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 St.
Mary of the Lake Catholic church was first built in Culver in 1897. In
those days, it was located on the northeast corner of what is today Lake
Street and Lake Shore Drive (an empty lot today occupies the spot). A
lightning bolt to the steeple started the September, 1903 fire that
destroyed the building and effectively ended St. Mary’s as an active
parish with a church as its base.
Mass
was celebrated off and on in Culver in the 40 years following, sometimes
in the lower level of the Carnegie library on Main Street, and
apparently sometimes in the El Rancho movie theater (today, Culver’s
only theater, on Lake Shore Drive).
It
wasn’t until 1948, with the arrival of the legendary Father Joseph Lenk,
that St. Mary of the Lake began to take shape as the parish it is today.
 At
left: Fr. Joseph Lenk in 1953.
From a
biographical sketch of Fr. Lenk in the July 2, 1954 Culver Citizen:
Father Lenk was born in Fort
Wayne. He prepared for the priesthood at St. Joseph’s College, St.
Mary’s College, and Notre Dame University, with theological studies at
Mr. St. Mary’s Theological Seminary at Norwood, Ohio.
He was ordained to the
priesthood by Archbishop John Francis Noll, D. D. in the Cathedral at
Fort Wayne on June 3, 1939.
He had served for three
years as assistant pastor at St. Lawrence Church at Muncie when he
entered the U. S. Army as a chaplain. (Tour of duty, foreign service:
Chaplain School at Harvard University: appointment with the 91st
Infantry Division on the West Coast. Then overseas duty in M.T.O.,
North Africa and Italy. In
recognition of the work of the chaplains of the 5th Army after the
armistice was signed, he enjoyed a trip to Athens, Greece, Cairo, Egypt,
and spent a month in the Holy Land.)
In March 1945, Father Lenk
was separated from the service with the rank of Major.
He became a staff
member of the Veterans Administration hospital at Hines, Ill.,
becoming senior chaplain the same month.
In 1947 Father Lenk
was appointed first assistant to Msgr. John S. Sabo, the Catholic
dean of the South Bend area at Our Lady Church. In September 1948,
Father Lenk was appointed first resident pastor of St. Mary’s
Mission Church in Culver with the work of establishing a Catholic
parish and church in this community.
In December of 1948, Fr.
Lenk oversaw the construction of a “new” St. Mary of the Lake Church at
the corner of College Ave. and Plymouth Street, the present location of
St. Mary’s. Fr. Lenk’s military background probably contributed to his
choice of church, a sheet metal building in military Quonset hut style.
One assumes that Fr. Lenk intended from the start to eventually raise
money to build a more permanent and suitable church building.
On January 28, 1954,
flames forced his hand. From the Culver Citizen:
Knox, Monterey,
and Plymouth Firemen Aid Culver at $25,00 Conflagration
Father Joseph A.
Lenk, Pastor, Carries on in Inspiring Manner
Culver’s most
disastrous fire in many years totally destroyed St. Mary’s of the
Lake Roman Catholic Church at the corner of College Avenue and
Plymouth Street early Thursday morning.
The loss was $25,000,
fully covered by insurance.The original Catholic Church in Culver
met a similar fate in 1905.
Aroused by barking
dogs at about 5:30 a.m. Mr. And Mrs. Sam Strang, 122 College Avenue,
were the first to discover the roaring pyre.
When the Culver Fire
Department arrived in quick order the Quonset-type metal and
laminated wood building was a mass of flames and the heat was
intense.
Firemen from Knox,
Monterey, and Plymouth soon joined in the heroic battle to control
the conflagration and successfully kept it from spreading to the
surrounding homes.
Only the gutted
vestibule of the 72 X 36 foot building still stands. The church was
built in December 1948 when Father Joseph A. Lenk first came to
Culver.
Cause of the fire is
still undetermined but a faulty space heater may have been
responsible. Father Lenk found everything in order when he left the
church at 10 p.m. Wednesday.
Father Lenk lost
many cherished personal belongings in the tragedy, including a
chalice given him by his parents at his ordination as well as
several mementoes from Army service.
Until a new church
is built Catholic services will be held at the El Rancho Theatre on
Sundays at 8:30 and 10 a.m. Holy Mass will be celebrated on
weekdays at the rectory on College Avenue.
Basic construction
cost of a new Catholic Church in Culver has been placed at $165,000,
according to previous announcement.
The ultimate cost of
the proposed church and St. Thomas More off-campus club will be
$250,000. The church will have a seating capacity of 310.
Father Lenk, who
also has a great personal following among Culver Protestants, will
celebrate the 15th anniversary of his priesthood on June 3 of this
year.
 The actual cause of the
fire may be never known, though there seems to have been some
speculation that arson was a possibility.
Protestant attitudes
towards Catholics in America had evolved a great deal since the days of
1920s Indiana, when the Ku Klux Klan gained power in the statehouse and
swelling numbers (it is said that one in every three white, male
,Protestant Hoosiers was a member of the group between 1921 and 1925),
largely on an anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic platform. But nonetheless,
during Fr. Lenk’s early years in Culver, a cross was burned on his lawn,
according to several residents of the area at the time (the story never
made the press). Clearly, there was some negative reaction to the
arrival of a permanent Catholic parish in Culver.
Above:
The Feb. 7, 1954 edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper reports on the
St. Mary's fire.
Catholic Mass was not
allowed to be celebrated on the campus of Culver Academies during this
period, either (hence the creation of the St. Thomas Moore Club in the
basement of St. Mary’s church, at the time of the Church’s construction.
The Club functioned as a social and religious gathering place for
Academy students and their families).
If Father Lenk felt that
the fire was intentional, he never said so publicly, and the newspaper
accounts of the day are notably positive about Fr. Lenk, the parish, and
the subsequent, successful efforts to build a permanent St. Mary of the
Lake Church in Culver.
In the same Culver
Citizen that reported the fire, Fr. Lenk took a moment to address
readers:
At a time like this
I am reminded of the challenging words of Father Sorin, the founder
of the University of Notre Dame, who, after the institution had been
razed by fire for the third time, said to the brothers of the Holy
Cross Order and the priests on the faculty: “If everything were
gone we would still rebuild.”
We have our faith,
our health, our talent, our people. The Catholic Church is composed
of people, not real estate. There is only one way to look: ahead.
With confidence in
Almighty God and in our own ability, coupled with the warm hearts of
people of all faiths, we can look forward to a beautiful new church
in the foreseeable future.
I am particularly
grateful for the kindly interest of Culver’s ministers, the splendid
work of our local firemen, and the fine expressions of our
non-Catholic friends. I have witnessed a solidarity in our
community spirit that is a genuine inspiration to me. In my six
years in Culver I have not seen its equal. Thank you all.
Indeed, whether an
accident or arson, the fire that consumed St. Mary of the Lake church in
January, 1954, rather than signaling a disaster for the parish, instead
brought about the construction of the structure that stands today.
The Oct. 13, 1948
Culver Citizen contains some interesting facts about the parish at the
time: “Ground will be broken within the next two weeks for the erection
of a new church structure for the Culver Catholic parish, now officially
known as Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, according to Rev. Julian L. Lubo, pastor ...the decision was made at a meeting of 55 members and
friends of the parish at the East Shore Inn Sunday night. Also attending
the gathering were Rev. Jude, superior of Divine Heart College at
Donaldson, and Rev. Bernard Rotterman, superior of the major seminary at
Hales Corners, Wisc.
“The church will be
built on the land the parish purchased some time ago at the corner of
College Avenue and Plymouth Street, which is 180 by 170 feet in size,
and will face on the former street. The central structure will be 80
feet long and 36 feet wide, with a parish hall on one side and a rectory
on the other, both adjacent to the church proper. Each of these will be
24 by 52 feet in size, with the parish hall including a kitchen and
restrooms besides the main social room. The rectory will be a complete
home for the parish priest.”
The article goes on
to describe a structure closer to our present-day building than what
wound up being built: the plan was for a brick building with a
Romanesque interior and “plaster walls in panels and Doric pilasters.”
Obviously, something changed between the plan and what finally happened.
It is also interesting to note that the parish priest at the time was
not Fr. Joseph Lenk, who would lead the building project, but Fr. Lubo.
If the parish was actually named “Immacualte Heart of Mary,” this was a
temporary change…it had been “St Mary of the Lake” since at least 1897.
The article noted
that, “Since the reorganization of the Culver parish (perhaps resulting
in the temporary name change? — ed.), it has been meeting in the library
auditorium most of the time, with the community building being used when
the number of Culver Summer School boys required the move a room with a
larger seating capacity.”
By Dec. 3, 1948,
Fr. Lenk had arrived in Culver, having been sent- according to Today’s
Catholic from July, 1995, by Bishop John F. Noll partly at the request
of the Culver Academy administration, as CMA had an increasingly
Catholic populace in the form of Latin American students- Lenk wrote the
following to Bishop Noll:
“Just a few lines to
inform you of our process at Culver. Monday evening of this week I
invited the members of the parish to the rectory. After discussions
of our problems at Culver in regard to the need for a church, twenty
one of the families expressed their desire to begin construction of
the church immediately on the plans I had shown you.
W.R. Baker from
South Bend is our architect, and David Burns from Culver, Indiana is
our contractor. Labor is rather cheap in Culver and it is very
likely that the total cost of the new church will not exceed
$10,000.00.
I have not seen your
friend, Mr. Radign, of Gary, Indiana in regard to furniture. I have
a stove to cook on, a table to eat from, and a bed to sleep in, so
additional furniture will be procured as soon as there is a
lessening of parish activities. Incidentally, it is our hope and
prayer that we will celebrate Midnight Mass in the new church.
I have made initial
contacts at the Academy, and I am making up a spiritual report as to
the number of cadets who are not Confirmed, have not made their
First Communion, etc.
May I take this
opportunity to thank you for your generosity, understanding, and
kindness in naming me pastor of Culver.
Begging a moment in
your prayers for God’s blessings on our work, I am your son as you
are my father in the Mystical Body of Christ…”
The letter’s
return address was listed at 227 South Main Street in Culver, where Lenk
resided at the time.
According to the same Today’s Catholic
article, “the outgoing (Lenk) soon became well-known in Culver, although
some Protestants called him Mr. Priest or asked when Mrs. Lenk would be
joining him. Underterred by that, and the cross said to have been burned
on his lawn, Lenk worked on. The December 8, 1948 Culver Citizen
reported:
A temporary structure to
house the Catholic Church of Culver is under construction at the rear of
the, church property at College Avenue and Plymouth Street.
According to Rev. Joseph
Lenk, pastor, the temporary building will cost $10,000 and seat 300. It
is being built in anticipation of a permanent church to be constructed
as soon as materials are available.
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