Grotto Preservation Plan Revissed 2012
Preservation Services, Inc. Mother of Sorrows Grotto at Mount Mercy College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa Preservation Report and Recommendations, July 2010 Introduction The Mother of Sorrows Grotto complex was built on the campus of Mount Mercy College by contractor William Lightner over a period of twelve years, from 1929 to 1941. Lightner built the structures of reinforced concrete, masterfully embellished with a range of stones, tile, and other materials. A focal point of the original complex was a Grotto Shrine to the Virgin Mary (no longer extant); radiating out from this monument, Lightner created two commanding Roman entry arches, an elaborate bridge, and a temple-like monument to the Ten Commandments, erected on an island in the lagoon. The monuments are ornamented with phrases expressing Catholic devotion and mottos regarding the Virgin Mary as the Mother of Sorrows. Built during the Depression and the years preceding World War Two, the Mother of Sorrows Grotto complex was created within a phenomena of Grotto building begun in Iowa by Father Paul Dobberstein, famed builder of the Grotto of the Redemption in West Bend, and continued by Father Mathias Wernerus with his Holy Ghost Shrine in Dickeyville, WI, and at the Rudolph Grotto of Father Philip Wagner in Rudolph, WI. Dobberstein’s work in Iowa was extensive, and presented a model for building devotional shrines of richly embellished concrete. As an indication of the popularity of grottos in the first half of the Twentieth Century, Dobberstein was commissioned to build several “satellite” works, civic structures and smaller Catholic devotional grottos, in Iowa (Wesley, Humboldt, Carroll, Dubuque, Old Rolfe, Pocahontas, and Sioux City), North Dakota (Parkston), and Wisconsin (St.
[Show full text]