Enduring Faith: Charlestown church celebrates 150 years

CHARLESTOWN — A small wooden church was built 150 years ago near a railroad depot that bore the name of its founder, Father Andrew Michael and the patron saint of the immigrants working on the railroad nearby, St. Michael the Archangel.

Four churches later and several site changes, the congregation is still with St. Michael Catholic Church in Charlestown as it prepares to celebrate its sesquicentennial Sunday.

The Rev. Steven Schaftlein has been at St. Michael for six years, and even since he arrived he has seen a tremendous amount of change.

“The big thing for me is to see how, not just the church, but the whole community is changing rapidly,” he said.

Part of the history and the longevity of the parish at St. Michael has been attributed to how well the congregation has adapted to shifts over time and how it takes everything in stride.

“One of the characteristics of the parish is it’s more flexible to change and adaptation and it will always be, [in] part because that’s been its history,” Schaftlein said. “[It] had to undergo many changes over the years and that’s continued.”

Chuck Ledbetter Sr., chairman of St. Michael Sesquicentennial Committee — who has been a member of the church since 1956 — was able to confirm as much when he began chronicling a history of the church two years ago.

Uncovering history

The first building the parish moved into was built in 1860, when Charlestown was a small depot near the railroad. The church later moved to downtown Charlestown around the turn of the century, but still owns the original site that became the church’s cemetery. Nearly three decades after the church’s move to downtown, it experienced one of the seminal moments in its history.

“That church was destroyed by fire in 1928,” Ledbetter said.

But the events that caused the fire, stories of when it actually occurred and pictures that were supposedly taken of the church were shrouded in contradictory accounts and lack of proof of what really happened.

In researching the two historical volumes Ledbetter has written about the church, he was able to create a more accurate account of what actually happened to St. Michael’s second building.

“What was interesting about it was all of the myth surrounding those pictures,” he said. “It seems like the older folk who were telling me those stories [when they remember them from] 13 [years old] couldn’t substantiate the story at all.”

Some accounts placed the fire in the summer because the building was very hot, but photos that were rumored to have been taken had not been located.

Although the photographer is still unknown, the photographs of the fire were eventually found in Charlestown’s library.

“I just dropped everything and went up there because I had to see these pictures after all these years of always hearing about them,” Ledbetter said.

In addition to finally getting a look at the building that was burned to the ground, Ledbetter was able to determine the fire took place April 15, 1928.

“The fire actually — we think through a consensus after talking with lifelong member John Gellhaus — that more than likely it was a faulty furnace that they had installed a few months earlier that caused the fire,” he said. “[Gellhaus] remembers inside of the parish church that it was really hot that day. So, after the congregation had filed out after Mass, about an hour after that, it caught on fire.”

A third church was built on the same property on Morrow Street, but the congregation later moved to a fourth church at the site of St. Michael school — built in 1951 — and then finally moved to its current location in 1982.

In digging through the church’s past, Ledbetter found a new connection to the parish that he had been a part of since he was 12 years old.

“I think one of the things I learned ... I see us more as a family now than I ever have before,” he said of the older members he talked to. “It’s a good camaraderie that you pick up from all that.”

The history of the churches and the people that have been attending services for decades also was not lost on Schaftlein.

“From the parishioners, I just got this rich history of the variety of people who have been a part of the parish over the years,” he said.

St. Michael’s growth

Part of the rich history was marked by a major change to St. Michael and Charlestown when the Indiana Army Ammunition Plant opened in the 1940s.

“Some of those families that came in here in the ’40s when the plant came into existence, they’re with us today,” Ledbetter said.

St. Michael’s school, which now serves children ages 6 months through kindergarten, also developed from the influx of population as a result of the ammunition plant opening.

“When the powder plant came in, they opened a school because the population had grown so much,” Schaftlein said.

But another group of long-time members of the church predate the ammunition plant. Together a significant contingent of members have stayed with the church for decades.

“I think it means there’s roots here,” Schaftlein said.

While the numbers of members of the church dropped significantly when the former ammunition plant closed up, another resurgence has begun at St. Michael.

Community outreach

More than 450 people belong to the church and about 40 percent of the congregation have origins in Latin America. The evolving dynamic of the church’s attendees has been welcomed as a blessing, which overall enriches the celebrations, Schaftlein said. The integration of people and cultures has been an ongoing task and Schaftlein also conducts a second service on Sundays in Spanish.

“I think with that balance of numbers it allows for a gradual process of integration without some of the fears and anxieties that sometimes occur,” he said. “When both communities know they need each other, it helps. I look for a real nice celebration with both cultures coming together.”

The church is continuing to work on its outreach in the community and is preparing for continued growth.

“I think the key thing from my perspective would be an openness to investing for the future,” Schaftlein said. “I saw that here from the very beginning.

“The parishioners here are looking forward to that, to the growth of the community.”

In celebrating the past, the church also is looking to preserve its place in the region.

“The challenge for us is to move us into the next generations ahead and I hope those people 150 years from now will look back and say, ‘hey, they did a good job getting us here,’” Ledbetter said.

The sesquicentennial event, which coincides with church’s Septemberfest on Sept. 19, will be open the public.

“This gives them an opportunity to see St. Michael’s,” Ledbetter said. “It also gives us to say we’re a part of the community, too.”

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SO YOU KNOW

• The St. Michael Catholic Church Sesquicentennial Celebration will be held Sunday and is open to the public. Archbishop of Indianapolis Daniel Buechlein will attend the even along with seven former priests of St. Michael. The event will begin with a bilingual mass at 11 a.m. at Saint Michael Catholic Church, 101 St. Michael Drive, in Charlestown. The following Sunday, Sept. 19, the church will host its annual Septemberfest and chicken dinner from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The website is www.stmichaelstfrancis.com

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