The Church on the Hill: Religious Entities in the American Midwest

Donlon, Regina

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-78738-1_7

Regina Donlon²

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Abstract

The principal focus of this chapter is religion. The chapter begins by detailing the importance of the immigrant church and identifying the various denominations that embodied the religious experience of the German and Irish immigrant communities in St Louis and Fort Wayne. It then takes into consideration the emergence and significance of national parishes in the immigrant context and uses immigrant stories to highlight the importance of those parishes in the development and preservation of an ethnic identity. The final part of the chapter emphasizes the role of the church in developing communal infrastructures and examines how the immigrant church, whether Catholic or Lutheran, was essential in helping to create a sense of community and ethnic identity for both immigrant communities.

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Notes

1.
Brief History of the Saxon Immigration, 1838, Saxon Immigration Papers, M-0015/1/47/3, Concordia Historical Institute, St Louis.
2.
Account of Arrival at the Port of New Orleans, January 21, 1839, Theoador Brohm Diary, Saxon Immigration Papers, M-0015/1/23/19, Concordia Historical Institute, St Louis.
3.
Ibid.
4.
Judith W. Meyer, “Ethnicity, Theology and Immigrant Church Expansion,” Geographical Review 65, no. 2 (1975): 180.
5.
For more discussion on fragmentation in the German immigrant community, see David Peterson, “‘From Bone Depth’—German American Communities in Rural Minnesota Before the Great War,” Journal of American Ethnic History 11 (1992): 45.
6.
Kevin Kenny, The American Irish: A History (New York : Routledge, 2000), 113.
7.
Kathleen Neils-Conzen, “Immigrant Religion and the Republic: German Catholics in Nineteenth Century America” (Edmund Spevack Memorial Lecture, Harvard University, November 7, 2003), GHI Bulletin 35 (2004): 45.
8.
Jay P. Dolan, The Immigrant Church : New York ’s Irish and German Catholics, 1815−1865 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), 69.
9.
Jay P. Dolan, The Irish Americans: A History (New York : Bloomsbury Press, 2008), 111−12.
10.
William Barnaby Faherty, St Louis Irish: An Unmatched Celtic Community (St Louis: Missouri History Museum Press, 2001), 27; Jay P. Dolan, The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present (Notre Dame: Galilee, 1992), 165.
11.
Meyer, “Ethnicity,” 181.
12.
Dolan, The Irish Americans, 116; Kenny, American Irish, 113.
13.
Jon Gjerde, “Conflict and Community as a Case Study of the Immigrant Church in the United States,” Journal of Social History 19 (1986): 681.
14.
Dolan, The American Catholic Experience, 162.
15.
Rev. John Rothensteiner, History of the Archdiocese of St Louis: In Its Various Stages of Development from A.D. 1673 to A.D. 1928 (St Louis: Blackwell Wielandy, 1923), 197.
16.
Dolan, The Immigrant Church , 67.
17.
For more see: Neils-Conzen, “Immigrant Religion,” 46.
18.
Audrey L. Olson, “St Louis Germans, 1850−1920: The Nature of an Immigrant Community and Its Relation to the Assimilation Process” (PhD diss. University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, 1970), 117. She characterizes the Evangelicals as ‘liberal in comparison to the Lutherans’, who were the most conservative in their doctrinal beliefs and codes of conduct.
19.
From the 1830s through to the 1850s there was an extreme shortage of ministers to preach to remote congregations in the Midwest and on the frontier. Although many congregations were formed, there were too few pastors to cater to their spiritual needs on a regular basis. Edmund Wolf’s 1890 treatise on Lutheranism in America suggested that there were only 850 pastors in the whole of the United States in 1853. At that time, the Lutheran church consisted of approximately 200,000 communicants from various nationalities. See Edmund Jacob Wolf, The Lutherans in America: A Story of Struggle, Progress, Influence and Marvellous Growth (New York : J. A. Hill, 1890), 524.
20.
Ibid.
21.
Peterson, “From Bone Depth,” 43.
22.
By 1889, Wolf estimated that there were five individual synodical groupings. Of those, the Synodical Conference, the General Synod, and the General Council were the most popular. Wolf also recorded an unspecified number of independent synods which consisted of 2562 congregations and over 250,000 members by the end of the nineteenth century. Wolf, The Lutherans in America, 523.
23.
Meyer, “Ethnicity,” 180−97.
24.
Mary Todd, Authority Vested: A Story of Identity and Change in the Lutheran Church –Missouri Synod (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000), 77.
25.
“Friedrich Augustus Brunn,” in Christian Cyclopedia, ed. Erwin L. Lueker, Luther Poellot, and Paul Jackson, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, accessed July 4, 2013, http://cyclopedia.lcms.org/display.asp?t1=b&word=brunn.friedrichaugust.
26.
C. F. W. Walther, Biographical Note, Carl Ferdin and Wilhelm Walther (1811−1887) Papers c.1828−1887, M-0004/1/1/3, Concordia Historical Institute, St Louis.
27.
Ibid.
28.
Ernst D. Kargau, The German Element in St Louis, ed. Don Tolzman (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2000), 202.
29.
Ibid.
30.
Todd, Authority Vested, 75.
31.
Elizabeth Sihler, “Dr Wilhelm Sihler —Memories,” 1832, Wilhelm Sihler Collection, 1801−1937, M-0019/1/36/2, Concordia Historical Institute, St Louis.
32.
Jim Sack, “The Germans,” in History of Fort Wayne and Allen County , Indiana, 1700−2005, ed. John Beatty and Phylis Robb (Fort Wayne: M.T. Publishing Company, 2005), 688.
33.
Ibid.
34.
For more see: Giles Hoyt, “Germans,” in Peopling Indiana: The Ethnic Experience, ed. Robert M. Taylor and Connie A. McBirney (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society Press, 1996), 164.
35.
Sack, “The Germans,” 681.
36.
“Appointment card of Fr Franz Gollar ,” St Peter and Paul’s Collection, RG7B/78/3/1, Archdiocese of St Louis Archives, St Louis.
37.
Rothensteiner, History of the Archdiocese of St Louis, 107.
38.
Kargau, The German Element, 205.
39.
Dolan, St Louis Irish, 27.
40.
Ibid.
41.
“Commemoration Booklet of Old St Patrick’s Picnic, June 18, 1938,” Old St Patrick’s Collection, RG4B/76/7/5, Archdiocese of St Louis Archives, St Louis.
42.
Faherty, The St Louis Irish, 49.
43.
Letter from Rev. John Maher to Rev. Peter Richard Kenrick , October 21, 1851, St Bridget of Erin Collection, RG4B/41/3/2, Archdiocese of St Louis Archives, St Louis.
44.
Parish history of St Bridget of Erin, St Bridget of Erin Collection, RG4B/41/4/2, Archdiocese of St Louis Archives, St Louis.
45.
Ibid.
46.
Newspaper extract from St Louis Register, undated, St Bridget of Erin Collection, RG4B/41/4/1, Archdiocese of St Louis Archives, St Louis, St Bridget of Erin Parish Account of Parochial School , 1879, St Bridget of Erin Collection, RG4B/41/3/7, Archdiocese of St Louis Archives, St Louis.
47.
William B. Faherty, The St Louis German Catholics (St Louis: Reedy Press, 2004), 11.
48.
Rothensteiner, History of the Archdiocese of St Louis, 223.
49.
History of St Mary’s Parish, Fort Wayne, St Mary’s Parish Collection, St Mary’s FW/1/6/2, Diocese of Fort Wayne Archives, Fort Wayne.
50.
Ibid.
51.
Ibid.
52.
History of St Mary’s Parish, Fort Wayne, St Mary’s Parish Collection, St Mary’s FW/1/6/5, Diocese of Fort Wayne Archives, Fort Wayne.
53.
Appointment Card of Fr John Oechtering , Priests Collection, Fr Oechtering File, Diocese of Fort Wayne Archives, Fort Wayne.
54.
Ibid.
55.
Appointment Card of Fr Joseph Delaney , Priests collection, Fr Delaney File, Diocese of Fort Wayne Archives, Fort Wayne.
56.
Will Cumback and J. B. Maynard, eds., Men of Progress, Indiana: A Selected List of Biographical Sketches and Portraits of the Leaders in Business, Professional and Official Life (Indianapolis: The Indianapolis Sentinel Company, 1899), 221−22.
57.
Appointment Card of Fr Joseph Delaney , Priests collection, Fr Delaney File, Diocese of Fort Wayne Archives, Fort Wayne.
58.
Ibid.
59.
.Ibid.
60.
St Catherine’s Academy News, January 1935, St Patrick’s Parish Collection, St Patrick’s FW, Diocese of Fort Wayne Archives, Fort Wayne.
61.
Jean Suelzer Streicher, “St Patrick’s Parish ,” in History of Fort Wayne and Allen County , Indiana, 1700−2005, ed. John Beatty and Phylis Robb (Fort Wayne: M.T. Publishing Company, 2005), 200.
62.
Timothy Walch, “Catholic Social Institutions and Social Development: The View from Nineteenth Century Chicago and Milwaukee,” The Catholic Historical Review 64 (1978): 16−17.
63.
Walter Barlow Stevens, St Louis: History of the Fourth City, 1763−1909 (St Louis: S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1909), 493.
64.
Indiana Gazette, April 25, 1982.
65.
Joseph M. White, Worthy of the Gospel of Christ: A History of the Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend (Fort Wayne: Our Sunday Visitor, 2007), 112.
66.
Regina Faden, “The German St Vincent Orphan Home: The Institution and its Role in the German Immigrant Community of St Louis, 1850−1960” (PhD thesis, St Louis University, 2000), 139.
67.
Ibid.
68.
Centennial booklet of SS Peter and Paul’s Parish , SS Peter and Paul’s Collection, RG7B/78/5/5, Archdiocese of St Louis Archives, St Louis.
69.
Ibid.
70.
St Catherine’s Academy News, January 1935, St Patrick’s Parish Collection, St Patrick’s FW, Diocese of Fort Wayne Archives, Fort Wayne.
71.
Annual Statement of the Temporal Affairs of St Bridget’s Church and Parochial School , 1872, St Bridget of Erin Collection, RG4B/41/3/1, Archdiocese of St Louis Archives, St Louis.
72.
Ibid.
73.
Ibid.
74.
Dolan, American Catholics, 251; Kenny, American Irish, 115.
75.
Golden Jubilee Booklet—St Carolous Barromaeus Unterschutzungs Verein von St Mary’s Church , 1860−1910, St Mary’s Church Collection, St Mary’s FW, Diocese of Fort Wayne Archives, Fort Wayne.
76.
Ibid.
77.
John Ankenbruck and Colleen Lee, St Mary’s Catholic Church : Dedicated to Mary, Mother of God, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 150 Years, 1848−1998 (Fort Wayne: St Mary’s Parish, 1998), 30−31.
78.
St Bridget’s Purgatorian Society Membership Certificate, 1869, St Bridget of Erin Collection, RG4B/41/6/2, Archdiocese of St Louis Archives, St Louis.
79.
Ibid.
80.
Faherty, St Louis German Catholics, 15.

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Maynooth University, Maynooth, Kildare, Ireland
Regina Donlon

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Donlon, R. (2018). The Church on the Hill: Religious Entities in the American Midwest. In: German and Irish Immigrants in the Midwestern United States, 1850–1900. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78738-1_7

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78738-1_7
Published: 30 June 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-78737-4
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