Our Lady of Victory Basilica

For the second Sunday we went east to Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Clarence. After church we tried to find Perry’s Ice Cream in Akron. They are in the “See it Made in the USA” book and have a factory tour that we may try to do later this week. We couldn’t find it. I didn’t have my book or the detailed map with me.

Then we drove southwest to Lake Erie and Lackawanna. There was a 1 p.m. tour of Our Lady of Victory Basilica & National Shrine.
At all the entrances to the city there were signs, “Home of Father Baker.” And who is Father Baker, I asked. Well, when we got to the Basilica we found out. Father Nelson Baker was a Catholic priest who came to the priesthood after a successful business career. He was 34 when he was ordained and his first parish assignment was in Limestone Hill, today known as Lackawanna, a suburb on Lake Erie, immediately south of downtown Buffalo. The parish consisted of a church, an orphanage, and a protectory for young boys who were “inclined to truancy and willfulness.” He spent the rest of his life there, caring for thousands of orphans, building a hospital and today there are reunions of “Father Baker Boys.” He raised the money to build the Basilica in the 1920s and it is magnificent. There are over 1,000 angels in the building. The Stations of the Cross are very unusual. Each one has life-sized figures carved from a single block of marble. The Italian artist took a year to complete each one, or 14 years in all.