Jansons, Sr Mamerta and Fr Coughlin

There's so MUCH to discover and connect to our extended family, especially with all the info available on line these days.  Our new found cousin Stephan, in Michigan, sent some pictures this morning (and promises more).  One was this one marked "Jack, Mamerta and I, Irish Hills"...

This was Stephan's daughter Marie Janson with her husband Jack Rose on one of Sr Mamerta's visits to Michigan. 

 I had to find out more about the Irish Hills, of course.  As I looked around online, it turns out the Irish Hills area is known for a couple of towers, and for St Joseph's Shrine, which was built by those Irish immigrants.  But, there seemed to be no structure similar to what's in the background here. Still, the Irish Hills were a definite draw for taking your cousin-who's-a-nun-from-Minnesota to see.  (Don't miss "History of the Irish Hill Towers" in this article...made me laugh out loud).

The Hills are west of Ann Arbor, and SE of (and closer to) Jackson, where the Janson's settled. Turns out the Irish Hills were a 19^th century stopping point during the 5-day stagecoach trip between Detroit and Chicago. 

Now, we need to switch gears to check out a 1930s Irish radio phenom from Michigan by the name of Fr Charles Coughlin.

At its peak in the early 1930s, Coughlin's radio show was phenomenally popular. His office received up to 80,000 letters per week from listeners, and his listening audience was estimated to rise at times to as much as a third of the nation. 

A priest on the radio would have been a must for Catholics in the country, including those in convents.  His influence would have been greater than Bishop Fulton J Sheen when we were kids, remember?
Anyway, his preaching got more and more anti-semitic and isolationist  until he was refused air-time by most radio stations.  His home church was  the Shrine of the Little Flower in Detroit, which "was completed in two stages, from 1931 to 1936, and funded by the proceeds of the radio ministry of the controversial Father Charles Coughlin who performed radio broadcasts from the tower".  The shrine is in Royal Oak, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit.
And when were they visiting?  Well, Jack died in 1942 but looks pretty healthy in the photo.  I'm guessing it was taken c. 1938-39.
I expect Sr Mamerta might have asked to see Coughlin's church, and possibly even to meet him, since by 1939, he'd been demoted to being only a parish priest at the shrine.  He served there until he retired in 1966.   But see?  THIS is where they were standing in that picture at the top.
  
THANK YOU to Stephan!