Echoes of Catholic Minnesota

When I lived a few blocks from Calvary Cemetery in St. Paul, I liked to go on walks there when the late evening sun and the faded monuments cast long shadows on warm summer evenings. The cemetery never felt like a frightening place to be. Instead, I contemplated the lives of the more than 100,000 people buried there. Calvary Cemetery is palpably filled with the presence of generations of Catholics laid to rest there since its founding in 1856.

Surrounded by a secluded wooded campus on the shores of Lake Johanna, the 300 young men at Nazareth Hall in Arden Hills arose at the sound of the 6:05 a.m. bell and readied themselves quickly. By 6:30 a.m. they were gathered on their knees in the chapel when the bell rang the Angelus, ready for Mass and Communion before breakfast.

When President Harry S. Truman visited Minneapolis in 1950, one of his stops was a muddy park in northeast Minneapolis called Yardville.

Anwatin Middle School and Bryn Mawr Elementary sit at the western edge of Laurel Avenue in the Bryn Mawr neighborhood of Minneapolis. Currently, they are part of the Minneapolis Public Schools. But a mosaic of St. Margaret of Scotland on the exterior of the building suggests a different history. In fact, the school building was opened in 1960 as St. Margaret’s Academy, a high school for girls run by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet.

On April 8, 1843, Father Augustin Ravoux finished his daily office and looked out at the Mississippi River. He later recalled, “I had under my eyes two beautiful rivers, a clear sky, a good fire, and nothing to disturb my mind. It is then that the voice of nature is easily heard and understood.”

When John Ireland dedicated St. Joseph Church at North Fourth Street and Eleventh Avenue in Minneapolis on Sept. 15, 1889, it was not yet completed, but it was already beautiful. Its white brick and sandstone structure was like no other building in the city, with imposing towers on both front corners of the building. Inside, there was seating for 1,200.

On Sept. 6, 1894, Catholics both wealthy and working class gathered to celebrate the opening of the Archdiocese of St. Paul’s new major seminary on the bluffs above the Mississippi River. Although it was not quite finished, The St. Paul Seminary represented the culmination of a vision of two men: Archbishop John Ireland and James J. Hill. Their financial contributions also combined to make it a reality.

In 1854, St. Paul was a river town on the American frontier. Its economy and population were growing quickly thanks to steamboats packed with Irish and German immigrants journeying north on the Mississippi River. Unfortunately, the same cramped conditions that made the inexpensive trip favorable for poor immigrants also bred disease.