The enclosed pictures were taken at my midnight Mass celebrated in the South Sea Islands on Christmas, 1943, by Chaplain William J. Menster of the United States Navy.
Lt. William J. Menster, a priest of the Archdiocese of Dubuque now serving as a Navy chaplain "Somewhere in the South Pacific," in a letter to the Very Rev. Msgr. Dorance V. Foley, Chancellor of the Archdiocese, "recalled years ago as a youngster,…
“In 1902 the Catholics were numerous enough to buy the vacant Methodist Church in Little Turkey for $500 and Fathers John Broz and Peter Kloss blessed it. Father Joseph Dostal, pastor of Spillville and brother to the two Dostal founders, celebrated…
"Sylvia, where the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is located, was first called Sylvia, which is Latin for “the woods.” When the narrow gauge railroad came to the little town in 1879, it became Sylvia Switch, and was sometimes…