SIOUX CITY | Visitors have come from all over the world to Trinity Heights to admire 30-foot-tall steel statues of Jesus and his mother, Mary, to light a candle in the Divine Mercy Adoration Chapel or to view a hand-carved wood sculpture of the Last Supper.
Terry Hegarty, executive director at Trinity Heights, said most visitors travel from Kansas City, Missouri, and Lincoln, Nebraska, after hearing about the unique destination that blends art, nature and the teachings of Christianity.
Surprisingly, Hegarty said many Sioux Cityans have never strolled through the peaceful, manicured gardens nestled on the city's north side.
"You just wonder how they've missed it," he said. "Getting the word out isn't easy. You almost have to rely on word of mouth."
The Rev. Harold Cooper dreamed of creating a place where visitors could experience the peace that Jesus Christ gives.
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In the mid-1980s, Cooper, then pastor of St. Joseph Church in Sioux City, and the nonprofit corporation, Queen of Peace Inc., set out to purchase the 80-acre property perched atop a hill at 33rd Street and Floyd Boulevard.
Trinity Heights, which welcomed its first visitors in 1992, is entirely dependent on donations and the help of volunteers to keep 16 acres of landscaping, more than two dozen shrines, and buildings in pristine condition. The names of benefactors are recognized on plaques scattered throughout the grounds.
Hegarty said one full-time staff member and volunteers are constantly mowing and trimming. Trinity Heights has 25 different garden areas with shrubbery, plants and flowers that need to be maintained. More than 800 sprinkler heads keep the grounds watered.
"We have volunteers that come in and they'll take a garden area and they'll maintain that garden area," he said. "We have different volunteers that come in and say, 'I'd like to mow this area.' So they'll come in every week and mow that area."
An 86-year-old man cuts the grass around the gift shop with a push mower. Hegarty said the man has been volunteering since Trinity Heights was established. When his hand mower needed to be replaced two years ago, Hegarty said the man bought a new one and donated it.
"He put a receipt on the desk and he said, 'I figure I have two more years of mowing. I wasn't going to do it with that old mower, so I bought a new mower. I'll just donate it when I leave,'" he recalled. "We've said to him, 'We have three riding lawn mowers.'"
Preferring the look of a hand-mowed lawn, the man faithfully returns to Trinity Heights every week to hand mow.
"We're just very blessed that way. They just divide areas up," Hegarty said of the volunteers.
The statues are weather resistant, so Hegarty said they require very little maintenance. Every five years, the steel is cleaned with a power washer.
Dale Lamphere, the nationally known sculptor from Spearfish, South Dakota, who created the Immaculate Heart of Mary Queen of Peace, has come to Trinity Heights to inspect his work. The statue, Hegarty said, can be entered through an access door.
"He actually came with his welder and went inside to visually inspect all the welds to make sure they're in good shape; and they were and they are," he said. "The maintenance involved around it is the base, which is made out of marble and brick, and then all of the concrete that slopes up to it."
Jerry Traufler's "Last Supper" -- a life-size rendition of Jesus' last meal with his disciples -- is another popular work of art displayed at Trinity Heights. Traufler, a postal employee from Le Mars, Iowa, and a self-taught sculptor, carved each figure out of basswood and pine with a chisel and mallet.
Two years ago, Traufler restained and revarnished the piece, which is housed in the temperature-controlled octagon room in the St. Joseph Center and Museum.
"It was in very, very good condition," Hegarty said. "The biggest key to the wood is not getting it to dry out because then it loses moisture and it'll start to crack."
Will Trinity Heights expand in the future? Hegarty said visitors frequently offer suggestions. A veterans memorial was dedicated in 2011, and new Stations of the Cross were installed in the outdoor cathedral in 2014.
"A year ago, we just did a brand new addition of a mural tribute to St. Joseph plus a directory wall up by the St. Joseph Center and those were not planned items. We just had somebody that really wanted to do something for their wife," he said. "There are things that are still being discussed, whether or not they come to be, we'll see."
Hegarty doesn't foresee Trinity Heights ever charging an admission fee, because when people come to Trinity Heights and see its beauty, he said they want to support it. He said Cooper and his brother, former longtime executive director Bernard "Beanie" Cooper, didn't envision charging visitors, either.
"He thought as long as we keep the right theme and we continue to pray and offer it to people, they would provide," he said.
