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Historical documents pertaining to the history of Saint John XXIII parish in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

"Saint John Parish in the Benton County town of Blairstown came into being in 1945 as a mission of Saint Patrick Parish in Watkins, only five and a half miles away. Father Nicholas U. Keffeler, pastor of Watkins, recognized the prospects for a parish…

"A basement for the future church was completed in 1870 and was used for Mass and other services until 1885, when the Gothic style brick church was completed on that early foundation. This building was damaged twice by fires. In 1968 a tornado almost…

““In 1853-54 I offered Mass in Cedar Rapids,” wrote Father Mathias Hannon of Iowa City. “I was the first priest to say Mass there.” The Mass Father Hannon celebrated in the Dubuque House, a small hotel, was the beginning of Immaculate Conception…

"In 1875 Timothy Ahern arranged with Father Daniel H. Murphy of Ossian to come to Calmar twice a month to celebrate Mass, at first in the Ahern home and then in the public school at three dollars a month rent. Father Murphy made the trip to Calmar by…

"The growth of Cedar Rapids in the 1940s prompted Archbishop Henry P. Rohlman to establish a parish in the southeast quarter of the city in 1947. He appointed Father Bernard G. Collins pastor of the new parish, which was named All Saints. There were…

"Saint Peter’s in Sabula is another of those parishes than can point the 1840s for its beginning. The Catholic Almanac of 1842 lists the river town about forty miles south of Dubuque as Charleston and as a “station,” that, as a place where Mass was…

"As early as 1854 Mass was celebrated in Waterloo by priests who traveled the area to provide pastoral care to the scattered communities of Catholic pioneers. In 1861 trustees of the newly formed Saint Joseph Parish bought two lots on the east side…

"Archbishop John J. Keane in 1902 directed the pastor of Rockwell, Father Lawrence H. Burns, to build a church in the town of Swaledale in Cerro Gordo County. In the previous ten years Father Garrett T. Nagle had frequently visited the area from his…

"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…