Through church doors

More than 100 years ago, St. Mary's Catholic Church was the center of a thriving community. Now, the building stands alone as a reminder of the heyday of Adair County, Missouri.

At one time, more than 400 families attended church at St. Mary's, but now it is one of the only remaining markers of the community from that time, according to an article by Kirksville resident Bobby Poston.     

Poston collected information about the church's history and published his findings in Kirksville High School's Sheridan Collector magazine. The article is kept on file at the Adair County Historical Society with other issues of the magazine.

His article traces the church's community back to Irish settlers who immigrated to Adair County because of the Irish Potato Famine in 1845. Poston wrote that, when there was no church building, services were led by Father McNamee in Daniel McGonigle's house. In 1904, the congregation began construction of the building, which was finished by 1905. The church still stands there today.

The church's Florentine architecture is modeled after a church in the town of Limerick, which is located in its namesake, Adare County, Ireland. Both churches are framed with white pillars on either side of the front and three archways at the entrance. Celtic crosses adorn the top of the two columns on either side of the façade, exemplifying its Irish heritage.

The church maintains many of its original features, including the light fixtures, altar, statues and confessional. One of the oldest artifacts maintained is the Mother of Sorrows, a replica of the original statue housed in Vatican City.     

St. Mary's added a school to the property in April 1864, but the building is no longer there today. St. Mary's continued its services until the 1970s, according to the church's application for historical site status from 1974. That same year, the Church received status as a historical site from the U.S. Department of the Interior based on its architecture, as well as its relevance to the development of Adair County.

Since it has been declared a historical landmark, the non-profit group Friends of St. Mary's has worked to restore and preserve the church. Rita Ludden has been a member of Friends of St. Mary's since 1977 and also attended St. Mary's when it still regularly held Mass. Ludden said she works to preserve this church because, as she said, "It's part of my history."

Her history with the church stretches back into her childhood, and even throughout her family tree. She said worshipers from across Northeast Missouri attended St. Mary's, because it was one of the only Catholic churches in the area.

"It was the first parish in this vicinity," Ludden said. "[The Parish community] went all the way from the Iowa line and over to the Sheridan river."

Her uncle, Ernest Ludden, was the first person to be baptized in the baptismal fountain in the church, and then buried in the cemetery located behind St. Mary's alongside several other members of Ludden's family.

Ludden said she remembers attending Mass, catechism classes and church potlucks at St.

Mary's as a child. After her grandfather passed away, Ludden's grandmother would walk a mile on mud roads every Sunday just to get to Mass. The image of her grandmother walking to Mass is one of the reasons Ludden said she continues to work to preserve the church.

Del Tollenaar, a volunteer at the Adair County Historical Society, said he has seen many neglected historical sites fall to pieces and is pleased to see that someone is taking care of this site.

"It doesn't take more than a generation for much of that to be gone," Tollenaar said. "We have experienced the loss of several buildings and businesses here in town that might well have been worth preserving — that nobody took the time or trouble to try to secure these buildings before they were dilapidated."     In order to raise funds to keep up the church, Friends of St. Mary's hosts several fundraisers throughout the year, including serving lunch at the agriculture show at the fairgrounds and an annual homecoming at St. Mary's.

The homecoming celebration every September includes a lunch and a Mass to raise funds for the church's upkeep and is the only event the church is regularly used for.

Ludden said she recognizes that the church has stood for 105 years, but that it might not stand forever.

"If the Lord wants it down, He'll take it down," she said.