Mrs H, Eszter Varga, and I found this church heading south along the Mississippi River in Iowa. It is a little off the beaten path to say the least. Set among those wonderful semis-steep hills that often flank the rivers of the mid-west, it is a quaint almost picturesque Church, with not much town nearby to speak of. The small church and the old cemetery sit of Great River Road near Wexford Creek. Always looking for new sights, I often visit and quickly seek another. Mrs H was so taken by the place that she really insisted we have a picnic by the cemetery. Obviously, Irish form the name of the town, the Parish has kept aware of its Irish root, for some 160 years. A plaque listing the original parishioners can be found within the church building and there is a computably detailed listing for the cemetery. Founded largely owing to the efforts of Fr Hore (from County Wexford), like many Irish immigration stories, the story of Wexford begins in 1850, in the shadow the famines of the 1840s. 1200 parishioners followed Fr Hore from Ireland to New Orleans, on board three ships.. Ticonderoga, Loodianah, and Chasca. Father had to leave many of them waiting in St Louis while he finalized financial and spiritual matters. For a number of reasons, only 18 families followed him to Wexford (via the Mississippi). As with many parishes of the period, the first church was little more than a log cabin. The current structure was built from locally quarried limestone. Its high altar is intact, and the Stations of the Cross and statuary are still in good repair. The walls are covered with what appears to be pressed tin, while the ceiling is a shallow vault of wooden strips. As one might expect, the windows are simple medallion type, with medallion set higher up in the arch of window Like many rural churches it is feeling the pinch of consolidation. While it no longer has a resident pastor, it is still a going concern.
Here is the parish website http://www.icwexford.org/
And the pics.... Wexford pics
