"Saint Martin Parish and Saint Mary Parish sprang from one parish named Saint Mathias to provide for the language difference of the early settlers of this Dubuque County area. For a long time Saint Martin's was the Irish parish and Saint Mary's the…
"Michael J. Quirk and Father Michael Lynch were the first priests to visit the Greeley area to care for the early Catholic settlers in the 1860s. On those occasions the James Fitzpatrick home became a temporary chapel for the Greeley and Edgewood…
"Chester had a post office as early as 1858, but it was only in 1916 that Catholics had their first church. With the help of Father John P. Wagner of Assumption Parish in Cresco, they bought the Presbyterian church for $1,500. In 1919 Father Edward…
"Saint Joseph Parish in Dubuque was formally established by Archbishop Henry P. Rohlman on November 1, 1949, after the archdiocesan consultors had reviewed the area census of Catholics. Msgr. Michael J. Martin was immediately named the founding…
"Saint Joseph Parish, Dysart, probably began as a triple-town parish. In 1937 Father James F. Delay wrote in a parish history, on November 11, 1878, Father P. Kenny was appointed the first resident pastor of Vinton, Dysart and Traer.” At that time…
"In Tama County, famed for Czech pioneers and parishes, one of the early churches was Saint Wenceslaus in Carroll Township. As its location is about a mile and a half west of the town of Clutier. Saint Wenceslaus Church was built in 1899 and blessed…
“In 1880, after the church was closed for ten years, Bishop Hennessy assigned Saint Joseph Church to the care of the Protivin pastor, ten miles away. The Jesuits of Prairie du Chien gave them spiritual care in the 1880s. And Father Francis X. Boeding…
"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…
"Father John M. Wolfe was appointed pastor of Sacred Heart Parish, Maquoketa, February 1913, in his eighth year of the priesthood. He set about the spiritual and material development of this county seat parish. He soon gave attention to the Catholics…