Minnesota Prairie Roots

I APPROACHED THE BEAUTIFUL brick church with the full expectation that the doors would be locked. They were. There would be no getting inside St. Thomas Catholic Church on this St. Patrick’s Day. I felt disappointment, but not surprise.

A hot pink sign tacked onto the church sign notes an Easter vigil here on March 31.

Even though shut out, Randy and I still explored, circling this immense church with stained glass windows and with tower steepling to a cross.

We crunched across crusty snow to look at gravestones that bear the Irish history of this place in names like O’Malley, Shea, O’Connell and noted ancestral roots in Cork County, Ireland and elsewhere.

Driving into Saint Thomas, Minnesota.

This village lies in the middle of farmland with this farm site on the edge of Saint Thomas.

This ag business sits right next to the cemetery.

Then comes the town hall.

And, finally, Callahan’s, which appeared no longer in business.

Saint Thomas is through-and-through Irish, based on our observations of this unincorporated village along Le Sueur County Road 28 just north of Le Center in Derrynane Township. We found this settlement via an atlas that is our guidebook to mostly unknown places in Minnesota. With a name like St. Thomas, we expected a Catholic church and not much more.

The church, built in 1883, closed in January 2011, just another among many rural Catholic churches shuttered and merged. Mass is still held occasionally at St. Thomas.

I often wonder how long such mostly vacated churches will stand. St. Thomas appeared well-cared for still. At least on this St. Patrick’s Day in 2018. But when those who once worshiped weekly here are gone, will their descendants care? Will they still tend the cemetery, swing open the doors for an Easter vigil? I hope so.

© Copyright 2018 Audrey Kletscher Helbling