Holy Family Catholic Church

Duane's take

The way I hear it, this is straight from the official marker for Holy Family Catholic Church in Castro County, Texas, and I'll tell it to you true. Now here's a story that starts, as the best Texas stories do, somewhere far from Texas. In the early 1890s, the families of brothers V.

A., J. A., and T. P.

McCormick, along with other Irish families, came to this stretch of the High Plains all the way from New York. Way out here, where the wind doesn't ask permission and the sky goes on forever. They were among the first to put roots down in what would become Castro County.

Then, in 1902, a man named Reverend Joseph Reisdorff arrived on the scene. And Reisdorff, he didn't just come to tend a flock. He came to build one.

He set about establishing a Catholic parish, and then he did something you might not expect. He started advertising. In German-language newspapers.

Across the U.S. Midwest. Word by word, column by column, he called out to German Catholic families, and they came.

They answered that call and they settled here, on this same hard and hopeful ground. Reisdorff also gave the town its name. He called it Nazareth.

The history of Holy Family Catholic Church, the marker tells us, runs parallel to the history of the town itself. That church wasn't just a building at the edge of the community. It was, and the marker makes a point of saying this, an important part of the area's development.

And to this day, it remains a focal point of community activities. Irish families from New York. German families from the Midwest.

A priest with a plan and a printing press on his side. All of them finding their way to the same place, the same pews, the same town named Nazareth on the Texas plains. That's not just church history.

That's the whole story of how a place becomes a place.

What the marker says

The history of Holy Family Catholic Church parallels that of the town of Nazareth. The families of brothers V. A., J. A., and T. P. McCormick and other Irish families came to this area from New York in the early 1890s. The Rev. Joseph Reisdorff arrived in 1902 to establish a Catholic parish. Advertising in German-language newspapers in the U.S. Midwest, he induced many German Catholic families to settle here. Reisdorff named the new town Nazareth. An important part of the area's development, the church remains a focal point of community activities. (1987)