St. Joseph Parish — the Mother Church

Congregation attended from Notre Dame from 1842 — first chapel-school erected 1853 in Lowell, at Hill and LaSalle — current church erected 1965, 226 North Hill Street

Before a church in town: St. Joseph is South Bend’s oldest Catholic worshipping community. Blanchard’s 1898 History of the Catholic Church in Indiana states that the congregation was attended from Notre Dame as early as 1842 by the Revs. Edward Sorin, Alexis Granger and Francis Cointet. The parish’s own 1901 Illustrated History gives the same beginning in narrative form: the Catholics of South Bend were not yet numerous enough to erect a church and continued to depend on Notre Dame for their spiritual wants, administered by Sorin, Granger, Cointet and other Fathers of the Congregation of Holy Cross. Sorin had arrived with six Brothers and founded Notre Dame on 26 November 1842.

The first church property: The 1901 parish history records that on 18 September 1847 Bishop Celestin Guynemer de la Hailandière, in trust for St. Joseph’s congregation, bought lots 133, 134 and 135 on Main Street in the village of Lowell from Christopher W. Emrick and his wife Catherine for fifteen dollars. The history identifies lots 133, 134 and 135 as the premises of the later St. Joseph’s church and residence, at the southeast corner of Hill and Water streets. South Bend then belonged to the Diocese of Vincennes; the trust passed in turn to Bishops Bazin, de St. Palais, and, when the Diocese of Fort Wayne was erected in 1857, to Bishop John Henry Luers.

The Cottrell lots — two dates stand: Blanchard dates Sorin’s purchase of lots 124, 125 and 126 in Lowell from Samuel Cottrell and his wife Catherine to 14 September 1852, for 250 dollars, the deed providing that the property be used “for the benefit of the Catholic school of St. Joseph county, Ind.” The parish’s own 1901 Illustrated History dates the same purchase, from Samuel S. Cottrell and Catherine his wife, of the same lots 124, 125 and 126 for the same 250 dollars and the same school provision, to 14 September 1853. Both dates stand in the record: 1852 in Blanchard (1898) and 1853 in the parish history (1901).

St. Alexis Chapel and school: In 1853 Sorin erected on the Cottrell property a brick structure 22 by 40 feet. The parish today describes it as the first little building, both chapel and school, erected in 1853 in Lowell at what is now Hill and LaSalle, and first called St. Alexis Chapel, established by Sorin as a mission chapel of Notre Dame. By the next year, 1854, the Sisters of the Holy Cross were teaching “girls and little boys” in the building. The 1901 history notes that the St. Alexis name belonged to the church and school, never to the congregation itself. Mass was said each Sunday for the people of South Bend and once a week for the Sisters and their pupils, by priests residing at Notre Dame; Sorin remained, in the 1901 history’s words, the real pastor who sent whichever priest was available. A frame school for larger boys, 18 by 26 feet, was added in 1862 at the northwest corner of South Bend Avenue and Notre Dame Street.

Second church, fire and third church: The parish’s present history states that in 1866 the first structure was replaced by a larger building named the Church of the Assumption, that the Rev. Julius Frere, C.S.C., became the first resident pastor two years later, in 1868, and that a census then listed thirty-four French families, many from Canada, with six German and six Irish families. Blanchard gives the building campaign in fuller detail: a subscription taken up in September 1866 by the Rev. J. L. L’Etourneau, three lots at the southeast corner of Water and Hill donated by Alexis Coquillard, and a frame church 40 by 60 feet completed in November 1868 at a cost of 1,385.76 dollars; Frere then succeeded L’Etourneau, lived in a room of the new sacristy and became in fact the first resident pastor. The second church burned on the eve of Christmas 1872, church and priest’s house together. The congregation returned to the old St. Alexis chapel, and a third church was built nearby, on the present site of Saint Joseph High School in the parish’s modern account; Blanchard describes the replacement as a building 60 by 30 feet serving as church, school and residence until 1882, erected with insurance money and funds furnished by Sorin.

Fourth church and present church: By 1881, when the cornerstone for the fourth church was laid on the current site, the parish was known as Saint Joseph and Lowell had been absorbed by South Bend. Blanchard gives that church’s dimensions as 118 by 45 feet, begun by the Rev. M. P. Fallize, C.S.C., and completed in August 1882. The parish’s modern history closes the succession briefly: because of structural weaknesses the handsome old Gothic church had to be demolished, and the current church was erected in 1965. The parish remains a Congregation of Holy Cross parish; its modern history counts twenty-four members of Frere’s community as pastors after him, and about 900 families registered.

School: Saint Joseph Grade School is the oldest continuously operating school in South Bend. It expanded into Assumption Academy, replaced in 1886 by a larger two-story building; the present school was built in 1926, after that structure overflowed. The Sisters of the Holy Cross were succeeded by lay teachers. The school building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999, the year of a 1.7-million-dollar renovation and expansion; it was named a National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence in 2011 and 2019. The rectory, the Congregation of Holy Cross Community Residence, dates to 1907 with later additions, and the Ackles Parish Life Center was purchased and renovated in 2013.

The lineage: The 1901 parish history states the descent of South Bend’s west-side parishes from this congregation in one sentence: St. Joseph’s “may be rightly called the mother of St. Patrick’s church, the grand-mother of St. Hedwige’s and St. Mary’s, and the great-grand mother of St. Casimir’s, St. Stanislaus’, St. Stephen’s and the Sacred Heart churches, of South Bend.”

Sources:

1. St. Joseph Parish, “About Saint Joseph Parish,” stjoeparish.com — oldest worshipping community, St. Alexis Chapel as a Notre Dame mission, the 1853 chapel-school at Hill and LaSalle, the Sisters teaching by 1854, the Church of the Assumption in 1866, Frere as first resident pastor in 1868 and the census of families, the 1872 fire, the third church, the 1881 cornerstone, the 1965 church, and the school’s National Register listing in 1999.
2. Charles Blanchard, ed., History of the Catholic Church in Indiana, vol. I (1898), South Bend section — attendance from Notre Dame from 1842, the Cottrell purchase dated 14 September 1852, the 22-by-40-foot building of 1853, the 1862 boys’ school, the 1866 subscription and the church completed in November 1868, the Christmas Eve 1872 fire, and the church completed in August 1882.
3. An Illustrated History of St. Joseph’s Church, South Bend, Indiana (1901) — the 18 September 1847 purchase of lots 133–135 for fifteen dollars, the Cottrell purchase dated 14 September 1853, St. Alexis as the name of church and school rather than congregation, Sorin as the real pastor sending priests from Notre Dame, the 1859 exodus to St. Patrick’s, and the mother-grandmother-great-grandmother lineage quoted above.
4. Today’s Catholic, “St. Joseph Parish: Vibrant parish continues Holy Cross tradition,” 27 June 2017 — the parish founded by Sorin in 1853 as a Holy Cross parish and the present church built in 1965 serving over 900 families.