‘Parish of change’ foresees more transitions in anniversary year

Members of the Knights of Columbus stand at attention during the closing procession of a Sept. 12 Mass at St. Michael Church in Charlestown to celebrate the parish’s 150th anniversary. Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein was the principal celebrant at the Mass. (Photo by Sean Gallagher)

By Sean Gallagher

It is not unusual for a parish as old as St. Michael Parish in Charlestown to have had more than one church building over the course of its 150-year history.

Parishes may have outgrown their church or the church may have burned down at some point in the past.

But the 200 households that make up the current membership of the New Albany Deanery faith community are worshipping in their fifth church. On average, each new generation of St. Michael parishioners at has seen the parish build a new place of worship.

This regular transition in church buildings exemplifies the many changes in the parish and in Charlestown since 1860 when St. Michael Parish was founded.

“It’s a parish of change,” said 92-year-old parishioner John Gelhaus, who has worshipped in four of the five churches in St. Michael’s history.

St. Michael Parish celebrated its 150th anniversary with a festive Mass on Sept. 12 at which Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein was the principal celebrant.

Earlier in the year, the anniversary was also marked with a chamber music concert in the parish’s church, and a dance at the parish featuring music from the 1950s and 1960s.

According to St. Michael’s current pastor, Father Steven Schaftlein, the parish’s first church was a log cabin on land near a railroad that was built through the area in the mid-19th century.

The land where the church was located was donated by two of Gelhaus’ great uncles, and is currently used as the parish’s cemetery.

When Charlestown started to grow, a clapboard church was built in the town. It eventually burned down in 1928, and was replaced by a brick church.

After World War II started, a large gunpowder plant that Father Schaftlein said employed 15,000 to 20,000 people was built near Charlestown.

“At that point, the parish needed to expand so they got the land where we’re at, but first put up a school,” he said. “For [approximately] 30 years, they had Mass in the school hall.”

It was during that time that St. Michael Parish received its first resident pastor. For much of its history up to that time, priests assigned to St. Mary Parish in New Albany would travel to Charlestown on weekends to celebrate Mass.

Gelhaus has special memories of Father Morand Widolff, who led St. Michael Parish from 1955-69, the longest period of all the parish’s pastors.

“He was down-to-earth when you went to church,” Gelhaus said. “You never knew what to expect from his sermons. But that would keep you curious and you’d listen to it. Nobody slept in church.”

Father Widolff was the pastor of St. Michael Parish when Chuck Ledbetter and his family moved to Charlestown in 1956. Ledbetter was 13 at the time.

“It was a real family-oriented parish,” said Ledbetter, now 67. “My mother and father were involved with the parish. My classmates in the eighth grade, [and] their mothers and fathers were heavily involved in the parish. And, as youngsters, when we got involved with the CYO [Catholic Youth Organization], we became really interested in the parish, too.

“We had this close connection with each other. It had a family atmosphere about it. It was a Christian fellowship, if you will.”

After the gunpowder factory and a nearby power plant closed, much of the Catholic population that necessitated the building of the school moved away. It was closed in 1993.

Denise Allgeier, 28, was a fifth-grade student at St. Michael School at that time. After graduating from Our Lady of Providence Jr./Sr. High School in Clarksville and earning a degree at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., she eventually moved back to Charlestown, where she and her husband, Adam, have begun to raise a family.

Their first child, Avery, was born earlier this year.

Allgeier recently helped form a young adults group at the parish, which has volunteered in various parish ministries and activities.

“We all have babies or are pregnant now,” Allgeier said with a laugh. “And we want to make sure that our kids are going to have a church to go to, and have the same kind of faith and family in the parish that we did.”

The faith and family that Allgeier found in the parish when she was a child helped form that desire in her, she said.

When Allgeier was 11, her mother died of cancer. Families in the parish reached out to help, and consoled her and her family.

“When my mom was sick, going through chemo[therapy] and radiation, everyone at the school and in the parish got together and brought us meals,” she said. “They were really a huge support system.”

Father Schaftlein foresees more young families moving to Charlestown in the next five years as it likely becomes a bedroom community for people who commute to work in Louisville, New Albany, Jeffersonville and Clarksville.

“The fact that the young people that are here are taking ownership is a spark,” Father Schaftlein said. “It’s a foundation that’s being laid for the return of young people as they move out this way.”

So the parish known for change in its 150-year history is geared for more in the coming years.

“We await the day when the population continues to move out this way so we can re-open the school,” said Father Schaftlein. †