One of the parishioners, Eugene Roble, was a talented cabinet maker and built the altar.

Heavy drapes were purchased from a theater in Oshkosh ; they were red and gold because Fr. McGarty, who loved symbolism and pageantry, felt these were colors conducive to generosity. They were also available at the right price.

A system was rigged so the drapes could be hung from the ceiling. In a rudimentary way movies taken by Ray Heil during the period show that the effect was quite churchlike.

A portable reed organ, stored against the wall, was uncovered and rolled out to provide accompaniment for liturgical singing.

It is almost forgotten now, but Wausau had a wonderful old City Hall which was razed in the early nineteen fifties. It occupied the whole block where the J. C. Penney store was located before it moved to the new Wausau Center . It was much like the courthouse up in Merrill, that wonderful Victorian structure which is now on the National Register of Historic Buildings. Of importance to this chronicle is not the charm of the place, its lawns and elms, the pigeons, or even the old men who sat on benches there summer afternoons, whittling and telling lies. What is important is that the wonderful oak railings, probably a banister, had been salvaged. They became the communion railing at the Auto Auction during Sunday Mass in the first years of St. Matthew's existence.

In that autumn of 1958, many of the traditional parish activities such as the ladies' circles were organized and became active. The first one, St. Bernard's Circle, was named for Fr. McGarty's patron - a touching courtesy which showed early on how the energetic pastor was becoming an inseparable thread in the fabric of parish life. That circle remains active to this day.

Mrs. Ed. Bembinster remembers Fr. McGarty discussing the need to locate teaching sisters so a school could be started the following year. The need was great since the school at Holy Name was overcrowded. Classrooms for grades one and two were available at St. Mary's.

Fr. McGarty recalls how difficult a task it was. Obtaining the services of teaching nuns in the late fifties, he said, was a bit like bidding for the NFL players today. By his own estimate, he wrote at least a hundred letters to mothers superior plus making many personal visits. He would send bouquets and boxes of candy. All of which would get him a benign smile and, "Father, we will think about it; we'll pray over it; we'll let you know."

The new parish's first Midnight Mass was celebrated in the Youth Building at Marathon Park because of the need to accommodate so many parishioners at one time. It is not difficult to imagine what that must have been like, the blue black December night, the backdrop of tall white pines - their crowns darker even than the sky, warm light spilling from doors and windows onto new snow, and hundreds of voices raised in ancient hymns of joy. Then, with the great pageant and mystery which has united the Mystical Body down the centuries completed for this moment, the congregation surging into the winter cold, fulfilled, joyous, children asleep against warm shoulders, friends greeting one another in the spirit of the season before leaving for their individual Christmases. Above it all, the stars or perhaps scudding clouds, and the promise of more snow.

Toward the spring of 1959 came the promise of teachers from the Sisters of St. Joseph in Stevens Point . A home was rented over on Le Messurier Street near St. Mary's School. A group of parish ladies went over and cleaned and wall papered the place, so it would be fresh and pleasant when the sisters arrived. "It was a drafty, frame structure," says Mrs. Donald Tucker who was part of the crew. "We made quilts, sewed curtains, and collected used furniture. Even so, I don't think the place was ever warm and comfortable. We did the best we could with it, and the sisters never complained."