she said. “You can’t stand there and look at it without feeling something. It’s a wonderful feeling.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo