Category Archives: Religious Sites

St. Vincent de Paul Parish & Ascension Lutheran Church, Milwaukee

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The church participants in Doors Open Milwaukee typically provided visitors written descriptions of the church and the church’s history, on actual sheets of paper. Good for them, in this over-digital age. I picked them up for future reference – as in, right now – and the one for St. Vincent de Paul Parish was rather long on the various priests associated with the parish (and two Congressmen who went to church there), with less about the church building, though it does say that the current one was completed in 1900 in a Renaissance Revival style by architect Bernard Kolpacki (d. 1900, so this was probably his last project among a number in Milwaukee).

This church, too, was originally for a Polish congregation.

The sheet offers information about Rev. Wincenty Lewandowski (d. 1900), who founded St. Vincent de Paul Parish. He had felt it expedient to leave the German Empire in the 1870s due to Kulturkampf and all that jazz, making his way to Ohio at first. When he got there, he got to work. The sheet notes the following glimpse of something that could use a little more detail:

Bishop Richard Gilmore sent him to Toledo, Ohio, where he would found St. Hedwig Parish in October 1875, and St. Anthony Parish in 1882. For reasons unclear in the surviving records, many were opposed to Lewandowski at Saint Hedwig, his multiple reassignment requests to the bishop were denied, and the situation devolved in June 1885 into a bomb being discovered under the rectory and a riot breaking out between parishioners. Lewandowski resigned and departed for Milwaukee.

Other sources mention the 1885 church riot in Toledo, and the fact that St. Hedwig in that city was torched the next year. Religious-inspired violence is one thing, but church riots are considerably rarer on these shores. Yet Toledo isn’t the only one I’ve encountered while visiting churches – there’s also the story of the former Cathedral of All Saints of the Polish National Catholic Church in Chicago, which not only involved an ecclesiastical riot, but schism thrown in mix for that extra volatility.

Impressive stained glass.

For the items below, I had my AI program remove the glare. This is one of the genuinely useful things that it can do, but I have to be careful to tell it not to change anything else in the image, because it has a tendency to “improve” things. Sometimes it does so even if I tell it not to, but for these two, nothing was changed.

Next door. Probably the rectory. An ivy-covered rectory.

The last church of the day was Ascension Lutheran Church.

Services in English and Spanish, as you’d except. And that third one? Hmong, it turns out.

On the door.

I don’t know that DHS goons would specifically be looking for Hmong – which would be an act of base ingratitude, among other things. Probably just the usual brown folk. Raiding churches: what a good way to win hearts and minds.

Ascension Lutheran dates back to the 1850s, in this case founded by Norwegians. The current sanctuary dates from 1923.

The church sports a number of memorials, as churches often do, but this pair was a little unusual.

Good to see a presidential site, however minor. United Spanish War Veterans: not an organization one hears much about anymore, but it lasted until 1998, a few years after the last veteran member passed, namely Nathan Cook, U.S. Navy, who died in 1992 at 106. A successor org, Sons of Spanish American War Veterans, is still around.

St. Anthony Parish & St. Hyacinth Parish, Milwaukee

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Rain coming tonight, then a cooling trend, as they say in the weather biz. For me, that meant lingering on the deck in the upper 60s F. early this evening, while I can, eating dinner outside, drinking tea. In the background, blending with the sound of crickets, were the pleasant sounds of a youth-league baseball game, which also happened to be visible in the park behind my back yard. All sensations that will disappear with oncoming fall.

On Saturday, a nice warm early fall day, we first made our way to St. Anthony Parish in Milwaukee as part of the Doors Open event. Once upon a time, a German congregation.

Wonder how many buildings are still around whose development was delayed by the Panic of 1873? There must be some. St. Anthony at least is one, not being consecrated until 1882, and even then the interior wasn’t completed until around the end of that decade.

The Germans built something suitably German, a Gothic Revival Hallenkirche, whose nave and side aisle ceilings are roughly the same height.

The last mass in German must have been sometime. These days, one Sunday mass is in English and two are in Spanish.

Not far away at all is St. Hyacinth Parish.

In this case, a legacy of a Polish congregation, an Italian Renaissance style done in Milwaukee’s Cream City brick, and another development of the 1880s.

Henry Messmer [d. 1899], a Swiss immigrant, did the design.

These days, three masses are in Spanish, one in English, none in Polish. Time flies, neighborhoods change.

St. Joseph Chapel, Milwaukee

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For a mid-sized city, Milwaukee has a remarkable number of historic churches. Every late 19th- and early 20th-century ethnic group of any size supported a number of churches, in the case of Catholics and Protestants both. Germans, for instance, built both Catholic and Lutheran edifices in quantity, as did Poles, without that Lutheran component. Many of their Catholic parishes are now majority Hispanic, and it these that we largely focused on during our visit to Milwaukee.

We managed to visit five such churches on Saturday during the most recent Doors Open Milwaukee.

As fine as all of these churches were, one stood out: the recently restored St. Joseph Chapel, a Romanesque Revival structure on the grounds of St. Joseph Center, a convent that’s the international motherhouse of the School Sisters of St. Francis, which was founded in the 1890s. The chapel is tucked away in the convent complex, which itself is tucked away in a Milwaukee neighborhood.

All those churches built ca. 100 years ago or more needed to be designed, and in the case of St. Joseph Chapel, the sisters tasked Peter Brust and Richard Philipp, two of the busiest architects in Milwaukee at the time, to do the job. And what a job they did.

st joseph chapel

Of course, any building of this kind is more than the work of talented architects. Unnamed artisans in Austria contributed the mosaics on the walls, such as Christ Giving Peter the Keys, which is behind the altar, or the Parable of the Ten Virgins, one of the side mosaics. My photos do them little justice to their intricacies and especially the artful use of the color gold for flourishes that enliven the images. I haven’t seen mosaics of this caliber since the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, though these aren’t neo-Byzantine.

The floor mosaics are also worth a good look.

Behind the main altar is the Chapel of Perpetual Adoration. A chapel within a chapel, I suppose. It is every bit as sumptuous as the nave.

Depicted under the angels surrounding the monstrance are notable Franciscans, I understand, including Sts. Francis and Clare kneeling. Yuriko asked about the fellow in red, and it took a while to work it out, but that seems to be St. Bonaventure, who was a cardinal too, and a writer of considerable energy, which might account for the book in his hand.

Blessed Jurgis Matulaitis Lithuanian Catholic Mission

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By chance today, I heard part of a radio report about basketball in Lithuania. Seems that Lithuanians are keen on the sport, at levels of devotion usually seen for soccer in other countries. There is also a basketball program at the Lithuanian World Center on this side of the Atlantic, namely in suburban Lemont. Not a surprise, since the center is home to about 50 Lithuanian organizations.

We encountered the remarkable Hill of Crosses at the center in July. Within sight of the hill is a church building of a distinct modernist cast.

One of less-known works of Charles Murphy (d. 1985), Chicago modernist, whose highly visible portfolio includes One Pru Plaza, McCormack Place, the Daley Center, and the original terminal in O’Hare and some of the later ones, too.

Looking every bit 1964. Not built for Lithuanian World Center – that was still more than two decades in the future – but as part of D’Andreis Seminary, a Vincentian Catholic seminary.

After the seminarians bugged out, the Lithuanians bought the property and invited the Blessed Jurgis Matulaitis Mission to use the church, where they say mass and administer sacraments and so forth. Apparently the Diocese rents the structure from the center.

The stained glass might be in English, but masses are in Lithuanian, I understand. It’s all very Chicago, even if it’s in the suburbs.

M.D. Trains, Blue Lotus &c.

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Labor Day weekend is nigh, and even in a semi-retired state, I look forward to these three-day weekends, especially if the weather is still warm. Actually temps have been pretty high these last few days, which means that sitting on the deck well into the evening is comfortable, once the mosquitoes have calmed down.

Think I’ll take a stretch off just because. Back to posting on September 13.

The other day while out on the deck before sunset, listening to the loud cicadas, I made up a 19th-century religious movement, in outline. As one does. A farmer in early 19th-century Ohio proclaimed that the late summer cicadas are actually trying to communicate with mankind, but that the last people who could understand them were the ancient Israelites (using the Hebrew term for “locust”). Some Israelites were able to interpret their song as revelations from the Lord, which formed the basis for the lost Book of Locusts. After the destruction of the First Temple, the locusts spoke no more.

Who is suddenly able to understand the cicadas in the (19th century) present? The farmer, of course (Robert, let’s call him). He listens closely, and it turns out the Lord is laying down some new rules ahead of the Second Coming, via cicada song. Including how to organize a new church with Bob as its head, and an exact time for the Second Coming, like the Seven-Day Adventists. Bob gathers a few hundred followers. One of their main rituals is the “Summer Listening,” as they gather outside in the late afternoon and Bob, in a trance, interprets. Some of his grown sons soon have the ability too. Locust Listeners, their neighbors derisively call them, but soon they themselves are using the term.

The day for the Second Coming comes and goes, and Bob has a new revelation for his disappointed flock: they should be listening to crickets as well, to complement cicadas. That will reduce the chance of misunderstanding, as clearly happened with the date of the Second Coming. Groups of Listeners start staying up all night to listen to crickets, but others are dismayed, sparking a schism.

I could go on, naturally – how a few dozen Church of Listeners congregations still exist in the Midwest (and California, of course), how one of the great entomologists of the early 20th century grew up as a Listener, how a descendant of Bob erected a historic landmark in Ohio – a bronze cicada – in 1979…

* * *

On the historic square in Woodstock last Saturday, something intriguing. This setup graced a shop window, though I took the image once I’d entered the building.

We’d found a model train store: M.D. Trains.

Those kinds of shops are few and far between, but not impossible to find. M.D. Trains was empty when we entered, except for an older man I took to be the proprietor and a younger fellow I took for an employee, both sitting near the front, chatting.

“You want to buy everything, don’t you?” the older gentleman said to us. Later I heard him say it to other people entering the shop. “Everything” meant a lot of stuff in a glorious clutter.

“If only,” I answered. I didn’t really mean it, since I’m not in the market for a room full of model train cars, tracks, accessories, sets and model trucks, and ephemera. Still, I enjoyed looking around the store.

There’s more than just merchandise. Square in the middle of the store is an intricate model train layout, much more elaborate than the one in the window.

But I did buy a small toy engine for $5. You can’t go in a place like that and not support it.

* * *

I’m glad to report that Blue Lotus, a Buddhist temple housed in a former Congregationalist church, is still active in Woodstock.

In fact, I believe they’ve added some depictions of the Buddha lately.

One of these days, Blue Lotus is going to be open when I happen by. I’d like to see how the temple interprets the space.

Idle Hands and AI

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Most places I go, I take a fair number of photos, because in our time – over the last two decades or so – high-quality photography has become cheap and easy. I took a digital camera on a trip for the first time in 2005 and have ever since, each one making sharper images than the one before, besides an exponential increase in memory. I’d never have the patience to set apertures or figure out film speeds, but point a phone that I use for nothing else? Easy.

Now, suddenly, digital graphic design has became cheap and easy. Is it any good? A lot of AI images look like AI images, the kind of stilted cartoons we all now recognize (well, a lot of us do). But do they have to be?

Earlier this summer, we visited Fabyan Forest Preserve in Geneva, Illinois. Later, I cooked up a series of “postcards” – named for the aspect ratio, since they aren’t real cards – using images I took there. There are a number of advantages to this, the main one being I own the copyright to the images, and so derivative works aren’t an issue. The prompts in this case are “WPA style” or something to that effect. Add some text and there you go.

Promotion-type images for other places I’ve been, recently or not. Again, all the underlying images are mine.

Images for details along the way in Illinois, using a variety of other prompts, exact location not so important.

One more.

Think of it as the first in a fire hydrant series: Van Gogh Fire Hydrant.

Wayne, Illinois

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Toward the western end of Army Trail Road here in the suburbs – where the territory is almost exurban – a handsome church caught my attention not long ago. Traffic was sparse, so pulling off the road and then taking a look on foot was a reasonable option.

Little Home Church by the Wayside, a United Church of Christ congregation. Closed, unfortunately.

Without realizing it, I’d arrived in Wayne, Illinois. I drive Army Trail Road a lot, but mainly its eastern reaches, an arterial thick with retail in suburbs like Bloomington, Glendale Heights, and Carol Stream. I had a social event to go to late last month, and since it was Saturday, I allowed myself a little extra time to do a spontaneous drive, such as follow Army Trail as far west as it goes, to see what I could see. Such as Wayne, a place I barely knew as a spot on maps.

Army Trail passes right through “downtown” Wayne. It isn’t very large, but it has a few good-looking buildings besides the church.

A bicentennial stone.

A nonfunctioning, yet well restored, train station. Nonfunctioning in the sense that trains don’t stop there anymore, but apparently events are held at the building. If I were going to throw a hootenanny or a shindig or a hoedown, I might consider renting it.

Provided local codes allow such noisy festivities.

Wayne, I later discovered, is a low-density suburb: a sizable 5.8 square miles with a population of not quite 2,300. As such, I imagine there are a fair number of rules to enforce the quiet and semi-rural character. Zoning keeps lots large, four acres or more, which functions to make the town the province of those who can afford it, but there’s also a lot of open land. Such as the Dunham Forest Preserve.

Open to all, but the day I visited, near it was north of 90 degrees F. and, true to the prairie nature of parts of Illinois, little shade was to be seen. Taking pictures around downtown and the former station was sweaty enough.

We’ve heard of one-horse towns, though the metaphor long ago became fossilized. Wayne, it turns out, is a many-horse town, the legacy of a major horse-breeding operation in the 19th century.

“By 1865, Mark W. Dunham… had begun breeding and selling prize Percheron horses which he originally imported from France,” the Village of Wayne says. “By 1883 he had over 1,300 mares and stallions grazing on 1,700 acres of land known as Oaklawn Farm. His residence, Oaklawn, now popularly known as ‘Dunham Castle,’ was also constructed as part of the farm, and the red brick building which had been the Dunham home (now the Dunham Woods Riding Club) was converted into offices for the farm and guest rooms for visiting horse buyers.

In 1893, Oaklawn Farm was accorded the honor of serving as one of the agricultural displays for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and visitors traveled Wayne Road from Wayne Station out to the Broad expanse. The old railroad station still exists and has been returned to its original site in the Village Center. By 1905, Oaklawn Farm produced more Percheron horses for American and European buyers than the next eight establishments combined.”

The market for Percheron work horses isn’t what it used to be, but Wayne’s open spaces and many trails – pretty much invisible when you’re driving through – accommodate a good many horses even now, according to the village: “[Wayne] is one of the few communities in northeastern Illinois that provides and encourages equestrian uses and facilities.”

Marengo, Illinois

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US 20, according to the Federal Highway Administration, is the longest road in the country. That wasn’t the case in 1925 when the US highway system was created; it was number two at that time. Various adjustments afterward (told in highway-nerd detail on the FHA’s Highway History page) made it so by 1963.

“US 20 is 3,365 miles long, according to the 1989 log,” the site notes. “The route begins in Boston at a junction with Massachusetts Route 2 and ends in Newport, Oregon, at a junction with US 101. Because U.S. numbered highways are not designated with[in] National Parks, US 20 is divided into an East Section ending at the eastern entrance to Yellowstone National Park and a West Section beginning at the west entrance to the park.”

In Illinois, the highway is also the General Ulysses S. Grant Memorial Highway.

When time isn’t an issue, US 20 is my preferred route westward toward Rockford and, for an ambitious intrastate drive, Galena. Last month, it was our preferred route most of the way to Union, Illinois, to visit the Illinois RR Museum. On the way back, we stopped briefly in Marengo, which is one of the many towns along those 3,365 miles.

A modest downtown, but at pop. 7,500 or so, it doesn’t need to be anything else.

A run of buildings from the late 19th century, along Main St. Such as the current home to the Marengo Emporium, closed that late Saturday afternoon, in spite of what a red neon OPEN sign said.

The Marengo Union Chamber of Commerce notes that the building, dating from 1875, housed the first bank in McHenry County in its early years. “In the later years, Swonguer Furniture & Undertakers, Marengo Farm Store, Vidiots, Wholly Smokes and State Street Pub occupied the building but perhaps [it’s] best known for housing the Marie Ann Dress Shop,” the C of C says.

Swonguer Furniture & Undertakers. Not as odd as it might sound and, apparently, a known combination in a number of places more than a century ago. After all, how different is making pine boxes from making pine tables and chairs, at least for a skilled wood worker? Also, it explains this trace of the former furniture and undertaker establishment, in the form of abandoned commercial mosaic text.

Other buildings on the street.

There’s been a fair amount of re-bricking and other construction over the years on that last one. The building looks like it was assembled Frankenstein-style, though I’m sure it wasn’t. The corrugated metal awnings look a little out of place, but I suppose it was an economical addition. To one side, an unusual ghost sign.

First Presbyterian, a block from Main.

An 1898 rebuilding of a previous church. Naturally McHenry County says: “The architects, Tumbull and Jones of Elgin borrowed elements from various Romantic styles when they designed this church. Foremost is the Moorish-style square bell tower.”

I’ll say. How often does one encounter Moorish-style square bell towers here in the heart of North America? Maybe more often than I know, but I figure no one’s done a census.

Not far from downtown is East St., which takes you to the City of Marengo Cemetery. Cubs pitcher Lundy Lundgren (d. 1934) is buried there; I saw his marker across the street during a previous visit to Marengo. This time, I took a look at the older section of the cemetery.

I suspect there are more burials than stones, but in any case, the stones are worn.

In some cases, propped up by metal structures.

As usual for any cemetery, there are stones that hint at sad stories of extinguished youth.

Six years, three months and 24 days. Whatever else you can say about being old — and I’m at that point — you can be sure you aren’t going to die young.

The Geneva Grotto

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I don’t know about anyone else, but when I see something like this, I’m intrigued. The Geneva Grotto, you say?

Barring an obvious hazard – and there weren’t any, unless you count the possibility of mosquitoes carrying some disease yet unknown to science – that’s the kind of thing that bears further investigation. So toward the end of our most recent visit to Geneva, Illinois, we followed the sign, which is next to a parking lot in the Gunnar Anderson Forest Preserve on the Fox River, behind the Kane County Government Center.

The tracks lead to a smaller trail into the forest, along a small, rocky creek that feeds into the Fox.

So small it isn’t acknowledged on Google Maps. The place felt a little remote, but of course it isn’t. At various points along the way, houses just outside the forest preserve are visible. Also, it doesn’t take long to get to the promised destination: less than five minutes. Bold exploration, this was not. More like seeking out the obscure, which I have a certain knack for.

When we arrived, the grotto stood in the forest, and under a tarp.

Restoration is under way. Wanker vandals damaged the place in recent decades, I understand, so a camera now watches.

When I see that kind of setup, I’m reminded I’m reminded of the opening lines of “Soldier of Plenty” by Jackson Browne (1986).

God is great, God is good
He guards your neighborhood
Though it’s generally understood
Not quite the way you would

So while the grotto might be obscure, it isn’t unknown. In fact, it has its own web site. Or rather, the volunteers overseeing the restoration do.

“Built in the 1930s when the property was owned by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart [MSC], the outdoor chapel is an imposing stone structure,” the site says. “A German priest [Bro. Driesch] built the shrine, using rocks and colored glass from the local river beds to create the small chapel-like structure.”

We got as close as we could without stepping on the stone floor of the grotto, since a sign further warned us that that would hinder the restoration. Close enough that some of the interior mosaics were visible.

The land ultimately proved so valuable that the MSCs sold it in the early ’70s and moved on. But the grotto, with the help of restoration, endures.

Downtown Glen Ellyn: The Historic District

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Even modest buildings have a history. Or point to a history.

Just not much visible history in this case. Yet under this building in downtown Glen Ellyn, Illinois – in the Glen Ellyn Downtown North Historic District – is the main creek that used to pass through the village. Indian Creek, flowing for about 100 years now through an underground manmade channel. Civil engineers were busy in the 1920s.

An article published in 2023, “The Creeks of Old Glen Ellyn, Part 1” by Robert Elliot, offers a bit of detail: “Though we do not know exactly when, the creeks which flowed through old Glen Ellyn were slowly moved underground. Indian Creek appears to have remained above ground for a long time, although it too eventually fell victim to development. Although the exact year remains unknown, it appears that Indian Creek was mostly moved underground in 1922, when a dry goods store was constructed where it used to flow under Main Street. Today, Oak & Steel occupies the same location.”

Glen Ellyn was once marked by open creeks and small ravines and other irregularities, much like the rest of Du Page County. Like in much of the rest of the county, or the nation for that matter, that wasn’t consistent with modern suburbia, so the terrain was modified – in the same spirit as controlling the Mississippi or digging the Panama Canal, if not the gargantuan scale.

The 1920s also saw brisk commercial development near the Glen Ellyn interurban station, and it is these buildings that make up much of the historic district today. Such as a bank building, a sturdy-looking edifice built to re-assure in the days before the FDIC. Sturdy and elegant, I have to add.

The Glen Art Theatre. A spot to take in a motion picture, now as then.


“The Glen Theatre, formerly a single screen theatre, opened in February 1927,” says Cinema Treasures. “It was designed in the Tudor Revival style, along with the storefronts on either side of the three-story building. The architect was William B. Betts of Park Ridge, IL, who also designed a number of other movie theaters in the Chicago suburbs. Originally, the Glen Theatre not only featured motion pictures, but live stage acts, as well, and contained a Barton organ.”

Other historic district structures.

The site of the interurban line station. These days, it includes 2 Toots, a restaurant that delivers your burger and fries by model train.

I didn’t confine my peregrinations to the historic district, mainly because I didn’t know about it until later.

Just outside the district, a couple of churches.

More apartments up/retail down structures.

The Village Office, looking a little New Englandish.

The interurban line that once came through Glen Ellyn, the Chicago, Aurora and Elgin Electric (CA&E), is long gone, as they all are. But it left a legacy, namely the Main Stem of the Illinois Prairie Path.

Worth a short walk or a long one. Traversing Du Page County is possible on its 61-mile network. During my recent visits, I walked maybe 1 percent of that distance, but I’m considering other segments.