St Francis de Sales and All Saints Church

This is one place that's kinda special to me because of family connections. The St Francis de Sales and All Saints Church in Devonport, Auckland looks like one grand austere old lady.  Between 1890 and 1900 the Catholic population in town doubled and the first church on this site was a former mortuary chapel barged across the Auckland Harbour from the historical Symonds Street Cemetery to be resited here in 1893. This particular suburb was first settled by colonists in 1840 and is one of the first colonial settlements in Auckland and the first on the North Shore.

St Leo's school opened across the road in 1893 and by 1904 the church was enlarged for 200 parishioners. Father Michael Furlong who was the parish priest from 1905 to 1962 sold his own property to finance the current church, above which was built in 1919. 

My mum on the right with her twin on their confirmation day in the 1950s.

Interestingly enough my mother and her siblings were raised in Devonport and attended St Leo's school and this church as they were growing up, in fact when my grandmother passed away in 1996 her funeral was held here because they were all Catholics until the last 5 years of her life when she became a Christian.  Mum has said she remembers the nuns at school being very strict and not very kind to the children.

Linking up with Our World Tuesday and My Corner of the World.