Easter in the Snow
[Transcript of the above video]
From 1848 to 1850, Franciscan Fr. Adrianus Dominicus Godthardt, O.F.M., ministered to Dutch Catholic immigrants in and around the town he and his flock established called Francis’ Woods, with its name being changed to Holland, now located in modern Brown County, Wisconsin, with Fr. Godthardt also taking the time to travel to other areas of Wisconsin such as Mischicot to minister to the Catholics in those regions of the Midwestern state.[1] While ministering to his Catholic congregants in Wisconsin, Fr. Godthardt wrote in his journal about his ministry through the towns of Calumet, Holland, Mischicot, and “Foolstown” during Easter of 1850, noting the following:
Even though I don’t have to care for the sick, I have to go through the ice and snow to bring Easter communion to the whole mission and to prepare the children for Holy Communion...I teach the children and prepare them for Holy Communion in all these places and celebrate feast days in my fine little chapel in Mishicot. Best of all, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter were days that satisfied the longings of my flock.[2]
[1] Jacob van Hinte, Netherlanders in America: A Study of Emigration and Settlement in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries in the United States of America, Vols. I and 2, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1985), 180-181. Paul J. Spaeth, “A Priest in the Woods: The Journal of Fr. Adrianus Dominicus Godthardt, O.F.M.,1848-1850,” ed. Paul J. Spaeth, trans. Sr. Brigid Conboy, O.S.F., and Sr. Agnes Bangert, O.S.F., revised trans. Dr. Henry A.V.M. van Stekelenburg, The Wisconsin Magazine of History 75, no. 2 (1991-1992): 117, 124.
[2] Fr. Adrianus Dominicus Godthardt, O.F.M., [1850], “A Priest in the Woods: The Journal of Fr. Adrianus Dominicus Godthardt, O.F.M.,1848-1850,” ed. Paul J. Spaeth, trans. by Sr. Brigid Conboy, O.S.F., and Sr. Agnes Bangert, O.S.F., revised trans. Dr. Henry A.V.M. van Stekelenburg, The Wisconsin Magazine of History 75, no. 2 (1991-1992): 138, 139.