Churches

ST. MARY'S RIDGE

 

For more info, you can visit their website at www.stmarysridge.org

 

St. Mary�s Ridge Church as it is commonly known, is actually The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church. It was personally selected by Mrs. Lyndon �Ladybird� Johnson as a portrayal of �America the Beautiful� as a frontispiece for �The Report to the President and the President�s Response� by the White House Conference on Natural Beauty. Built in 1897 it is the �mother church� of Monroe County and the elementary school is still the oldest operating school in the area. The picture shown here was the same one sent to hundred�s of US Farm Service Agency offices across the country to hang on their walls.

 

 

Herman Wilpolt�s homestead would be about two miles directly out the back door of the church.

 

 

 

 

The yellow area highlighted on this 1997 Plat Map indicates the location of Herman Wilpolt�s original 160 acre Homestead. The names highlighted are properties owned by descendants of his cousin Bernard Leis.

 

 

 

 

This is the church building that Herman and Gertrude would find upon their arrival in 1862 at St. Mary�s Ridge. If they did marry at St. Mary�s they would have been married in this church. Most certainly Louis and Bernard Wilpolt were baptized here, Henry being baptized in the new church which replaced this one in 1869.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This first church at St. Mary�s was also the first church in Monroe County, a log structure 20 x 30 without the sanctuary. It was built in 1858 for a cost of $96.04. St. Mary�s did not have a resident pastor until January 1866 when Father S. Florentine was appointed as the first resident pastor. Previous to that the church was visited once a month by Father Sanner and then later Father M.M. Marco. St. Mary�s being at the time the only Catholic Church in Monroe County, its membership comprised the entire Catholic population of the county, and in part, even parts of Vernon County. Naturally, the little 20 x 30 log church was inadequate to accommodate the steadily increasing number of parishioners. Father S. Florentine was also the first resident pastor at nearby St. Joseph�s Ridge, residing one month at St. Mary�s and another month at St. Joseph�s, attending both places the best he could. He was succeeded in July of 1866 by Father Frances Lucas Junker and him in turn by Father Nicholas Stehle in June 1867. In May, 1868 Father Theodore Weglikowski took charge.

 

To review a list of immigrants around the area of St. Mary's Ridge around this time period, click here.

Also see St. Mary�s Ridge 150th Celebration

 

The parish having now increased to almost 100 families, the problem of a new church could no longer be dismissed. At a parish meeting on December 15, 1867, the decision was reached to build a new church. The new church, a frame structure 40 x 80 was completed during 1868-1869 at a cost of $3,200, and was dedicated by His Excellency Michael Heiss, Bishop of Lacrosse. Father Michael Heiss, a nephew of the Bishop was then the pastor of St. Mary�s, having replaced Father Weglikowski in March of 1869.  The two church bells, which daily call parishioners to prayer and Holy Mass were donations. According to the document inserted into the church records, these bells, the larger one the gift of John and Peter Schieffer and the smaller on a donation of Henry Hemmersbach, �To remain for all time to come for the only use of St. Mary�s Church on the Ridge, Monroe Co.� Father Herman Grosse succeeded Father Heiss in March of 1871, and was the resident priest at both the time of Henry Wilpolt�s birth in 1872 and Herman Wilpolt�s death in February 1873. 

 

 

 

A listing of the burials at St. Mary's Ridge can be found on this web page.

 

Many of the persons buried at St. Mary's Ridge, whose graves do not have a marker or tombstone, will be honored in the future by a memorial marker.

(Many families could not afford a stone marker and used a simple wooden marker, which doesn't survive very many years in the harsh Wisconsin winters)

In late 2006, a Memorial was created on the church grounds, in memory of the many pioneers who first settled in the area of St. Mary's Ridge, and whose grave markers or tombstones no longer exist. Herman Wilpolt is listed on the Pioneers Stone;

 

 

The children were remembered as well;

It is a beautiful and fitting memorial to the Pioneers of the St. Mary's Ridge area of Wisconsin, and a wonderful site where one can reflect and remember;