Nativity Scene in the Sand Mountain bluff face, 2006 – Pauline Masson photo. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
By Pauline Masson –
After 73 years of alternating caretakers, Pacific’s Christmas tradition, the Nativity Scene in the Bluff face, is unveiled each December.
The painted statues that make up a scene depicting Christ’s birth in a stable in Bethlehem are still the most familiar symbol of Christmas in the community.
It was one of the city’s first tourist attractions, luring motorists out from St. Louis to see Christ’s birth re-enacted in a sand cave.
It was also one of the first examples of the entire Pacific community coming together to support a popular celebration.
Over time seven different organizations have kept the tradition alive – a local canasta club, St. Bridget women’s sodality Queen’s Daughters, St. Bridget’s men’s Club, Father Berry Council Knights of Columbus, the KC Auxiliary, the Chamber of Commerce, and the City of Pacific.
The St. Bridget’s Men’s Club that now maintains the tradition ,recently installed the 2025 Scene,
A ladies canasta club, associated with St. Bridget Church, got the idea for a life-sized Nativity Scene in the sand cave half way up the face of Sand Mountain around 1950.
They were six in number. Mary Brandt, Ruth Wilmering, Jeanette Finder, Mary Poelker, Laverne Meyers and Mary Dailey, who were active in Queen’s Daughters. They came up with the idea for the Nativity scene during a weekly canasta game.
“There was a lot of talk about church and state, a lot like what’s going on today,” Ms. Brandt said in a 2002 interview. ”Our club played cards together every Tuesday so we spent a lot of time talking about these things.”
In the middle of a game one of the woman said, “Instead of just having fun all the time, we ought to do something to benefit the community.”
“We ought to try to find a way to put God back in Christmas,” another canasta player said.
The club took their idea to Queen’s Daughters, and to the Father Berry Council Knights of Columbus Auxiliary. The idea of a life-sized Nativity scene quickly emerged. The canasta club members said they would raise the funds to buy the statues. Then came to discussion of where they should be placed.
Nativity Scene 2025 from street level – St. Bridget Men’s Club Facebook photo. _______________________________________
Although the sand cave more closely resembles the terrain and climate of the Bethlehem site of Christ’s birth than the wooden sheds and makeshift grottos that shelter nativity scenes from winter weather in public places each December, the ladies did not select the cave for Biblical accuracy. They wanted everybody to see the scene.
At first the women planned to display the statues near St. Bridget of Kildare Church but one canasta player had another idea.
“Theresa Fischer said that we should put the statues in the cave because that was one place they would be seen by the entire community,” Ms. Brandt said.
Everyone liked the idea, but Mayor Nick Olmstead, shook his head in disbelief.
“I was made chairman of the event so I had to go ask for the city’s permission to put the statues up there,” Ms.. Brandt recalled “The mayor said, ‘Mary, Where did you ever get an idea like that?’ He practically laughed in our faces saying that a group of women could never get the statues up there.”
But the ladies did not give up. They began a community wide fund raising campaign,
The original set of 18 statues cost $1,000 and was purchased through a church mail-order magazine.
”It was a big project to raise $1,000 in 1952,” Ms. Brandt would later recall. “The men said, ‘just ask people for contributions,’ which is what we did. The whole town contributed, $1 or $5 at a time.”
When the statues arrived, club members set Dec. 6, St. Nicholas Day, to set up the scene.
Lewis Brandt, Mary’s husband, volunteered himself and the couple’s two sons Bud and Tom to help with the installation. An electrician, Mr. Brandt strung electric lines so the scene could be lighted.
Ed Buscher cut 15 cedar trees to be placed behind the statues as a backdrop, a tradition that the Chamber of Commerce continued every year.
The first installation of the outdoor scene was cause for a community celebration.
“It seemed like the whole town lined up to watch the men work,” Ms. Brandt said.
Crowds gathered at the base of the buff to watch the younger men climb up Clarence Wilmering’s two-story paint ladders and hoist the statues up to the cave.
In addition to delighting Pacific citizens, the scene became a major tourist attraction, drawing streams of motorists from St. Louis along Route 66 to see the cave display.
There one three year period in the early 1990s when the tradition was halted after a slab of rock fell from the cave roof while the statues were being set in place.
But the citizens weren’t happy with the absence of the display. After pleas from citizens to resurrect the annual tradition, the City of Pacific agreed that the public works department would take charge of placing the statues. Sponsorship of the annual project was later transferred to the Pacific Chamber of Commerce.
The first set of statues that Queen’s Daughters and the members of the canasta club, bought were life-sized.
When the decision was made to reinstate the Nativity scene, the original statues could not be found after the 1900 rock fall, Queen’s Daughters at the time owned a set of smaller statues, approximately three-fifths full size, which they donated for the bluff face display.
“Everybody wanted them back up there,” said Chamber of Commerce President John Heger, who volunteered to place the statues that year.
At first it looked like a dubious effort. When Mr Heger and George Mahler took the statues from storage they found they were in deplorable condition. The cow’s head and Baby Jesus’ hands were missing. The bases of several figures were so deteriorated that they could not stand upright. The paint was faded to dingy gray.
Mr. Heger and Mr. Mahler decided to repaint the statues. They turned to Brenda Weisehan, art restoration expert, for advice and she volunteered to help.
Joining Ms. Weisehan, art restoration and auto body experts pooled their know-how, using auto body filler, welded metal rods, acrylic paint, boat lacquer, a new pair of wings bought at a party supply store, and a couple of hundred hours of free labor to give new life to the 18 pieces of statuary.
In recent years the St. Bridget Men’s Club has maintained the statues and set up the display each year.
On the evenng in December1952, as townspeople gathered at the base of the bluff to admire the lighted Nativity scene, Mayor Olmstead sidled up to Ms Brandt.
“Mary, I never believed you could do it,” he said.
“It was a delicious moment,,” she laughed 50 years later at the memory of that evening.
“The community took ownership,” she said. “It is still see it as a community treasure.”
And so it is.
I was born in 1960 and I’m very proud of this Christmas decoration. I always thought of all the nativity scenes out there Pacific’s was the closest to what it probably would have looked like and it wasn’t real gaudy and cheap ( remember I grew up in the late ’70’s)
I was just telling my kids about this last night after the Pacific Parade. My family moved to Shannon County, Missouri from Onarga, Illinois (about 80 miles south of Chicago) in 1958. Most years we would make the 8 or more hour sojourn back to Illinois to spend Christmas with the grandparents and most of the time we drove at night after dad got off work. This was way before Highway 44 and we would take 66 into Illinois. When we would get close to Pacific my mom would always wake us kids up so we could see the Nativity Scene in the cliff. Having lived in Franklin County now for almost 40 years it brings back some wonderful childhood memories.