Once in a while, I will check the web site of my home town. The Internet, of course, can elevate all sorts of obscure places on the map into a position to be known across the planet. Maybe your town has its own site, and you can find out whats going on there. Maybe the boosters there have done a fine job showcasing the place of your roots.
So I checked out www.parkersburgiowa.info to see whats new there in the place that is growing with pride.. I already subscribe to the Eclipse-News-Review, the weekly newspaper where I got my journalism start in 1963 when they printed my weekly editorials and the rest of Top Talk, our school newspaper of which I was editor.
My ancestors settled outside of town the same year the town was founded (1855), and our family cemetery plot on the top of a hill in Oak Hill Cemetery has an obelisk, the highest marker in the sprawling cemetery. Both my parents and maternal grandparents are among those buried there. The plot is next to that of Pascal P. Parker, the founder ofParkersburg, Iowa.
The towns biggest fame is that the high school (since merged with Aplington five miles away) has produced at least four National Football League players. Author Ernest Hemingways second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer, was born there July 22, 1895, but moved away when she was 6 with her family, though it is said that she spent some childhood summers visiting relatives in Parkersburg.
Lamentably, we didnt get back to my hometown in 2005 for the big 150th celebration. I was 9 when the town celebrated its centennial in 1955, and I still remember my Uncle Genes beard, the long parade on Main Street and the special events, including some guy who did a demonstration on a new kind of foam plastic that oozed all over the stage.
That year, the Parkersburg merchants lavished us with centennial gifts sporting their names and the mere four numbers of the phone exchange.
I pretty much moved from Parkersburg in 1964 when I headed off to Iowa State
University, but have returned often. When I revisited the web site, I checked out the link to the towns churches. There are eight of them now, just one more than when I left. In 1971, the Lutheran Church had a theological split, and Faith
Lutheran Church was born. More conservative, it affiliated with the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. That churchs link notes Current membership is 125 souls. Some of the churches have new buildings since I left town, like First Congregational Church where my mother attended as a girl.
What I hadnt known until now was that the Catholic church no longer has its own priest, as it did when I was growing up. St. Patricks belongs to what is called the Holy Family Parish Catholic Community one parish encompassing four towns, including Grundy Center (Sacred Heart), Reinbeck (Queen of Heaven) and Dike (St. Mary). In 1999, all were clustered as one parish with four buildings. The greatest distance between any two towns (Reinbeck to Parkersburg) is 22 miles.
Obviously, a shortage of priests has necessitated it. This parish of the Archdiocese of Dubuque has successfully brought together small communities to share resources which enhance parish life in the areas of worship, education, service, community and administration, the web site notes.
But when I checked with Liz Nilles, parish secretary, I learned that the web site is out of date. St. Marys was closed in June and its building sold. A new church will be built south of Dike with a new name to be announced this weekend. When it is completed, the Grundy Center and Reinbeck churches will be closed, and there will be just two churches, the one in Parkersburg and the new one south of Dike. The rural parish encompasses 450 families.
We had to do something or the archdiocese would do it, Nilles said. The priest, the Rev. Dennis Quint, officiates for three Masses each weekend Grundy
Center at 5 p.m. Saturday, Reinbeck at 8 a.m. Sunday and Parkersburg at 10 a.m. Sunday. Confessions are once a month rotating among the various churches.
Merged schools, merged churches since I left home. A resilient town growing with pride.
