History of our current Church
Building

April 4, 1921

A meeting of all the parishioners was held. It had been announced before hand that we would have election of TRUSTEES AND BUILDING COMMITTEE. Up to this time there was only ONE trustee. All people of the parish were to vote for six men. These seven men received the most votes and were declared TRUSTEES AND BUILDING COMMITTEE by a vote of all parishioners, Louis Meyer, Martin Kopmann, Frank Meyer, Henry Hellmann, Oscar Holtmeyer, Conrad Laune and C.S. Buchanan. The question was first brought up how much the church should cost. The Archbishop was consulted and he gave as his opinion that this parish ought to have a church that would cost at least $25,000.

August 21, 1921

Another meeting of all the parishioners was held with the architect and orders were given to change the angle of the roof. Make it steeper and change the design of the wooden ceiling. The pastor had been trying to get an idea of really what kind of wooden ceiling was wanted. Many churches were visited, and finally the architects were given an idea of just what was wanted and they were told to draw a design of this certain kind of ceiling. No one wanted a plastered ceiling as you cannot get away from cracks in the plaster. We wanted as little plaster as possible in the building.

August 23, 1921

The plans were accepted and corrected to our ideas. Now the real job of finding rocks for the building was going on. Almost every Sunday the parishioners were invited to go to some place we had heard of and investigate the rock at that place. During the week all were asked to look in their neighborhood for suitable rock for building. This began to get very discouraging. Meanwhile we had been getting prices on brick, but that also was very high and after all a brick building would be only a “pile of bricks”. The thought in the minds of all by this time was that they wanted to do “something different”. Wanted to have something that the other one has not.” The idea came “Why not place the cause in the hands if the Poor Souls to find rocks for us.” But as one of the men put it to us, “Trust in the Lord, but keep your powder dry.” So they all kept on with the search for rocks. In cold print this sounds queer. Rocks ought to be easy to get. They were. And it is surprising how much rock could be gotten, but we wanted good rock, and enough of one kind from one quarry.

October 19-20-21, 1921

Hauled gravel for cemetery road. True to our promise to help the poor souls if they would help us, we wanted to do it first. So we decided to make a road to our own cemetery so that our people could visit the graves of their own dear departed. The old road was eight feet wide and practically impassible even with a wagon, cars could hardly go over that road in the summer. Twenty feet of land was given to the church and deeded over to the church. Telephone poles were moved back, the big road grader was used, trees cut down and a culvert made, and 156 loads of gravel hauled on this road. So now it is in very good shape and it can be traveled in the worst kind of weather. That was our favor to the Poor Souls, now they were to return us our request. But October passed and November came and almost all the people lost faith in finding rocks.

November 21, 1921

Monday the architect with two stone experts came and the trustees, with the pastor, went a real rock hunt. WE all went to about 4 or 5 places where we thought we had seen the best rock. But either too hard to get out or too many “drys”, or too far to haul. We finally went to George Meyer’s pasture. There is an old quarry that was used to get rock for road building. This was to be our last stand. The men all by this time, had decided we could get no rock. Whilst theconsultation was going on about a brick building, two men with the pastor went into the woods. No one knows why, nor where they were going, and behold, in a little “branch” the water had worn away a rock and exposed a nice layer. One of the men hit this rock with a hammer, and it looked very good. They three of us shouted to the rest of the men to come and see what we had found. All declared the rock looked good. Several men began to dig in further, and to go down the branch a little ways and we were sure we would have enough rock right there for the whole church. Great jubilation. A committee was sent to ask George Meyer if he would let us quarry there. George Meyer is one of our own parishioners. The permission was granted. A man was hired and paid to quarry this rock and furnish tools, and our own men were to “strip” the quarry. So it was a pure case of the Poor Souls helping us to find this quarry. The Poor Souls paid us back for being kind to them. To the Poor Souls is full credit given for finding this quarry for us. We “Trusted in the Lord and kept our powder dry,” but the powder ran out and the Lord through the intercession of the Poor Souls proved to us that “if we have faith we can move mountains”. Faith moved this mountain of rocks for us. All the men worked and worked hard and if it were not for their faith this small congregation would never have been able to build this church. We could not pay men to work for us. It would have been impossible first of all to get together so much money, and what was worse we could only get a few to work for us, and they would not work long, and certainly, would not have endured the hardships our own men endured. All this was done for the Love of God.

December 28, 1921

The architect came up from the city and a meeting with the trustees was held concerning getting lumber for the new church building. All went to the woods of some of the farmers and looked at trees. May fine sturdy oaks were found. It was decided if we could find enough white oak trees all the lumber to be used in the building would be of this wood. (White oak is what pianos are made of.) Of course nothing but the best would be good enough for the house of God in New Haven. We spent the day looking at trees in different localities and enough was promised us, so it was decided that only white oak should be used, only the very best trees were to be taken. If a tree was found defective, after being cut down, the wood was not used as lumber.