A History of St. Gertrude's Parish
As you turn off U. S. Highway 12 at the north end of Litchfield onto State Highway 24, Forest City lies just six miles ahead. Yet its place is secure in Minnesota history, for 150 years ago it was the first white settlement in Meeker County, the site of the offering of the first Mass and the first Catholic church in that territory. St. Gertrude's will celebrate their 150th anniversary on August 26, 2007.
Here was located the first county seat, the first Post Office and Federal Land Office, the first newspaper published in Meeker County. Everything pointed to a prosperous and stable future for the pioneer village on the banks of the Crow River.
The first Catholic settlers who arrived in the spring of 1856 were John Flynn and John Whalen and they were soon followed by others. The early predominance of Gaelic settlers was the natural aftermath of the great wave of Irish immigration which had its peak year in 1851 and was still rolling across the western prairies.
Here then was the nucleus of the Catholic community and in a short time its existence became known to the Benedictine monks who had established themselves at what later became St. John's Abbey, Collegeville. Fr. Alexius Roetzer, traveled the forty miles to offer the first Mass in Meeker County sometime in 1857 at the log cabin of John Flynn. Undoubtedly he must have spent several days instructing the young and old and administering the sacraments before continuing on his far flung mission circuit which then covered at least four counties. Under such circumstances it is not surprising that in the beginning a priest could come to the settlement only once a year.
The church today remains substantially the same as it was at the turn of the century. As the motorists drive along northeastward on State Highway 24, the road curls and winds through a pleasant, rolling countryside, until at the crest of a little hill, the tall slender spire of St. Gertrude's Church can be seen cleaving the horizon on the eastern edge of Forest City. For a moment, the gleaming white walls of the church and rectory with the well kept graveyard in the foreground, form an interesting picture for the hurrying traveler and then they are left behind. Such was the role too, of the locality in early Minnesota history. But what a rich pageant of pioneer Catholic life once unfolded here and left its indelible imprint on the future course of events in all the surrounding territory. The hustle and rawness of frontier life were refined by the gentle influence of Christ's presence in the mass and the sacraments. All these things belong to the past now, but they also go to make up much of the living tradition of this little rural parish which continues into its second century the God given task of bringing Christ to its members in order that they may become more Christlike.
Despite its status as a mission and the lack of a full-time resident priest most of the time, the deep faith and piety of the parisioners has been clearly expressed in many different ways.
top