Honoring Our Lady in a big way

America is home to many beautiful devotional sites dedicated to the Blessed Mother. Some are notable for their particularly large Marian statues, which dot the continental landscape from California’s Silicon Valley to the Eastern Seaboard.
 
Interestingly, of the tallest six Marian statues in the U.S., three were crafted by the same sculptor: Charles Cropper Parks of Wilmington, DE. 

Parks, who left a legacy of hundreds of art pieces when he died in 2012, was an artist who took his work seriously. “The fortunate individual in today’s world is one whose life work is a true vocation,” he once said. “My calling satisfies in every way that sense of vocation.”

PARKS’ RE-CREATIONS

Parks’ first Marian statue, easily visible off the 101 freeway in Northern California, is his 32-foot stainless-steel statue at the Shrine of Our Lady of Peace in Santa Clara. It was dedicated at a 1983 Mass at which Fr. Patrick Peyton of the Family Rosary Crusade was homilist. 

Then-pastor Msgr. John Sweeny had wanted a prominent expression of faith to remind those passing of Mary’s love for her people. Parishioner Rosemary Alva, who wrote Our Lady’s Way: Cultivating the Fruit of Peace about the building of the shrine, quotes Sweeny: “The world cannot benefit from a hidden faith, love, or hope. We want to make her a statue of such splendid height that no one can ignore it, of a beauty that will attract and inspire all who see it, in the hope that many will respond to Our Lady’s invitation to love her Son.”

After Sweeny commissioned the statue, Parks erected it outdoors on the lawn of his Delaware studio. He cast the head, hands, and feet in stainless steel and constructed the gown of welded stainless-steel strips. The statue attracted so much local attention that Wilmington’s mayor invited Parks to display it in the heart of the city, and for weeks during the fall of 1982 busloads of pilgrims visited to view it and pray. It was dubbed “The Madonna in Rodney Square.”

In November of that year, the 7,200-pound statue was transported to Santa Clara for installation on a 12-foot landscaped mound. The shrine draws more than a million visitors annually and has witnessed many conversions and religious vocations.

BY POPULAR DEMAND

Sixteen years later, in 1998, it was déjà vu: Chicago-area resident Carl Demma commissioned Parks to create a statue of Our Lady of the New Millennium as a gift to the faithful of the Archdiocese of Chicago. After the 34-foot, 8,400-pound stainless steel statue was displayed for a time on Wilmington’s Riverfront, Demma brought it to St. Louis for a blessing from Pope John Paul II during his 1999 visit there. The statue then toured Chicago-area parishes, millennium events, and archdiocesan gatherings for a number of years until Demma’s widow donated it to the Shrine of St. John’s Passion in St. John, IN, where it stands today.

By then many people of Wilmington, having seen two massive Mary statues on display across two decades, decided they wanted a “Mary of our own.” After years of planning, rosary campaigns, and fundraising, the organizational committee commissioned Parks to create a statue honoring Our Lady, Queen of Peace. 

The 33-foot stainless steel statue was finally installed at the Shrine of Our Lady, Queen of Peace at Holy Spirit Parish in New Castle, DE, and dedicated in 2007. The statue is visible from the Delaware Memorial Bridge and Interstate 295.

HIGH IN THE ROCKIES

The distinction of the largest Marian figure in the U.S. goes to the 90-foot steel statue of Our Lady of the Rockies overlooking Butte, MT. The project grew from a pledge made by resident Bob O’Bill as his wife, Joyce, was battling cancer in 1979. As Joyce underwent surgery, Bob prayed to the Blessed Mother asking her intercession for a cure. If she survived, he promised, he would build a life-sized statue of Mary in his backyard.

Joyce did survive — ultimately outliving Bob, who died in 2016 — and in thanksgiving Bob began collecting materials for a statue. The project grew in size and scope into a six-year effort using thousands of volunteers to build the towering image atop the Continental Divide, 3,500 feet above Butte.

The team bought a site, hired an artist, and built an access road. They persuaded the Montana National Guard to lend a Sikorsky Skycrane helicopter to lift pieces of the statue to the ridge, a task the state’s governor allowed under the pretext of being a training mission. Heavy winds nearly forced the helicopter pilot to drop Mary’s hands to avoid a crash, but he prayed to the Blessed Mother and regained control.

Butte celebrated the statue’s completion in 1985, with O’Bill declaring, “She’s beautiful. It was all worth it.”

The statue is illuminated at night and can be seen for miles. From June until fall, weather permitting, visitors can take a tour bus from Butte Plaza to the base of the statue — a 30-minute drive up a windy, bumpy road.
 
HOPE ON THE LAKE

The second-largest Marian statue in the U.S. and the world’s largest image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is found at the Servants of Mary Center for Peace in Windsor, OH, 40 miles east of Cleveland. The 50-foot image is covered with 450,000 mosaic tiles and is situated on the site’s “Lake of Hope.” Other notable features include a large illuminated 15-decade rosary and a Holy Innocents Chapel with a “Book of Life” bearing the names of children who have died due to abortion, miscarriage, or other causes. 

The center was the creation of Deacon Ed and Patricia Heinz, whose son at age 4 had reported a vivid conversation with Mary while the family lived overseas. The site offers a First Saturday Mass preceded by confessions and the Rosary, and the grounds are open daily (but may close due to inclement weather).
 
OUR LADY OF I-80

Located near exit 401 off Interstate 80 near the Nebraska border, the Our Lady of Peace statue in Pine Bluffs, WY, stands 30 feet tall and is 180 tons of marble and concrete. The late Ted and Marjorie Trefren of Cheyenne had it built by sculptor Robert Fida in 1998 after visiting many of the world’s Marian shrines.

The Trefens’ daughter, Julie Swallow, and her family own and maintain the five-acre site. “It’s my parents’ legacy,” Swallow explained. “I’ll take care of it until I’m too old, then my children will take over.”

Visitors from all over the world have stopped in, and Swallow has even seen wedding proposals and truck drivers pulling over to pray. “You meet people there who have problems, looking for help in dealing with their struggles in life,” she noted.

Amenities include a shelter where a public Mass is celebrated in early June.