Smash it down and scrap it. Remove all vestiges of the past. That’s the collective stance we’ve taken with respect to many of Waterville’s historic sites.

When the wrecking ball demolished the Elmwood Hotel, a wonderful Victorian landmark that drew tourists and conventioneers from all over, we stood silently by. Later, we turned a blind eye when the old Colby College Science building was razed; and we’ve let “old 470” rust away in a train yard.

Now the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland is poised to take down St. Francis de Sales Church, a 138-year-old structure established and funded at great sacrifice by its first parishioners.

Waterville is becoming a community without a past, a town of big box stores, strip malls, and flat-topped churches — not unlike the rest of America.

Go to Europe and history will surround you. In Ireland, tourists come in droves to wander through ancient forts fallen to ruin, but preserved as national treasures.

In France, visitors of all denominations are struck by the beauty and grandeur of churches 1,000 years old. The French may have turned away from religion, but they have not forgotten those who created these megaliths of worship, these great symbols of man’s search to find meaning and purpose in life.

Here in America, however, the value of history seems lost to most. How many kids of Franco-American descent know that some of the first Francos to arrive here walked from Canada to Waterville via the old Kennebec Road hauling all their earthly belongings in wooden carts?

Who knows about the rabbis with long flowing beards who came by train from New York to Waterville (when passenger trains stopped here) and walked up Ticonic Street to visit with the kind Rabbi Hains? Who knows about the Irish orphans brought here from the Boston Home for Destitute Children and taken in by loving Franco families?

And who knows about the first Lebanese to arrive here? They fled the biases of of their homeland to settle in a place where they could raise their children and worship their God in peace. They found a home here in Waterville and in those first years, with no church of their own, worshipped at St. Francis Church, as did the first Irish immigrants.

The peaceful melding of people of different faiths and tongues in this once-green valley is the story of America in microcosm. Here in Waterville we had our biases, but we found ways to settle our differences without guns, stones or firebombs, and in time, even came to respect and love one another.

The folks at the diocese say they can’t afford to support St. Francis de Sales Church and so must rid themselves of the burden of maintaining the building. Tor those of us whose ancestors sacrificed to build the church, however, the thought of their handiwork being subjected to the wrecking ball is distressing.

If Bishop Richard Malone cares to build goodwill among those of us whose faith has been greatly diminished in recent years, he should consider meeting with folks in this area to discuss a possible alternative course of action. Indeed, given the involvement of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in the project, some have questioned whether public comment has yet to be properly solicited.

Thanks to Waterville Main Street, the city still has several buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. St. Francis de Sales Church should be added to the list.

I would ask that we all consider the historic and economic value of converting the church to a cultural center celebrating the city’s diversity. The center could highlight the stories of those who struggled to build the church as well as the stories of their Irish, Lebanese and Jewish brothers and sisters: the itinerant peddlers, millhands and lumberjacks who came here in search of a better life and whose sons and daughters grew to become teachers, lawyers and doctors.

A place dedicated to telling the story of a people who — despite their cultural and linguistic differences — joined hands to help make this city and state what it is today would serve as a permanent reminder of who we are as a people and how we got here.

An old Sioux proverb says it best: “A people without history is like wind on the buffalo grass.”

Marilyn Canavan was as a state representative and a director of Maine’s Ethics Commission. She and her husband, Robert, have five children and six grandchildren.