NEW SMYRNA BEACH | In 1945, Alice Clay Benedict recalls pulling up to 308 Faulkner Street with her parents. She was 3 years old and her parents, Harry and Clara Clay, were to be the new caretakers of Sacred Heart Parish. It was the beginning of a life-long love of her faith and her parish.
HISTORY IS A FAMILY AFFAIR
Sacred Heart’s beginning goes back to Catholic settlers in the late 1800s who came to raise citrus crops. Ferdinand and Anna Nordman, a Catholic couple with a large family, purchased property north of the New Smyrna community and invited Catholics into their home every Sunday. A priest from St. Peter in Deland would ride a horse 20 miles to celebrate Mass.
In 1899, the Nordman’s donated property and all the lumber for the small mission church that held only 80 people. By 1926, the Redemptorists received a request to establish themselves in New Smyrna Beach. Father Joseph Downey was appointed as First Superior to take charge of the little wooden church Dec. 12, 1926. Priests lived in a small bungalow nearby. Over the years, the priests built a new rectory, and the bungalow became the caretaker’s cottage. This cottage was the Clay’s new home.
“It was a small church, but it was a beautiful church,” Alice Clay Benedict recalled. “It was the old type where you had all the statues and the windows, and it looked like a little country church.”
Benedict’s father worked on the property while her mother cleaned and led the choir. “I thought I’d left all my relatives in Pennsylvania. But when I came down here, everybody I met was Aunt Vela (Nordman), Uncle Al (Nordman), aunt so-and-so, uncle so-and-so. And I started thinking, I’ve got more relatives than I know about because all of these people are related to me. You know, as a little girl, you get that impression,” Benedict said laughing. “The people here were just so caring and so loving, and they would bring you food.”
That family became even more important four years later when her father died of a massive heart attack while polishing church candlesticks. Rather than return to Pennsylvania, Benedict’s mother chose to stay in New Smyrna Beach because the Sacred Heart community was family. Benedict is still grateful for that decision.
Because she lived next to the church, her mother became godmother to many children. That is how Benedict met Carolyn Woolley. Not long after they met, Woolley’s mother died. Seven years after her father passed, Benedict’s mother and Woolley’s father married. “So, my best friend became my sister along with her two other sisters,” Benedict recalled. Woolley would eventually help spearhead the building of a new church.
Benedict married her husband, Joseph, and had four children. He converted to Catholicism after 40 years of marriage and was baptized the same day as their grandson, Dalton.
BLACK MISSION
Along with the Sacred Heart Church, a Black mission of the church operated out of Madonna House. It began with one family and grew. Three Sisters of the Christian Doctrine were brought from New York to serve. Many Redemptorist priests served the Black apostolate including Father Francis Donlan, the namesake of the street where Sacred Heart is located.
When Sacred Heart built a new church in 1956, the Black community moved into the little wooden church remnamed St. Rita’s Colored Mission. When segregation ended, St. Rita’s was incorporated into Sacred Heart in 1969. The wooden church became a clinic and daycare center until it was deeded to the Black Heritage Festival. It is now the Mary Herrell Black Heritage Museum.
Rudolph “Rudy” Thompson was just a young man going to Madonna House after school at the time. He recalled the religious sisters teaching him Latin and the faith. He became an altar server until he was 19 years old.
Although he moved away, he returned 30 years later to become an usher at Sacred Heart. He is the only active parishioner of the original Black community.
“The (Sisters) helped the church evangelizing,” he said. “My parents weren’t Catholic when Madonna House started, but eventually we all became Catholic.”
He recalled the kindness of Father John Radley, who prayed with him for a new home that might better fit his family of seven. Eventually, prayers were answered. Thompson also remembered Maggie Lovelace, a founder of St. Rita’s who served the priests for 30 years and became a Redemptorist Oblate.
“She kept you in line,” he laughed. Reminiscing about his journey at Sacred Heart he added, “I thank God for blessing us and having good priests.”
CHURCH, MISSION, SCHOOL AND MORE
In September 1961, Sacred Heart Catholic School opened with kindergarten and grades one to four. The Sisters of Mercy at Belmont, North Carolina, arrived one year later and added another grade each year until classes ran through eighth grade.
The old rectory on Riverside became St. Alphonsus Villa and exists to this day housing a dozen Redemptorist priests and a rectory was built next to the church.
Mary Ann Murray moved to the area with her family in the 1970s and became involved in parish life, helping organize the parish carnival and more. Today she is president of the parish council and coordinator of 100th anniversary events alongside Benedict and Katie Connor.
“Our whole family life really revolves around Sacred Heart. It’s just beautiful,” Murray said. “I find that if you share your faith, it comes back to you.”
Father John Tizio, Sacred Heart’s pastor, agreed. Arriving five years ago, he was a little unsure of how things would go. But he quickly fell in love with the people.
“I truly think it is God’s will and the work of the Holy Spirit that we are here today, still standing 100 years later,” he said. “Our main call as Redemptorists is to preach the Gospel — the Good News — to the poor and most abandoned. And in line with that, to proclaim the plenteous redemption that we have in Jesus. And doesn’t Sacred Heart proclaim that plenteous redemption, that plenteous love of God for us?”
That love is also displayed through the mission churches they’ve supported like Our Lady Star of the Sea in New Smyrna Beach which became a parish. Its current mission church is St. Gerard Mission in Edgewater, which was established in 1994.
“We’re all one parish. We’re one parish with two churches. So, they’re an extension of us and we of them,” Father Tizio said.
Bishop John Noonan will celebrate the 100th anniversary Mass, Nov. 14, 2026. In a letter he congratulated the parish saying, “I pray with gratitude for each one of you, for you are God’s heart; a true dwelling place of God. More than that, you recognize that the unity of God’s table is not just within the sacred space of the church building; but extends beyond its walls by the goodness of your daily living through, with and in God. You are the beauty of the Eucharist as your parish ministries serve the poor and needy, the meek and humble, and those who are sick. The formation of our young people in the Catholic faith is offered through your Catholic school and faith formation classes, as you attest to being light of the world.”
Watch a video on the history of Sacred Heart Parish here.
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