First Chapel in Roma

Duane's take

The way the marker in Starr County tells it, here's the story of the first chapel in Roma. Sometime around 1840, a chapel went up in what would become Roma, Texas. No hired crew built it.

No purchased lot sat beneath it. No contractor invoiced anybody for the lumber. It was raised by volunteer labor, on a donated site, out of contributed materials.

Every last piece of it, given. Now, you might think a chapel built that way would be a modest, forgotten little thing. But this one had work to do.

For years before the Oblate Fathers arrived in 1853 and built a proper church, that humble chapel was the spiritual center of the community. Secular priests made the journey from Mier to tend to the faithful there. And in those years, some 500 confirmed persons received sacraments within those walls.

Five hundred people. Count them. In a chapel that nobody paid for, that everybody built, that stood quietly doing its job until the Oblates finally came and raised something grander.

The volunteers who gave their labor, the neighbors who gave the land, the people who gave the materials, well, they built something that lasted long enough to matter. Roma remembers it.

What the marker says

Built by volunteer labor, on donated site, of contributed materials, about 1840. In the years before Oblate Fathers arrived (1853) and built church, some 500 confirmed persons had received sacraments in this chapel from secular priests who lived in Mier.