Above, from left, the Rev. Richard Thompson, pastor of St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church; Leonard Hodgkiss, Dan Hodgkiss and Gertrude Blair flank the date stone made from marble used 143 years ago on the church's original front steps. The Hodgkiss brothers' great-grandfather was one of the original builders of the church and now they building a wheelchair ramp at the front of the church, below.

OAKLAND TWP — A family's and a church's history have twined together in a recent renovation project at St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church along Route 68.

Dan and Leonard Hodgkiss, bricklayers and stonemasons from Chicora, have been hired to build a wheelchair ramp at the church in place of its front steps.

They are renovating some of the work done by their great-grandfather, Peter O'Donnell.

Peter O'Donnell was one of the builders who made the bricks that made up St. Joseph when the church was erected in 1872, said Getrude Blair of Butler, formerly a congregant of St. Joseph and the mother of Dan and Leonard Hodgkiss.

She grew up with her family near the church on Seven Hill Road, just up the road in Donegal Township.

Blair said she was baptized in the church in 1932 and was married for the first time there in 1956.

“All of my kids were baptized here,” she said of her six children.

Blair said, “Peter O'Donnell was part of the crew that helped mold the bricks by hand.” She said the bricks were molded next to the church construction site.

“These parishioners made the bricks in this general area. There's a lot of sand, I guess it is good for making bricks,” said Dan Hodgkiss.

He added when excavating the old steps he found the marble used 143 years ago to build the original church steps.

Hodgkiss said he removed several marble pieces.

“I took a piece of the original marble. I polished it up and had it engraved with the year,” said Hodgkiss. “When we get the stone on that, it will look just like the original year stone on the church.”

Dan and Leonard Hodgkiss and their cousin, Jim Schaffler, have been working on the wheelchair ramp for just over a month and plan to have it finished in two weeks.

“I'm a member of the church, and I had to bid on it,” Hodgkiss said. “They just did it to get the congregation in easier.”

“Church attendance has grown in the past year,” said the Rev. Richard Thompson, the pastor of St. Joseph and Mater Dolorosa Parish for the past year. “They've had several interim priests, but I'm the priest that's here to stay and I think that helps.”“The Pastoral Council six months ago made a decision,” to install a ramp, Thompson said, not just for the aging congregants but for greater ease in moving caskets in and out of the church during funerals.“It was hard for them to make that turn for the pallbearers,” said Thompson. “They had to move everything out of the vestibule and bring the coffin in at an angle.”Also, Hodgkiss and Thompson said, some the older members were having a hard time climbing the high steps to the church's front door.“The ramp will bring more people in,” said Thompson.Blair said her family arrived in this country in 1797 when brothers Dennis and Connor O'Donnell immigrated from Ireland.“We learned more later on. We knew about Peter, but we really didn't know much about that until we did a lot of genealogy work,” said Blair. “It's something to be proud of, to know your great-grandfather made the bricks by hand.”