Blanche Mouledoux Comiskey, a longtime Preservation Resource Center volunteer who spearheaded the annual Stained Glass Art in Sacred Places Tour for three decades and helped to save St. Alphonsus Church from the wrecking ball, died Aug. 8. She was 94.
Comiskey started the PRC’s twice-yearly Stained Glass Tour with Susan Levy in 1989. It grew from dozens of attendees to hundreds before the last tour in 2019.
The Stained Glass Tour led Comiskey and Levy to begin a decades-long process to save St. Alphonsus Church, which was built for Irish and English Catholic immigrants between 1855 and 1857 but faced demolition after it fell out of use in 1979.
In 1990, they featured the vacant church in the 2000 block of Constance Street on the tour.
After learning about the demolition threat and viewing the intricate interior with its crumbling 19th-century frescoes, they founded the Friends of St. Alphonsus and petitioned the Archdiocese of New Orleans to lease the building to the nonprofit for $100 a year.
While it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, Comiskey helped get it named a National Historic Landmark in 1996.
“We are thrilled beyond words,” Comiskey told The Times-Picayune after the designation. “We have worked to make the church not just a landmark but a living landmark.”
Comiskey saw the Historic District Landmarks Commission nominate the church as a New Orleans landmark in April 2024.
“The Irish imported the best artisans from Europe they could, and we have tried to keep up the repair that is necessary for this beautiful former church to be saved and used as an educational venue for the citizens of New Orleans,” she told the HDLC before it voted in favor of the nomination.
Comiskey is survived by her 11 children, 27 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.
