Browse Items (254 total)

"The second half of the nineteenth century saw many immigrants come to Iowa from the Slavic areas of Europe. A large portion of them settled in Cedar Rapids and along the rail lines extending from Cedar Rapids to Marshalltown. Czechs built the first…

“The third pastor, Father Henry H. Forkenbrock, stayed for five years and saw to the building of the rectory and improvements in the church. In 1902 he equipped the second floor of the 1900 rectory with schoolrooms. Since Sisters were not available…

“Saint Boniface Parish traces its beginning to the first Mass offered in the village of New Vienna by Bishop Mathias Loras on Jan. 6, 1846. They were a community of 17 German families who had settled along the North Fork of the Maquoketa River…

"The first settlers in Bluffton Township, Winneshiek County, arrived in 1851. The Catholics among them were the families of Michael Gelice, Terrence McDonnell, Charles McLaughlin, and Barney Sutton. Before any church could be built visiting…

"Bishop Clement Smyth sent missionaries to the area in the 1860s. They celebrated Mass in homes and in the church at Christian Prairie. Father John Sheils established Saint Bridget in 1868, when Michael McClaskey donated two acres for the site of the…

"The French and Irish settlers who arrived in that part of the county before 1870 were visited by priests from Prairie du Chien who crossed the Mississippi into Iowa and used the military road. In the late 1860s the Catholic pioneers in Postville…

"Saint Catherine Parish, about eight miles south of Dubuque, bean in 1851 with the building of a log church on land donated by two settlers, Anthoy Noel and Hubert Rider. Before that, Mass was celebrated occasionally in the home of John Noel, three…

"In 1899 Father Henry C. Eckhart came from the Gilbert parish north of Ames to celebrate the first Masses in Ames. The Catholic pioneers used the William Kingkade home and a grove on the John Meyers farm, and later Read’s Hall in downtown Ames.…

"The present church was built in 1898 under the direction of Father William Banfield, who served as pastor from 1893 to 1953. Legend has it he served all those years without an official appointment. Father Banfield saw the small town spring up across…

Historical documents pertaining to Saint Clements parish in Eagle Center, Iowa, including information on its priests and parishioners.