Online Iconography

(This post is copied from our other blog, Hesch History, but it's more about St Michaels in Buckman than it is about Heschs.  It concerns a painting "procured from Bernard Richter in St Annaberg, Silesia" in 1902, which hangs now in the new part of St Michaels.  (Walk in the main door and look up to your left).  

I'll probably always be stunned by what's available online in the way of tools (and toys).  Photoshop, for one.  Sure, everyone knows you can fade wrinkles or replace a whole body with PS, but there are other WAY more useful things it can do.  Larry took the side view of the painting from the church in Buckman and made it a full-view, AND lightened it alot (so we could see it better).  In fact, it's  probably never been cleaned.  We expect it was lighter and brighter 100 years ago (tho certainly not as bright as the image at the bottom of this post ☺).

Another amazing tool here is the plethora of images available online...but why would we need other pictures?  Well, Larry and I were both brought up Catholic.  We've all seen St Michael the Archangel a gazillion times, right?....but looking at the painting, we realized something was wrong.  The classic St Michael image holds a sword in his right hand (to conquer Satan), and a scale in his left (justice).  In earlier images, he might have held a shield instead of the scale, but the sword was a given, as was the dragon/devil/lizard under his feet...the flames not so much.
In the Buckman painting, those iconic elements are missing or..odd, somehow.  
The Buckman painting shows something in the clouds above the angel, who's holding a chain in his left hand, and something we can't figure out aloft, in his right.  In fact, Larry wondered if the figure was more like Archangel Gabriel iconography.  
So, last night, Larry started looking for more info on Bernard Richter and St Annasberg in Silesia, while I started looking for classic pics of Mike and Gabe, to check iconic differences between them.
(BTW, 'iconic' means the elements in an image that stand for this particular saint, like a tonsure, lily and book always means St Dominic, even if you can't read the inscription).
We both scored.  Larry found a book called 
The St. Anne Church  in Annaberg, by Ernst Oswald Schmidt,

 published in 1908.  It's written in Old German, but it's been machine 

translated...which helps, but not much ☺.  We definitely found the name 
Richter there, as well as a stained glass window depicting Archangel Michael. 
However, that image is completely different from the painting in Buckman.

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My search results were interesting.  I used Google images as well as TinEye reverse image search and found that Gabriel was most connected with the Annunciation, and he almost always had figures in the clouds around him.  And  I was looking for some connection between the high altar statue in St Michaels in Buckman and the Bernard Richter painting, both of which have the odd element of a chain rather than a scale in Michael's left hand.  I found only one other.  Was that just boredom with painting scales?

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Here's the adjusted painting, as well as the lighter version.  On the right is a holy card that must have been in most Catholic prayerbooks back then, because that pose is used over and over for St Michael. Maybe it was part of the 1800s Gettyimages?

Larry figured out that the two figures in the clouds above Michael identify the painting as coming from Annaberg.  They are St Ann and her daughter, Mary.
But what is that in Mike's right (dominant) hand?  In icon-language, the right hand was like the summation of a story, so what it holds is important.  Is it the severed head of the dragon? Or...mundanely, is it Michael's hat?  Hey, it matches his clothes.  Richter wasn't Michaelangelo, after all, but he painted something more personal for his patrons in Minnesota, more in the Polish German spirit, meant to remind them of their roots in the old country. Das war gut genug.

If you're reading this and you find yourself in St Michaels in Buckman, would you check the painting and see what you think he's holding?  Blogs can be changed...let me know, ok?

Who named St Michaels Church?

There's a book called "The Spirit in Central Minnesota: Parishes, priests and people" by Vincent Arthur Yzermans, published in 1989:

"Michael Oestreich and Michael Sand pooled their resourses to the amount of $75 and thus had the privilege of choosing the parish's patron saint. Father Joseph Vill, OSB, assistant pastor of St. Joseph's parish, was in charge...."
 
So the family story was mostly correct ☺.  Great grandpa Mike Sand was part of naming it, but not because he hauled the most rocks for the foundation....lol
 
Another THANKS to Larry!

Postcards from Buckman

Here's a photo of the brand new church in Buckman, c 1908 or so.  You can tell the printer didn't know the name of the saint it was dedicated to, because it's the "German Catholic Church in Buckman, Minn" and the alternate design below is "St Mickels"... 

Anyway, it's kinda fun to compare the original look with todays building, inside and out.  By the way, the banner hanging over the aisle there says "The Communion day is a feast day of your soul", and isn't it cool that we can zoom in? 

First,  the outside of the church--what happened to that bellfry?  Maybe it was struck by lightning or a windstorm took it.  It's different now, anyway, and the small cupola in the middle of the roof is gone  too.  Was it a vent, or a skylight?.......I remember Fr Leo Brandl was helping re-shingle the roof when he fell off, and lost part of his leg.  (I always admired the fact that he had a built in ashtray in a hole in his prosthesis)......The north door looked like that until a ramp was added stretching toward the back of the church.  Mom refused to use it even when the front steps were daunting, because it was too obvious, I think.  Now tho, there's an elevator, inside the new Hall. 

  Inside--former florist that I am, I zoomed in on the plants--these seem to be palm trees, which means they proudly heated the place all winter.  Palms are tolerant, but I expect it was still relatively cool in there ☺. 

When was the fancy pulpit removed?  I think I remember it as shown, so maybe it and the communion rail vanished at the same time, in the 60s.

Do you realize how unusual the statue of St Michael is?  He's holding a spear in his left hand and he's standing on a dragon. The dragon has a collar, with a chain held in St Michael's right hand (very few statues include chain ☺)  Looking at the photos, there's something missing--ah, the Heavenly Host wasn't painted on the ceiling yet. ►

 

Bowling at the church

I found this in the St Paul Pioneer Press column called Bulletin Board this week:

Writes Grandpa Dave: "Subject: Since when is bowling a church sport? "Last weekend, our family celebrated my oldest son's 50th birthday by piling into the basement of St. Francis [de Sales] Catholic Church in St. Paul's West Seventh neighborhood. We spend the next several hours enjoying a delightful time at bowling: grandma, grandpa, sons and daughters and seven delightful grandkids. The facility was small, modern and moderately priced. Check it out!

"Then I started to wonder about the idea of bowling alleys in church facilities — especially in older Catholic churches. I remember, growing up, that there were bowling alleys at Nativity, St. James, St. Francis, St. Bernard's and I believe St. Agnes. I assume I am forgetting some.

"But why? What was the motivation that made these lanes such an integral part of Catholic communities? Anyone have an answer — and the names of any other churches that had bowling lanes?

And this today....

Used To Curl of Rice Lake, Wis.: "Reading about bowling alleys in church basements brought back memories of the bowling alley in the basement of the Catholic school in Waite Park. My grandma lived right across the street from the school. My mom bowled there, and on very special nights — about once during the bowling season — my sister and I were allowed to go with her while she bowled. I was expected to be on my best behavior and was sure to get a special treat or two.

"When I was older — a freshman in high school, 1958 — I bowled in an after-school league in St. Cloud at the Granite Bowl. They still had human pin-setters at that time. I hit it off with one of the young men who had this job. He would send me notes back down the return ramp — in my bowling ball......"

LOL...we know of another Catholic Church with a bowling alley, right?  It's no longer there, in the Hall in Buckman, but it was when I was a kid.
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St Michaels Catholic Church in Buckman was built in our grandparents' generation.  I've seen 1902 and 1910 for when it was built, replacing the little white church that was there earlier.  The Hall, on the other hand, was built later (I think the cornerstone says 1920, but I could easily be wrong).  Most of our folks were here by the 1870-80s, and they were certainly involved; in fact, the family story about it says that Grandpa Janson hauled rocks and helped build those buildings, but that Great grandpa Michael Sand won the honor of naming the parish.

Anyway, I've often wondered myself, WHY Bowling?  Many immigrants who came to Minnesota were members or followers of the Turnverein Movement, "to work for the unity of the German people and to uplift the brotherhood and the physical and spiritual power of the people".

Did they cast about for some physical activity that'd draw people without building an entire gymnasium? 

Planning and building the Hall would have been shortly after the German-baiting in the U.S., when people who spoke German were accused of being spys (or worse) during WWI.  Maybe bowling seemed more "American"?

BTW, Mary at the Morrison County Historical Society is researching the subject, too, so we'll see what she comes up with!

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Later:  Heres an answer about WHY...BLUE LAWS & BOWLING !