2024 #52Ancestors, Week 13: Worship

I don't have much in the way of information concerning when and where my ancestors chose to worship.  I do know that the Swedish Lutheran churches kept fabulous records, and I have appreciated their diligence on several occasions.  For this post, though, I thought I would look at this 1954 news article that discusses the 50th anniversary of my great grandparents, Frank and Santa Palermo.  It reports that they celebrated a renewal of marriage vows in the same place they had been married in 1904 - St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in St. Louis, Missouri.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 28 Feb. 1954, p. 16.

I had hoped to find that the church on Locust Street still existed, but research uncovered that it was demolished several decades ago. St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church had been founded by Father Caesar Spigardi in 1900 at Nineteenth and Morgan streets in the area known as "Little Italy."  However, Father Spigardi soon began looking for a larger building to house his increasing number of congregants.  By 1902, he was able to raise enough funds to purchase the former St. John's Methodist Church on Twenty-Ninth and Locust Streets. An Italian from Mantua, Italy, Father Spigardi's parish consisted of a large number of Sicilians.  My Sicilian great grandparents had been in America 7 years (Frank) and 1 year (Santa) when they married in 1904.  This church, with its familiar people and language, undoubtedly felt welcoming to them.  

 

Photo Credit

As Frank and Santa were married in March of 1904, and their son, Antonino, was born before the end of 1904, it is likely he was baptized in this church along with the myriad of brothers and sisters who followed in later years. Father Spigardi passed away in 1931, and by this time, the number of active families had decreased from 1,500 to just 100.  Based on those numbers, it seems likely that the Palermo family had moved its worship elsewhere, but perhaps not.  After all, Father Spigardi was followed by another Italian, Father Fiorenzo Lupo.  Either way, the parish must have meant enough to Frank and Santa that it was important for them to renew their vows there.  Sadly, Santa passed away just nine months after their vow renewal.

St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church (pictured above) on Locust Street closed in 1982.  

For more information on the history and architecture of St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in St. Louis, go here. 

Additional Sources:

"A Catholic Church That One Man Built," St. Louis Star and Times, 20 Nov. 1933, p. 15.