St. Joseph’s History
The following history of our parish comes from a booklet entitled, St. Charles Heritage and was written by Sandy Hense, who presumably was a parishioner at the time.
Our current Parish Pastor, Msgr. Callahan, completed the history of our parish where Sandy’s history ends. In the meantime, a few additions have been added to her writings, by a special historical church committee as well as the help of parishioners who shared many items to make our history complete.
The town of Cottleville is the oldest in St. Charles County. As far back as 1800, a group of houses existed near the spot where the old Boonslick Road crosses the Dardenne Creek, about ten miles southwest of St. Charles. This road at one time was an Indian trail and later was one of the major highways leading westward through Missouri for covered wagons, and stage and mail coaches. Largely as a result of travelers getting stranded when the creek overflowed over the road, small places of businesses began to open. The town was established by Lorenzo Cottle in 1839 who received 700 acres from his father upon his death as an inheritance. Lorenzo dedicated 200 acres in his father’s honor naming the land Cottleville.
In 1864, the Civil War was nearing its end. The Catholics of Cottleville, numbering about 35 families, were enthusiastic about getting organized to form a parish of their own. They had been attending All Saints Parish in St. Peters when the road was impassable from the Dardenne Creek. In this event, they would travel to a Catholic Church in St. Charles, or a priest from St. Peters, Father Wapelhorst, would try to make it out and hold services in an old farmhouse.
But it became evident that Cottleville needed a parish of its own. Fr. Wapelhorst appointed two local men to get money donated and pledges from the community and an acre of land was purchased. Soon plans were made for a brick church. Windows and doors were purchased from St. Lawrence O’Toole’s Church at a cost of $100 and the native limestone foundation was laid.
With bricks, sand and lumber on hand, winter set in unexpectedly and the work was halted. When Fr. Wapelhorst was transferred to Wisconsin to assume duties as a professor in January, the newly appointed pastor of St. Peters felt he was unable to take on the added responsibility of Cottleville. As a result, dissension arose among the members of the young congregation and the work on the building was abandoned. During the next nine years, several attempts were made to persuade the Catholics to reorganize, but without success, largely due to the financial strain on all but a few of the local families. Two priests had spent a short time there, but both moved on to thriving parishes.
In March 1873, Fr. Henry Deimel was sent to organize the parish. He had the farm house repaired and renovated, painted, and church furniture put in. He purchased a set of books for recording baptisms, marriages, deaths, etc. In June of the same year, he left unexpectedly.
In July 1873, Benedictine Monk, Fr. Eberhardt Gahr was assigned to carry on where Fr. Deimel left off. He visited each family and obtained pledges for a new church amounting to more than $1,500.00. He ordered 30,000 bricks and in August he became ill with malaria, prevalent in those times. He had to leave the parish and Catholics lost confidence in their priests. The order for bricks was canceled.
Success came at last in the spring of 1874, after five leading men of Cottleville, known as the Parish Founders, John Buse, Sr, Anton Hoester, Francis Menne, George Pfaft and Bernard Mennemeyer went to St. Louis and made an agreement with Archbishop Kenrick to build a church and residence for a priest. At the time, over $2,000 was pledged for the new church, so work was started and it was completed in six months with the hard work of many local men. It had the look of a large two-story, wood frame house with the church located upstairs and the living quarters for the priest on the ground floor. It was dedicated on August 23, 1874 and Fr. Ferdinand Bormeier, OSB, dedicated the Church.
The first church was dedicated on August 23, 1874
For the next two years, Franciscan priests traveled by train from St. Louis to St. Peters and then by horse and wagon, first to Dardenne to say Mass and then to Cottleville. One elderly priest nearly collapsed at the altar after the journey in the heat of the summer. The very First Holy Communion class was held in 1875 or 1876 and consisted of only two young ladies, probably 16 years of age.
Then in 1876, Fr. Joseph Riesdorff became the first resident priest. He was only 37 years old and often visited families in their homes and engaged a school teacher to take care of the school, direct the choir, and play the organ for divine services. The parish grew rapidly under him. His fluent use of German was a great asset since most people spoke German in the area.
As the parish grew, Father Riesdorff was able to purchase two large bells in 1877, which were hung in a bell tower erected near the entrance of the church. He named them St. Joseph and John the Baptist. (These same bells are mounted in the steeple in our current church today.) After ten years of service, Father Riesdorff asked to be relieved of his duties when some local Protestants objected to his playing cards and drinking beer on Sunday with parish families.
No services were held for almost three years until Fr. Hundhausen, an elderly priest living in retirement in St. Peters, took over. He brought along with him many liturgical customs of his native Germany including, during Holy Week, the Tenebrae Corpus Christi which encompassed long processions, a brass band and booming cannons. He taught school himself. While out on a sick call one night, he was thrown out of his buggy when his horse was frightened and he sustained an injury which incapacitated him. He had to retire.
Our parish was then blessed with Fr. Julias Schultz, who stayed for nine years. He was rather quiet and remained until December 1909 and then the parish was closed until November 1910.
Eventually, Fr. Herman Striewe came and served fifteen years until 1925. The parish had steadily grown and the old two-story church was no longer adequate. The upstairs church was extremely hot in the summer and terribly cold in the winter and it was very hard to carry coffins up the long stairway. The dream of a brick church was finally realized in 1925 during Fr. Striewe’s pastorate. The men of the parish again worked hard on the new building. They kept their horses busy hauling gravel from the creek and material from the railroad stations. The inside was very ornate with scrolled woodwork and lifelike statues.
The brick church was built in 1925
The next pastor, Fr. Range, came in 1925 and oversaw the building of a six-room rectory for the priest in 1926 during his seven-year service at the parish.
Nearly seventy years after its beginning in a farmhouse, St. Joseph Parish entered its longest period of pastoral stability when, in 1932, Fr. William Pezold arrived.
Shortly after his arrival, he obtained the teaching service of three Sisters of the Most Precious Blood from O’Fallon, Missouri. The first church of 1874 was renovated, with the upper floor serving as the living quarters for the sisters and two classrooms on the ground floor.
After six years, the classrooms of the old building became too small for the increasing enrollment. So, with the help of the Catholic Rural Life Conference and contributions from parishioners and friends, a new school was erected in 1938. It could accommodate 160 students in the upper classrooms. Downstairs was a spacious hall with a seating capacity of 325. It was used for lunch and a play area in the wintertime.
The first school was built in 1938
Another priest, Fr. Svehla, came out of retirement in 1942 at the age of seventy to join Fr. Pezold. Together, the priests founded the Parish of Immaculate Heart of Mary in New Melle in 1945. They took care of this church as a mission of St. Joseph Parish for eleven years at which point New Melle received their first priest.
By the late 1950’s, St. Joseph Parish once again had outgrown its existing church. Sixty-five percent of the parish gave or pledged money for a larger church despite their shedding tears over the old church that had served them for fifty years having to be torn down. The new beautiful colonial-style church with colorful stained glass windows was completed in 1961. (This church was renovated and now serves as our Parish Center.)
The second church (now Parish Center) was built in 1961
With the church continually growing, Fr. Pezold needed some assistance, since he had been on his own since 1967 when Fr. Svehla died. In 1970, Fr. Maguire came to St. Joseph as the new Pastor where he quickly assessed the dire need of repair to the sisters’ residence. When it was discovered that the ninety-six year old first church had a cracked foundation, it was decided to remodel the rectory to serve as a convent. The old convent was torn down and a new brick rectory including office space was built in its place.
With the old school now bursting at its seams with students, a new school building was erected in 1970, adjacent to the old one. Later, a gymnasium was added.
The current school was built in 1970
In 1977, at the age of eighty-four, Fr. Pezold died after serving St. Joseph Parish for forty-five years.
Fr. Maguire came to serve St. Joseph in 1970. He too accomplished many things in his years, from remodeling the rectory to modernizing the school. Five school buses were replaced and planning of the first Kindergarten class began in 1971. Under him, there were several organizations and ministries which began including, the Quilting “Bees”, Christian Mothers, Holy Name, St. Vincent De Paul Society, Legion of Mary, the Athletic Association, the Boy and Girl Scouts, Brownies, the Parish Picnic, and the Fall Festival. He served for six years as Pastor.
Fr. Griesedeck was appointed the new pastor in 1976. He served for twelve years as Pastor and died of cancer at the age of 57 in 1988. He witnessed the gradual change of our parish from our rural area to a suburban area.
Msgr. Whited was appointed pastor in 1988. Under his leadership, the parish built another new parish church, another addition to our school, and the renovation of our old church into our parish center.
In December 1997, Archbishop Rigali blessed the new church site and groundbreaking took place.. Parishioners were able to sign their names to a construction beam that was used in the building of the church. On October 24, 1999, our new church was dedicated by Archbishop Rigali.
Our current church was dedicated on October, 24, 1999
In August of 2004, Archbishop Burke appointed Fr. James Callahan as the new pastor of St. Joseph Parish. He had inherited a parish debt of over $5,000,000. By promoting tithing and stewardship, he was able to retire the debt in four and a half years. He also brought the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia from Nashville to our parish school. The Dominican Sisters accepted their invitation to minister in our school in 2007. Our original school building was once again renovated for the 2009-2010 academic year. It added a Library/Learning Center, a Chapel, an art room, a music room, offices for the school and PSR, and a teacher’s lounge. We were able to retire the school renovation debt of $2,500,000 in just over two years.
In 2010, a Columbarium Wall was built in our parish cemetery.
In 2016, Archbishop Carlson announced a major Capital Campaign entitled, “Beyond Sunday”. In conjunction with that campaign, it was decided to build the Parish Hall.