St. Joseph’s Founding

When Wichita’s first Bishop, John C. Hennessy, arrived from St. Louis on the Frisco line in the early evening of December 12, 1888, the sprawling pioneer town had four Catholic Churches: St. Aloysius, St. Boniface, Assumption, and St. Joseph’s. Of the four, all would be changed or disappear as the years went on –  all but St. Joseph’s. Bishop Hennessy made St. Aloysius his Pro-Cathedral and then, in 1912, replaced it with St. Mary’s at a different site. St. Boniface disappeared, replaced by St. Anthony’s in 1905. Assumption has faded away completely; the church seems to have never been anything but a rented hall in “Frank Schmidt’s building” at the corner of Topeka and 21st Street for Catholics who lived north of 13th Street. Only St. Joseph’s would remain St. Joseph’s down through the years, although it, too, was going to have its dark days. For almost twenty years it stood empty and unused, but then came back to vigorous life.

The founding of St. Joseph’s came on the wave of a Kansas business boom in the mid 1880's. At the time, settlers were flocking into the state as into a promised land. It was just then being discovered what an ideal farming and cattle grazing country Kansas was. Earlier travelers had described the vast treeless prairies as good for nothing. Land was cheap; money was easy to borrow. New railroad lines were spreading across the state; new towns with imposing public buildings were rising on the Kansas prairies. Among the towns glorying in the boom was Wichita, and among the buildings which the 1880 boom produced was the first St. Joseph’s Church in West Wichita.

A farsighted churchman had anticipated the need. That dedicating prelate was Father Michael J. Casey, pastor of St. Aloysius. His parish church was in downtown Wichita, but his parish area ranged over half a dozen counties, as far as Wellington to the south, Kingman and St. Mark’s on the west, Newton to the north. Into this area, in 1885 and 1886, settlers were flocking by the thousands, with many a Catholic family among them. St. Aloysius downtown could not serve them all. A new Catholic Church out in the country west of town seemed a real necessity.

Father Casey saw the necessity and acted upon it. He was indeed the man for this undertaking, a man of vision and action, the founder of St. Joseph’s. It was he who urged Bishop Fink to buy those lots in West Wichita. He was also the father of religious education in Wichita. When he dedicated St. Joseph’s in the fall of 1887, he had already opened a girls’ boarding school a mile west of St. Joseph’s and was working on a similar school for boys a mile and a half to the Southwwest.

The first St. Joseph’s Church, according to old photographs, was a stark, narrow, high-gabled structure of grey stone and brick, 30 feet wide, 50 feet long and 70 feet high. It was located just where the parish rectory now stands. In 1889, according to Hoffman’s Catholic Directory for that year, its pastor was Father John Begley; it had 100 families, a parochial school attended by 30 children, and it had charge of a mission station at a place called Afton.

But there is a little mystery here. Where was the location of St. Joseph's parish school with its 30 pupils? Where was Father John Begley the pastor? After this brief 1889 notice his name never again appears in public records of the diocese. Old parishioners tell of hearing that he suffered an accident; that he broke his leg about this time and had to go away. This could be one reason why St. Joseph’s came upon its dark days and closed down for 20 years.

But there were other reasons, too. The economic boom of the early 1880's in Kansas had turned into a late 1880's bust. It began in December of 1887 when prolonged heavy rains turned to sleet, covering much of the state with a sheet of ice. On top of this there came a blizzard which left deep snow and for two months, January and February 1888, no melting. This meant no grazing for the cattle and they froze or starved to death by the thousands. When the summer of 1888 came, it brought more trouble: a prolonged and deadly drought.

Many a pioneer farmer and cattleman found himself ruined. There was no money to pay on the loans which had come so easy a few years before. Mortgages were foreclosed and farms were abandoned. The population of the area around Wichita dropped from 40,000 to 10,000 in a few months’ time.

But the dark years passed. Better times returned and settlers came filtering back once more into Kansas and West Wichita. It began to seem strange to have St. Joseph’s Church standing there empty while Catholics went right by it on their way to Mass downtown. And so, on October 31, 1909, Bishop Hennessy came and conducted a solemn service of re-dedication of St. Joseph’s Church in West Wichita. The little structure had been cleaned and polished to look almost like new. The sum of $1,200 had been spent by the Bishop himself on a new altar and other furnishings. Parishioners had done a thorough job of overhauling and repair. They and a large number of visitors crowded the church to the door for the re-dedication Mass. In the sanctuary with Bishop Hennessy there were a number of priests and the girls’ choir from Mt. Carmel Academy sang the Mass, with Miss Marguerite Stover at the organ.

A Parish of Our Own

As time went on, more Catholics kept moving into the area and attendance at Sunday Mass increased to the point where Bishop Hennessy decided to make St. Joseph’s a parish in its own right. On October 7, 1913, he did so officially; defining the parish boundaries as the Arkansas River on the east and the north and Cowskin Creek on the west and south. As first pastor; he appointed Father Dennis Healy, who immediately took up residence in an old six-room stone house across from the church that Bishop Hennessy had bought for taxes and given to the parish.

This brought still more life to St. Joseph’s. By the end of another year, the old grey stone church began to be too small for the crowds at Mass on Sunday; so Father Healy and parishioners applied to the Bishop for permission to build a new one, which he granted willingly.

Labor was furnished to a great extent by men of the parish, beginning with the architect, Frank Frenchie Juaire. Materials were supplied or hauled – by horse and dray – by Paul and Henry Wells and Ray Dougherty, who used to say that his team of horses had hauled half the bricks in St. Joseph’s Church from the freight depot. In the evenings and on weekends, all who could were helping: excavating, pouring concrete, sawing and hammering, and raising the walls. Some of the names recalled are: Neville, Ternes, Weirick, Devlin, Reibenspies, Kuhn, Smith, Ellis, Vestring, Kessler, and Redmond. By midsummer the new St. Joseph’s Church was ready for dedication, and on July 16, 1916, Bishop Henry Tihen of Lincoln, Nebraska, came to do the honors. This was particularly fitting because he was a former pastor of the Wichita Cathedral and had been pastor of St. Joseph’s before it became a parish of its own.

St. Joseph’s School

Two B.V.M. Sisters, Sister Mary Margretta and Sister Mary Manuel, had been coming from Mt. Carmel on Sunday mornings to teach catechism to children in the church. They now could do so with greater freedom and it worked so well that on September 10, 1917, the old church building opened its doors as St. Joseph’s Parish School, with fifty pupils in attendance. At first there was only one classroom – the entire building! Later on, as numbers increased, a large curtain was hung down the center to create two classrooms. Still later a little cottage, built on the alley behind, made a third classroom and was also used at noontime as the Sisters’ lunchroom.

The B.V.M. Sisters led the school and taught there until the retirement of St. Joseph alumnus Sr. Dorene Good, B.V.M. in 1988. During their early years at the school, the Sisters traveled back and forth every day to Mt. Carmel, but in 1931 they got a home of their own on parish property. Across the street from the school was a white frame house which the parish was able to purchase and renovate as a small convent. Finally, in 1949, the current convent was built behind the school.

The First Redemptorists Arrive: 1920

With the death of Father Healy, Bishop Hennessy invited the Redemptorist Fathers to take over St. Joseph’s Parish. It was not the first time he had made the offer. The Redemptorists were old friends of his. When he was a young man in Ireland, he had thought of joining them himself. He had been pastor of St. John’s in St. Louis, Missouri, when he was named Bishop of Wichita in 1887, and he asked the Redemptorists from Rock Church to take charge of his parish until his successor could be installed. In Wichita, he had asked on a number of occasions for Redemptorists to settle in the diocese, but the Provincial Superiors had always refused his request.

In 1920, however, there was a new Provincial in St. Louis and he did not refuse Bishop Hennessy’s request. Father C.D. McEnniry, C.Ss.R., was Kansas born himself in the little town of Greenbush, in the diocese of Wichita. He accepted a Redemptorist foundation in Kansas without delay. In fact, he did not even wait to get the permission of his own Superior General in Rome. He took that permission for granted and signed a provisional contract with Bishop Hennessy for the Redemptorist Fathers to take over the parish of St. Joseph’s in Wichita.

The Redemptorists willingly accepted these obligations. They went out from St. Joseph’s as from a mission center, preaching missions and other apostolic exercises throughout the diocese and beyond. Indeed, they had already been busy at this apostolic work of theirs throughout the state and continued such work until ultimately leaving St. Joseph’s and the Diocese of Wichita in 2005.

St. Joseph’s first Redemptorist pastor was Father Peter Maas. He arrived on April 1, 1920, and preached his first sermon at the 9:00 a.m. Mass on Easter Sunday morning, April 4. He had come from the Redemptorist parish in Kansas City where there was a large imposing marble church. By contrast, little St. Joseph’s in Wichita must have seemed smaller to him than it really was. It was as a builder that Father Maas mainly left his mark on the parish. He was instrumental in having the parish school and rectory built.

The New School

The building of the new St. Joseph’s School was the great event of the year 1921. Work began in the spring and was finished in late summer, just in time for the opening of school. Bishop Schwertner dedicated the building on September 4, followed by a dinner served by the ladies of the parish to more than 240 guests. This was a great undertaking under any circumstances, but especially remarkable for the fact that the parish hall had no kitchen. All the food had to be cooked in the homes of the parishioners and then kept warm and tasty until it could be conveyed somehow to the diners in the hall. This hall was the entire first floor of Father Maas’ new school which was 120 feet long and 45 feet wide. The second floor was divided into four classrooms. As it stood in September of 1921, this building was only the first part of the much larger school, with the gym and the auditorium gradually developing during the years. The first part cost $37,386.00 and opened with an enrollment of 145 students, taught by three B.V.M. Sisters. Sister Mary Stephen was the principal.

At the end of the first school year in June 1922, some of the graduates were Pauline Stover, Mary Therese Devlin Maus, Martin Stump, Francis McCoy, Edward Nedeau, John Larkin, Evelyn Hinkley, Pat Boylan and Herbert Chenoweth.

The Rectory

In June, 1922, the new parish rectory was built. The old stone house across the street was too small for the Redemptorist community: six rooms for five men, no parlors, no dining room, and no house chapel. It was decided to build a new one between the church and the school, on the site of the old church. Work was begun after Easter. First, the old church was torn down. Then, on May 14, Father Maas broke ground for the new building and the work was finished on December 1st. Total cost was $42,411.00. Worthy of note is the fact that the delicate woodcarving on the altar in the rectory chapel was done by one of the Fathers, Father Nicholas Miller.

The New Church Is Stretched

St. Joseph’s Parish kept growing and by 1928 it counted 1,000 souls. More space was needed in the church, which had only 288 sittings, but it was really a new church, only 12 years old, and the parish still owed $10,500 on the school. So a completely new church building was out of the question. Father Black John found a solution to the problem early in 1928 when he decided to enlarge or stretch the church; i.e., move the sanctuary and the communion rail back towards the alley and then fill in the 24 feet that would be left empty. This would supply 144 new pew sittings and raise the seating capacity to 432 in all.

It was an unusual architectural venture, but it turned out very well. The original building proved to be sturdily set up and stood the stress. Supervision of the project was entrusted to “Frenchie” Juaire, the same man who had built the church itself 12 years before.

The original cost estimate was about $3,000, but Bishop Schwertner gave permission to spend $4,000 “with $200 more or less.” Father Edward Cantwell, the Redemptorist Provincial Superior, approved. The parishioners were warmly in favor of the plan. By mid-April they had pledged more than $4,300 and had already paid $1,880 in cash. Those who could not give money pledged their labor, and gave it. And there were material donations: the four new windows were contributed; and so were the fees of the architect, contractor and foreman on the job.

Actual work began early in April. First, a foundation was prepared behind the existing church. Then, in the first week of May, the job of moving was done, for which the contractor charged $500. By May 25, the gap left by the moving was filled in with masonry, brick-laying and roofing. In later years it would be hard to tell just where the old masonry ended and the new began. Then followed the interior work: wiring, plastering, flooring, and new pews. On July 4th, Father Black John was able to write to Father Cantwell:

You told me to write you when our church is completed. It is my pleasure to tell you that except for a few touches everything is complete.

School Expansions

From 1922 to 1933 the old stone house, formerly the rectory, was rented to a parish family, the Krafts. But then, with 245 children in school and more coming in all the time, additional classroom space was a real necessity. So, in September 1933, the Krafts moved out and workmen started knocking out some partitions and putting in others, turning the old place into a two-room school annex.

In 1938, a parish census was conducted. The number of children in the school hovered around 250 – which was capacity and more than capacity for the four regular rooms, plus the two more in the old stone house annex across the street. There were also more children waiting to get into the school as soon as there would be room. Fund raising for a new addition to the school went on for several years, and finally there was a solemn ground breaking on May 5, 1939. The new wing, just north of the old – so close that the two seemed like one building – had two classrooms upstairs and a gymnasium-auditorium, complete with stage and kitchen, on the first floor, which was set a little lower. Externally, the new wing was a complete replica of the old. Dedication services were held on October 1, 1939.

St. Joseph’s now had nine classrooms, an enrollment of 319 children, and eight B.V.M. Sisters teaching. It was the largest parochial school in the diocese. Enrollment continued to grow over the years until it reached 576 students during the 1955-56 school year. Under the leadership of Redemptorist Pastor Fr. Peter Sattler, the school was added onto in three phases. In 1951, the current parish hall and kitchen was built, which allowed the old parish hall on the lower level of the original wing to be converted into classrooms. During the summer of 1954, the southeast wing, consisting of one classroom on the first floor and another upstairs, was added. Finally, in 1955, the southwest wing, providing an athletic room, lockers and showers on the first floor and one more classroom on the second floor was completed.

The final construction of buildings used by the school took place in 1985. From March to October of that year, the Parish Center was built and included several meeting/classrooms, some offices, and the gymnasium.

In subsequent years, school enrollment gradually declined until 2003, when it reached a low of 113 students.

A New Era

The year 2005 marked the beginning of an era of rapid change at St. Joseph’s Parish. The beloved Redemptorists determined that they could no longer continue their pastoral mission at St. Joseph’s and the parish returned to diocesan leadership under Pastor Fr. Ken VanHaverbeke.

In 2006, the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (I.H.M.) had to vacate the convent they had been living in at Bishop Carroll Catholic High School. Some of the Sisters moved into the convent behind St. Joseph’s School that summer, and the remaining Sisters moved into the parish rectory the following summer. That change required that a pastor’s residence be purchased on South Vine and that the parish offices be moved into the Parish Center across the street from the school. In the summer of 2008, a new pastor, Fr. Stuart Smeltzer, came to St. Joseph’s.

The current enrollment of St. Joseph’s School is 118 students who are taught by nine lay teachers and one Sister. The school continues the great tradition that is St. Joseph’s based upon the sense of faith, community, commitment, and stewardship that has been present here since the parish began nearly 125 years ago.