Mission Mary

Duane's take

Here's how the marker at Mission Mary tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, out here in Reeves County, the land has a way of swallowing things whole. Towns, roads, whole communities, just... gone.

Swallowed up by time and West Texas silence. But every once in a while, something holds on. Something stands its ground.

Mission Mary is one of those things. From 1895 to 1935, Father Nicholas Brocardus Eiken was out here working, serving several mission stations scattered across this region. That is a long stretch of country and a long stretch of years, tending to communities that most maps barely bothered to name.

One of those stations was Mission Mary, established by 1902, out in a place called the Calera community. Now Calera was real. People lived there, worshipped there, built lives there.

And in 1925, they built something to last, an original adobe and rubble sanctuary, with pillars and everything. You could picture it standing proud in that flat, spare landscape. Then came the 1940s, and somebody decided to plaster the whole building, and off came the pillars.

Gone. But what remained, and still remains, is a rectangular plan church with a bell tower and a low pitch roof with exposed rafter tails. Simple.

Honest. Built to endure. Here is the part that settles on you quiet.

Most of the small missions that once dotted this region, they have disappeared. And Calera itself, the community that gave Mission Mary its roots, it too has disappeared. The town is gone.

The neighbors are gone. But Mission Mary is still standing out there in Reeves County, a monument to the settlements, and to the churches, and to every last resident they served. Some things, friend, just refuse to be swallowed.

What the marker says

MISSION MARY FROM 1895 TO 1935, FATHER NICHOLAS BROCARDUS EIKEN SERVED SEVERAL MISSION STATIONS IN THIS REGION, INCLUDING MISSION MARY, ESTABLISHED BY 1902 IN THE CALERA COMMUNITY. THE ORIGINAL ADOBE AND RUBBLE SANCTUARY WAS BUILT IN 1925 AND FEATURED PILLARS, WHICH WERE REMOVED WHEN THE BUILDING WAS PLASTERED IN THE 1940s. THE RECTANGULAR PLAN CHURCH FEATURES A BELL TOWER AND A LOW PITCH ROOF WITH EXPOSED RAFTER TAILS. TODAY, MOST OF THE AREA'S SMALL MISSIONS HAVE DISAPPEARED, AS HAS CALERA. MISSION MARY STANDS AS A MONUMENT TO AREA SETTLEMENTS AND TO THE CHURCHES AND THE RESIDENTS THEY SERVED. RECORDED TEXAS HISTORIC LANDMARK - 2010