Browse Items (3180 total)

"Under Father Murphy’s guidance 21 families collected $1,285 in 1877 for a parish church. They put up a small frame building about a mile west of the present town, on two acres donated by Ben Welp. On December 8, 1879, Father Murphy celebrated the…

“Immaculate Conception Parish came into existence early in the history of the archdiocese because the town of Lansing in northeast Iowa was an important trading and shipping center on the great waterway of the Mississippi. The Catholics in that…

“The early Irish settlers […] were cared for by Father John Gosker of Independence, fifteen miles to the west. Mass in home or school continued until they built a church holding eight pews. Two ladies of the parish deserve the credit for getting…

“North Buena Vista clings to the hillsides of the great river, which often offered better transportation than the twisting valley roads. While Father Garrett T. Nagle was pastor of Holy Cross, 24 families pledged support for a small frame church,…

“North Washington in Chickasaw County was established as a trading center in the early 1850s. As the number of settlers increased, they saw a need for a church. Then the death of a child was the occasion for Paul Roethler to donate a portion of…

"Father James Saunders directed the building of the New Haven church and then saw to the building of the Riceville church. In the early spring of 1879 funds were collected by Pat Mulick and John Dargan. Among those who were generous toward the…

"The first Catholics bought a stone church built by the Sand Springs Baptists at the beginning of Civil War and closed for ten or more years. The church was dedicated to the Mother of God under her title of the Immaculate Conception. The first…

“In 1892 the Catholic pioneers judged their numbers were sufficient to build a church. That year they raised some money by means of a fair in the Cass Opera House. In August they began hauling rocks for the foundation. The church was a white frame…

“The Catholic Church in Benton County began with the deeding of two sections of prairie near Keystone, Iowa, to the University of Notre Dame in Indiana in January 1863. Francis Murphy, a Benton county pioneer, gave those 1,280 acres in return for…

“Immaculate Conception Parish owes its origin to Father Thomas Hore, a native of the parish of Our Lady’s Island in County Wexford, Ireland. His life would be good material for an interesting saga. Father Hore, born in 1796, completed his…