First Catholic church in Aurora, St. Therese, celebrates 100th anniversary
Aurora’s first Catholic church was founded in 1926 by Father Henry Geisert, who had moved from St. Louis to Colorado for his health. He named the parish after the then newly minted St. Therese of Lisieux to fulfill an oath he had made in return for his restored well-being.
Upon her deathbed in 1897, the 24-year-old French Carmelite nun had vowed to spend her heaven doing good on earth by letting fall “a shower of roses,” meaning graces received through intercessory prayer. Recalling the Little Flower’s promise, today, stained-glass windows in the Aurora church feature roses.
St. Therese Parish is marking its 100th anniversary this month. It is also observing the 70th anniversary of its school. The parish’s century-long history is a testament to its evangelical mission, which endures through new generations, said the pastor, Father Jaime Valdez.
“The first priests here were missionaries in a new place,” said the pastor, who himself hails from Mexico. “The story of this parish is a missionary work that continues.”
“One faith. One family. One century of blessings,” is the church’s guiding reflection for its centennial mark, while its anniversary theme is, “A century of faith, a future of hope.”
The parish launched its 100th anniversary observance with a festival the Sunday after St. Therese’s October 1 feast day. The primary commemoration was a Mass celebrated by Auxiliary Bishop Jorge Rodriguez. October 11, followed by a reception. It was a homecoming for the bishop, who served as associate pastor at the parish from 1999 to 2001.
A 1950 drawing of the new St. Therese Church in Aurora.
(Photos: Denver Catholic Register Archive)
Pioneer Catholicism
In 1903, a Franciscan friar from Denver’s St. Elizabeth Parish offered the first Mass in Aurora at the Sable Schoolhouse. Father Marcellus would take a streetcar and a horse and buggy to reach the rural community.
Friars said Mass at the school or in the community building across from it for at least a dozen years. Then Masses were offered at the Sisters of Mercy novitiate at 14th Avenue and Dayton Street until it closed in 1922. Aurora faithful then went to Denver’s St. James Parish for Eucharist. When Bishop J. Henry Tihen assigned Father Geisert to establish a church in June 1926, the priest and some 40 Catholic families bought the novitiate house and six adjacent lots to serve as the first St. Therese Church.
The second and third pioneer pastors, Father Daniel Barry and Father Louis Mertz, respectively, led St. Therese through the hardships of the Great Depression and into the decade of greatest growth for the parish during and after World War II. Due to the war, Fitzsimons Hospital was expanded, and Lowry Air Force Base and Buckley Field were opened, causing a population explosion in Aurora.
The growth necessitated a much larger church. In 1949, the parish bought 48 lots on 12th Avenue and Kingston Street, and the new church was dedicated in 1951. A school and a convent for the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth to staff it soon followed and were dedicated on September 23, 1956.
Later, the school was expanded twice, and the church was remodeled. In 2012, St. Therese’s parish complex was designated a historic district as Aurora’s first Roman Catholic Church and for its spiritual and educational contributions to the city.
The women of St. Therese Parish gather for community. Year unknown. The Nocturnal Adoration Society of St. Therese Parish at Holy Ghost Parish, Denver. Year unknown. St. Therese's Knights of the Altar. Year unknown.
(Photos: Denver Catholic Register Archive)
A Pillar Amid Change
“The church has been a pillar in the community,” said parishioner Kelan O’Toole, 62, reflecting on the church’s resiliency through demographic shifts and institutional closures. “Through all the adversities that have gone on in Aurora … it’s held fast to its roots and endured.”
O’Toole’s father was in the Air Force and moved the family to Aurora in 1965. O’Toole and his 10 siblings grew up in the parish and attended the school. He remembers teacher-nuns, being an altar server, playing sports and attending a Denver Nuggets game with classmates when the team was still in the ABA.
“It was basketball night, so I got a basketball — it was very memorable,” he said with a chuckle.
Two of O’Toole’s brothers became missionary priests. He believes their vocations were fostered in part by the church and school. He and his wife married at the church. Their daughters received sacraments there and attended the school. His wife has worked at the school some 18 years. An IT project manager, O’Toole has served in parish ministry and in parish and school leadership. Although the couple, now grandparents, live outside the parish boundaries, they choose to worship at St. Therese, drawn by its familiarity and reverent spirit.
“It’s been such a big part of my life,” O’Toole said. “Without it, I feel an emptiness.”
The area surrounding the parish changed significantly after Lowry and Fitzsimmons closed in the 1990s, O’Toole said. During that time, Aurora’s Hispanic population nearly quadrupled, reported The Denver Post. In 1993, St. Therese added its first Spanish-language Mass.
“Now the majority of the parishioners are Hispanic, including many immigrants,” Father Valdez said. “They feel loneliness and sometimes abandoned … but coming to church helps them to feel that God is with them.”
The move of several hospitals and top medical and healthcare schools to the former Fitzsimons campus is again changing the neighborhood, O’Toole said. Military personnel are being replaced with doctors, researchers, professors and biotech entrepreneurs, leading to a revitalization of the region.
St. Therese Church today. St. Therese parishioners process with their patroness on her feast day. On St. Therese's feast day, parishioners processed through the neighborhood with their patroness.
(Photos courtesy of St. Therese Parish, Aurora)
A Home Away from Home
Through God’s grace, communion is a hallmark of the parish. Father Valdez described the defining characteristics of the community with two words: “prayer and fraternity.”
As a teenager, Lupita Vazquez came to Denver from Mexico in 2011. Now a wife, mother and college financial aid counselor, she feels welcomed, supported and called to serve at St. Therese Parish, which she said is the spiritual center of her family’s life.
“It’s like a second home for me,” Vazquez said, adding that she has belonged to the parish for 15 years. “It’s incredible it’s 100 years old. It’s a big blessing having our church, our community and our priests.”
She and her husband are both active in parish ministry. Their 5- and 6-year-old daughters both attend St. Therese Catholic Classical School, which promotes the pursuit of truth, beauty, goodness and unity in growing as disciples of Christ.
“They love it,” Vazquez said. “God is the priority. I really like that. The school puts a lot of emphasis on faith, but also on academics. When my oldest finished kindergarten, she was already reading.”
Patrick Imoh, 40, a senior network engineer originally from Nigeria, moved to Colorado in June 2025 for work after living in Michigan. He and his wife have three children and have belonged to St. Therese for a year. The parish gives the family a strong sense of acceptance, dignity and connection.
“They don’t see you as being different from them; they see you as being one of them,” Imoh said.
He and his family value the warmth of the Spanish-speaking community and engaging with its language and culture. His two oldest children received the sacraments of Communion and Confirmation at the parish this past spring. He appreciates that he was invited to serve as a lector and an OCIA facilitator, which he finds rewarding.
Imoh’s family of origin is devoutly Catholic, with an uncle serving as the archbishop of the Calabar Archdiocese. The thoughtful homilies and pastoral leadership at St. Therese are invaluable, Imoh said.
“We always leave the church feeling fulfilled,” he said.
Marlene Stienes first visited St. Therese Church for a holy day Mass while working at Lowry and immediately felt at home in its family atmosphere. She joined the parish in 1983.
“It’s like a second family to me,” she said.
Born in Iowa, one of 15 children and a twin, and raised Catholic on a 230-acre farm, she moved to Colorado for health reasons in 1974. Now 85, she remains active in parish ministry as a Eucharistic minister, Altar and Rosary member, helps lead the Rosary after daily Mass and tidies the devotional area. Never married, and with just one nephew in the state despite having numerous relatives, she relishes time spent with her parish family.
Appreciative of the 100th anniversary celebrations that have taken place and looking forward to the ones to come, Steines said a special observance was a novena asking the intercession of the parish’s patron, which led up to her feast day.
“We prayed for all the people who built the church, for all the people who went to school here and for all the people who come to Mass here,” she said.
In the spirit of St. Therese, who pioneered the “little way” to holiness that focuses on doing small tasks with great love, Steines mused on her own aging.
“I hope to be active till the day I die,” she said. “Even if it means just sitting in the pew praying, that’s all right, too.”
