co-operation each individual was left to shift for himself and to move
haphazardly where a kind or unkind Providence led him. In this
way many, very many, moved into localities where there was neither
church nor prospect of one, and were lost to the faith. Had our
people taken a leaf from the history of the Mennonites and the Amish,
they might have founded many substantial Catholic settlements wherever
there was good land and a healthy climate.
Unfortunately this haphazard way of leaving the
country continues to the present day, to the most serious loss of faith
for very many of our church members.
In 1862 Father Nicolas Sorg and Father Vasseur,
both Jesuits, gave a rousing Mission at St. Agatha and other centres of
the County. Just before the Mission the church had been nicely
decorated, and the Sanctuary walls embellished with a beautiful
representation of the Resurrection of Our Lord
CHAPTER X.- SECTION 5. - THE REV. E.
FUNCKEN, C.R., CONTINUED.
- THE ORPHANAGE.
Often the need of an orphanage had been keenly
felt here. There had been one in existence in Hamilton for quite
a few years. But that was far away, its management all English
and it was too small to receive children when the occasion arose.
Yet the Hamilton Orphanage annually sent collectors for their
institute through the County long after the St. Agatha Orphanage had
been established.
On one occasion a large number of orphans from
one family-nine, it is said, were on hand, and no place to care for
them. In this dilemma Father E. Funcken did not know how to
manage. So he took the orphans himself. At the time the old
tavern of Mr. Tschirhart, a log building just below the church, was
vacant. The owner gave his consent to have the children housed in
it. This must have been in 1858 or 1859. The pastor found
several young and pious ladies willing to mother the little ones.
The number of children increased gradually from
year to year, as also did the number of nurses, who lived like
Religious under the direction of Father Eugene. Miss Margaret
Dietrich was their Superioress. Her father Nicolaus, who had
already given two acres of land for the church site, also gave nine
acres adjoining to Father Eugene on which the permanent orphange was
built some years later (1868).
The orphanage was now an accomplished fact.
But, provision had to be made for its permanency. The
girls. were not bound by vows. Father Eugene had no desire to
found a new Religious Order. Having become acquainted with the
School Sisters of Notre Dame of Milwaukee and Munich, in Germany, he
applied to them for Sisters to manage the new institution. After
mature deliberation, Mother Caroline consented, and brought the first
two Sisters, Joachim and Kunigundis, to St. Agatha.
On their way hither the train had to run
through a burning forest, was set on fire and completely burned up.
The Sisters lost evervthina except what they had on their
persons. At Detroit they were fitted out as well as could be done
in a hurry by the Sisters of their Community already established there.
Arriving at Petersburg, there was no one to meet them, Father
Eugene being then away from home. Perchance, "Holy Marks," a
peculiar character, who peddled books and devotional objects all over
the Catholic settlements in a waggon, was at the depot with his old
horse and offered to take the forlorn