Mary Immaculate celebrates 125 years

When Lieutenant Dan Hamlet and wife Jennifer left St. Louis in January 2010 to come to Kirksville, they left behind a close-knit religious community. Their church served as their support system.

"I left St. Louis in tears," Jennifer Hamlet said.

On the way here, they called a family friend to find college students to help them unload their 26-foot moving van. That friend called Father Chris Cordes at the Mary Immaculate Church. When they arrived in Kirksville, there were 15 members from the parish waiting to help them unload during the cold, dark night.

A few weeks later, when the Hamlets had their fourth child, the community reached out to them again.

"I had a freezer full of food from people in the parish," Hamlet said.

This sense of community holds Mary Immaculate Church together into their 125th year.

The parish plans to have a celebratory Mass on June 5 with a dinner afterward. Each Mass, they say a special prayer to celebrate their parish.

Cordes has been the priest at the church for almost three years. He said the anniversary celebration is a chance to look back and appreciate those who helped make the church what it is today.

"It's a great opportunity to just celebrate our community as a parish family and all that we do," he said.

Cordes said this is a good time for them to look toward the future and the goals they want to accomplish. In this spirit, the church currently is undergoing remodeling. They are restoring some of the structures that have fallen into disrepair, including the confessional area, and installing a bathroom on the main floor. They are giving everything a fresh coat of paint.

Pat Lehr, pastoral minister and director of religious education for the church, said the parishioners are excited about the remodel. Lehr has been a parishioner at the church for 25 years and has watched the church evolve with the times, she said.

"We've gone from the dreams of building something brand new to the reality that we really can't afford something like that," she said.

Lehr said the dreams of the church are something that has changed with the people. She said Mary Immaculate Church is different than other small town parishes.

"We're sort of like a stepping stone to the place that they are going," Lehr said.

People don't stay for very long, she said. Kirksville is a transient community where many people will only stay  in town for a few years and then move on, she said.

"That's been the hardest part, knowing that these wonderful people are going to leave soon," she said.

Lehr said many people that are here now usually will go home for the holidays, while other families come back. She said it is a fluid community.

The goodness of the people in her parish keep her coming back every day because they do such good things without asking for any notoriety, she said. She is starting to see second generations of people coming back.

"It's very heartening to see that they want to pass on the family faith that they were brought up in," she said.

This anniversary has been an opportunity for parishioners to reflect about the people who have come and gone.

 Lehr said the community has helped the church keep going. It comes down to families like the Hamlets who have become actively involved in the church with their kids, said Lehr. The church's Catholic school is one of the things the Hamlets like most about the church.

"Mary Immaculate has been good to the kids," Hamlet said. It's small but I really like the personal experiences they're getting," Hamlet said.