DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the site of Old Saint Mary's in Bexar County. Now settle in, because this one's got bishops, floods, and a church that refused to quit. After the Texas War for Independence, San Antonio started filling up fast — immigrants pouring in from Ireland, Germany, the Eastern United States, all of them Catholic, most of them not speaking a lick of Spanish.
The city already had its Hispanic Catholic faithful, but these newcomers needed somebody to shepherd them in their own tongues. Enter the Rt. Rev.
John M. Odin, first Bishop of Galveston. He saw the need, and he moved to meet it.
In 1852, land right here at this site was purchased — purchased, mind you, from the heirs of Ambrocio Rodriguez, a veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto. There's a detail worth sitting with for a moment. A hero of San Jacinto's family selling the ground on which a whole community would build its spiritual home.
Then in 1855, Bishop Odin authorized the building project, and he handed it off to the Rev. J.M. DuBuis.
Now DuBuis was not a man who thought small. He'd go on to become the second Bishop of Galveston, but first he built something worth becoming bishop over. A stately Gothic church — stately, that's the marker's own word — rose up from that ground, and by mid-1857 it opened its doors for worship, serving both English and German-speaking congregations under the same roof.
That lasted until 1869, when Saint Joseph's Church stepped in to carry the ministry for German Catholics specifically. Saint Mary's kept right on going. July 1, 1884 — and I give you that date precisely because the marker gives it precisely — the Oblates of Mary Immaculate accepted responsibility for Saint Mary's, with the Rev.
Richard J. Maloney coming in as first oblate pastor. By this point, the old church had already been doing more than Sunday services.
It housed a seminary. It ran an early free parochial school — free, which in those days was no small thing. A major Catholic newspaper was published there.
And the St. Vincent de Paul Society was founded within those walls. One Gothic building carrying all of that.
Then came 1921. A flood — and not the kind you recover from with a mop — irreparably damaged the church building. That word irreparably does a lot of quiet work.
It means the old Gothic structure that DuBuis built, that opened in mid-1857, that had served English and German speakers and seminarians and schoolchildren and newspaper readers, was gone. But the community was not. The Neo-Romanesque structure standing here now was dedicated in 1924.
Different architecture, same ground — the same ground the heirs of a San Jacinto veteran sold back in 1852. Some places just keep on being what they were meant to be.
What the marker says
After the Texas War for Independence, numerous immigrants, notably from Ireland, Germany, and the Eastern United States, arrived in San Antonio. The need to minister to these non-Hispanic Catholics prompted the Rt. Rev. John M. Odin, first Bishop of Galveston, to establish a separate church for them. In 1852 land at this site was purchased from the heirs of Ambrocio Rodriguez, a veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto. In 1855 Bishop Odin authorized a building project, undertaken by the Rev. J.M. DuBuis, who became first pastor of St. Mary's Parish and later second Bishop of Galveston. A stately Gothic church building was constructed and opened for worship in mid-1857, serving both English and German-speaking congregations. (In 1869 St. Joseph's Church assumed the ministry for the German Catholics.) On July 1, 1884, the oblates of Mary Immaculate accepted responsibility for St. Mary's, with the Rev. Richard J. Maloney as first oblate pastor. The old church building was also the site of a seminary, an early free parochial school, the publication of a major Catholic newspaper, and the founding of the St. Vincent de Paul Society. In 1921 flood irreparably damaged the church building. This Neo-Romanesque structure was dedicated in 1924. (1985)