Patrick Caddle ran his hand lightly over the outstretched arm of a baby Jesus statue, like a doctor surveying a healed wound.
Somewhere, somehow, the Infant`s arm was broken off and lost, and it was Caddle`s job to bring the Christ child in the manger here to his basement workshop in Glen Ellyn and fix it.
During the course of 30 hours of work, he had done that, creating a new arm out of plaster. He had cleaned the statue, repainted it and brought life back to a face that was coated with years of neglect. He had even painted the gold trim around the baby`s garment.
No one else can tell which arm is new and which is the original now. It is like the Nativity scene camel, an old piece of German statuary that stood next to Jesus on the workbench.
It came to Caddle with large chunks of plaster missing from its long neck. He does not know how it was damaged, but it looks new again, and both pieces are part of the Christmas Nativity scene at Holy Family Church in Chicago.
These two, though, are just a small part of Caddle`s work that becomes increasingly impressive at the city`s 132-year-old West Side church, which is in the midst of a $4-million restoration.
Five large statues, cleaned, stripped, repainted and restored by Caddle and his two workers, grace Mary`s altar in the church. One is the statue of Mary, a plaster composition statue that originated in Paris.
”It`s a shame that she stands so high in the air,” said Caddle. ”She has a beautiful face.”
The others are St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus (S.J.), St. Peter Canisius, St. Aloysius S.J. and St. John Berchmans S.J.
Caddle and Dieter Meister, a painter from Lombard, are Du Page County`s artistic impact on the restoration of the historic church owned by the Jesuits.
But the statues Caddle has done are a mere beginning. In total, 55 statues will be restored during the renovation, Caddle said. And Meister`s painting and detailed stenciling at the side altar are only a small sampling, Meister said, of the work that is yet to be done in the Victorian Gothic church.
Holy Family Church, 1080 W. Roosevelt Rd., is the second oldest church in the city and one of five Chicago buildings that survived the Great Fire of 1871. It is the only one of the five buildings that has not been restored.
Closed in 1984 because of falling plaster, the church was almost torn down in 1990. Parishioners, totaling about 300 now, fought their pastor, who wanted to replace the church with a modest building because he doubted such a small and poor congregation could pay for the renovation. But the renovation went ahead.
”Why? Because they don`t make them like this anymore,” said Rev. George Lane, a Jesuit priest who is a board member of the Society for the Preservation of Holy Family Church.
”It`s marvelous work that we`ve had done thus far. We`re fortunate both in the quality of the craftsmen and the quality of the work,” Lane said of Meister and Caddle.
Caddle, who came to Chicago from Dublin, Ireland, in the mid-1950s to work for DePrato Studios in Chicago, then a large supplier of church pulpits, statuaries and altars, said he had been in the church years ago. When he heard about the restoration, Caddle wrote a letter to Lane, expressing a desire to work on the project.
His 20-year-old company, PJ Art Co., which includes him and two others, was contracted to restore the statues and some of the altars. In summer, their work began.
There were several reasons Caddle was interested: His work has always been strictly in remodeling and restoring churches, altars and statuary; he is a devout Catholic; and ”the original parishioners were from Ireland,” Caddle said, smiling.
But building it back up is not easy work. The statues are dirty. There has been water damage through the years. The plaster is deterioriated in many places, and the altars have to be strengthened.
Some of the saints are missing fingers. Others are missing a toe or a shoe. There are angels without trumpets, and others with chipped halos. And most are made of solid walnut. They`re heavy.
”St. Ignatius weighed at least 500 pounds. It took five guys to move it,” said Caddle, at home where four or five large statues wait in the basement and the garage for repairs.
He tells the story of the day when he was working at the church alone and needed help to move one of the statues. He went outside and found a man scavenging in the garbage.
”He looked strong so I asked him to help me,” said Caddle. ”He came in and it was nice to see his eyes, how they opened in amazement. He said he had no idea how beautiful the church was inside. It is a very majestic church, you know. They were built that way to raise our eyes toward heaven.”
Caddle has worked at dozens of churches throughout the Midwest, restoring statues, painting, strengthening weak altars, even doing remodeling-some of which he admits that he doesn`t like.
”That`s the business these days,” he said. ”You have to keep up with the times. You have to eat every week, you know.”
Rarely does he have a detailed picture to work from, although his workshop is full of religious pictures, calendars and reference books beside row upon row of paints, brushes and tools.
”Experience,” he said, when asked how he does the work. ”It involves a lot of fine detail. You want a certain look on their face.”
”Patrick Caddle is aware of the historical context of the church, and he does well at keeping in mind the historical settings of the church so that the colors will go along with past ideas of the art form,” said the Rev. Ramon Dompke, an associate at St. Michael`s Church in Chicago, where Caddle did extensive altar and statuary work about five years ago.
His work graces many Chicago area religious centers and churches, including the Carmelite Visitors Center National Shrine of St. Therese in Darien, where Caddle restored six statues plus 15 rosary way plaques. Now he is doing another statue of ”Christ at the Tomb” for them.
”He took them, and he gave life to them,” said Brother Eric Bell at the center. ”I think he`s excellent. Ever since then we have been good friends. He comes by for mass. He helps me find some of the old church things that I`ve been trying to preserve. He puts a great deal of thought and reverence into all of his work. He`s a true artist.”
Artists showing reverence for the building they`re in is a highly important matter where churches are concerned, said Pastor Richard S. Radtke at St. Paul`s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ft. Wayne, Ind.
In 1987, Dieter Meister, a painter for the National Decorating Co. in Oak Brook for the last seven years, was the master painter for St. Paul`s restoration in celebration of its 150th anniversary.
Meister, who came from the Ruhr Valley of Germany to Chicago in 1969 and has been a painter for more than 30 years, prefers working in churches, but does his skilled painting in numerous buildings throughout the area.
At St. Paul`s in Ft. Wayne, Radtke said, Meister proved himself to be
”almost an artist, meticulous, careful and concerned, and highly skilled.”
”He`s a high quality individual who does quality work,” said Radtke.
”It was a good experience for us having him here. He doesn`t just slap paint on the wall. Years ago we had a German Bible passage on an archway. It was painted over during the World War II years, and Dieter was able to re-letter that for us in English. He has a certain amount of reverence for working in a church.”
Meister, who is assisted by his daughter Anne Meister of Lombard on the work at Holy Family Church, said he gets tremendous satisfaction from working on church restorations.
”It`s a shame that a lot of the churches are not being restored,” he said. ”They just get a fresh coat of white paint put on.”
That is hardly the job at Holy Family, where Rev. Lane estimates that another ”$1.2 million will see us through” the renovation, and where more interior work awaits more dollars from the ongoing fundraising campaign.
Meister had up to 12 men working on the church at different times last summer, he said, just to do the one side altar. All of the plaster surfaces except the scrollwork was stripped-a job that took 26 man days. The walls, a light salmon color, received three coats of paint, and on top of that, Meister and Anne did the detailed stenciling, restoring the church walls to the look of 1900.
Experts removed at least five layers of paint to reveal the 1890s stencils and colors used through the sanctuary. Then Meister cut the stencils to re-create history.
It took the two of them about 35 man days to do the stenciling on the columns around the side altar and another four days to paint the gold stars on the light blue ceiling above the altar.
”It`s a dirty, filthy job, . . . but it`s going to be a beautiful church when it`s finished,” said Meister.
Both Meister and Caddle say they cannot estimate how long the rest of the interior work will take on the church, but Lane said that ”if we have a big- hearted, deep-pocketed angel we could complete this in a year.”
If not, work will proceed as they can.
In between, both men work on other jobs, but both believe strongly in the renovation.
”I`ve seen many of the beautiful historical buildings, the churches in Europe,” said Meister, who worked on 10 or 12 churches in Minnesota on his own before joining National Decorating. ”What little history we have in the U.S., we should keep. Modern becomes dated, but what`s historical stays historical. Our history gives us backbone.”
To many, the re-creation of history is also awe inspiring.
Caddle recalls the day he was standing high on the scaffolding at Holy Family, working on the Statue of Our Lady who stands breathtakingly beneath a sky of Dieter Meister`s finely painted gold stars.
”A lady came up and she said to me, `You know, you have the best job in the world,”` Caddle said. ”I said, `You know, you`re right.`
”For the glory of God. This is fulfilling work. Even when I do retire, I don`t know that I will ever fully retire. I like this work. I have always liked this work, and I believe in it. And it makes me feel good to see that it`s being done.”
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A free Heritage Holiday open house, where descendants, history buffs and the general public can access parish records dating to 1857, will take place from 1 to 5 p.m. today at Holy Family Church, 1080 W. Roosevelt Rd., Chicago. Also included in the festivities will be a celebration of the Feast of the Holy Family as well as ethnic food and entertainment, guided tours of the renovation and a Seven Candle Memorial Prayer Service. Call 312-226-4426 for more information.
