EVERYDAY MIRACLES: Help from above?

By Michele Deluca/delucam@gnnewspaper.com

February 29, 2008 03:11 pm

— Eva Nicklas is writing a play that relates what she calls “miracles” that have occurred at Stella Niagara in Lewiston. The play celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Sisters of St. Francis, who started the school at Stella. Nicklas is overseeing the play production as director of the Lewiston Arts Council.
The first “miracle,” occurred in 1955, she said, when the ice boom broke on the Niagara River, above the falls.
“Tons and tons of ice went crashing into the falls and over the river. There were 30-foot-tall glaciers, and they just ripped docks and houses and everything in their path,” Nicklas said.
Only one thing was saved from the destructive path — a little chapel by the side of the road. The image was so startling that The Associated Press sent it to papers across the country.
“There is a picture of the glacier surrounding the little chapel so that the water and the ice saved it, really. It was such an amazing sight. They said that traffic was blocked for miles up the river just so people could get a glimpse of this sight,” Nicklas said.
The play, called “Marble Orchard, Star of Niagara,” will be produced in August in the cemetery at the school as part of a year-long centennial celebration. The play will include the story of another freezing winter day when the nuns ran out of wood to heat their building.
Somehow, after the nuns prayed, logs got loose from one of the logging companies in North Tonawanda, floated over the falls and landed in the lower river, right at the shoreline of the Stella property.
“The nuns don't call it a miracle,” Nicklas said, noting they believe it is simply a matter of God answering their prayers. “Was it a miracle? We think so.
“Life is full of miracles every day, if we just open up our eyes and see them.”
Contact editor Michele DeLucaat 693-1000, ext. 157.