O'NEILL - St. Patrick's Parish and its school here, which had been facing the strain of staff reductions, have received gifts totaling $926,000 within the space of a few weeks.

"You can imagine my amazement and joy," the Rev. Mark Filips wrote in the church bulletin. "I have seen how the Holy Spirit has positively affected our parish in these challenging times."

The 2000-member Catholic parish has an annual budget of $1,155,000. Of that, $600,000 goes to St. Mary's High School and $380,000 to St. Mary's Elementary School.

The new gifts have been added to a $4 million endowment fund, which means the annual earnings should increase from $260,000 to $320,000, according to Filips.

He said the new gifts to the foundation "generous as they are would not have been enough for the years ahead if we had not right-sized" - meaning bringing expenses in line with income and adjusting staff size.

IN EARLIER YEARS, the faculty was made up primarily of Franciscan teaching sisters. But within the last 20 years, fewer sisters have been available and secular teachers have had to be hired, driving up costs.

In the past decade, Filips said the parish successfully completed the Save Our School campaign, raising $1.5 million from 1990-95; the Vision campaign, raising $1.1 million from 1995-2000; and the Challenge 2000 campaign, raising $875,000.

"Even in times that could be described as difficult, and with plenty of other proposed building projects going on in O'Neill, our Challenge 2000 campaign went over the goal by at least $125,000," he said.

And that was in no small part due to the unexpected influx of donations.

THE GITFS include the largest single donation to the church in its 125 year history, $816,000 from Mona Melvin Shelton. Others are $10,000 from the John and Wynona Cleary estate and $100,000 from Leo and Eileen O'Malley Dowd.

Larry Cleary, a 1958 graduate of St. Mary's whose family has lived in Holt County all their lives, said they never missed church, no matte what the weather was like.

His brother, Richard, and sister, Barbara, also graduated from St. Mary's, but his mother was a convert who joined the church when she married his father.

"Dad also didn't graduate ," Larry Cleary said,. "He quit in eighth grade -- times were tough and he had to work."

Mrs. Dowd is a 1933 graduate of St. Mary's. She and her husband had previously pledged $400,000 to the Save Our Schools Campaign in the 1990's that enabled St. Mary's to stay open.

She remembers many of the Catholic teachers who influenced the lives of her five sisters and three brothers, as well as her own seven children, with great affection. She is especially grateful t Sister Mary Dolores, who taught normal training so that she and other young women could teach in country grade schools right out of high school.

"St. Mary's was a really important part of my life," Mrs. Dowd said. "I'm grateful and proud that I'm a graduate."

THE LARGEST bequest of all came from Mona Melvin Shelton of St. Louis, a 1934 graduate who died in 1998. Mrs. Shelton, by way of her estate, designated $408,000 to the school and another $408,000 to the church.

Jeanne McCarthy Gonderinger of O'Neill, who was school friend of Mrs. Shelton's, remembers their teachers, Sister Mary Maxine, who was a "wonderful art teacher who had a great influence on many of us."

Mrs. Shelton went on to study dress design at St. Louis University before marrying Harry Shelton Jr. They adopted three children from Ireland -- Peter, Sheila and Anne.

But tragedy befell the family in 1976 when Harry was murdered by a mugger on New Year's Eve. The mugger also shot a police officer before he was apprehended, said her son, Peter.

After his father was killed, Peter said his mother earned her real estate license and became "a major player" in the restoration of the historic Soulard District in southern St. Louis near the university.

"She has a soft spot in her heart for O'Neill, where she had a good childhood," he said. "She was always a devout Catholic."