“The city of Newton wellnigh doubled its population during the period 1907-1940, having by 1940 about seventy thousand inhabitants. In its oldest parish, St. Mary’s, Newton Upper Falls, Father Timothy J. Danahy replaced the old wooden church on Chestnut Street with the present splendid Romanesque edifice on Elliot Street, which was dedicated by Archbishop O’Connell on November 24, 1910. The new Church of Mary Immaculate of Lourdes, as it was called, with its impressive exterior, its graceful campanile, and its unusually fine interior decorations, represented an immense achievement for a congregation of only fifteen hundred people.”
— Excerpted from