In nineteenth century Illinois there were fewer Roman Catholic immigrants arriving from Germany than in the Cincinnati area or southern Indiana. An example of an early German Catholic settlement on the eastern riverbank of the Mississippi is the small town of Quincy in Adams County. According to the Diamond Jubilee Souvenir publication of Quincy's St. Boniface church, forty German Catholic families had established themselves in Quincy by 1836. In 1848 the large church of St. Boniface was dedicated, and in 1863 the Benedictine altar builder Cosmas Wolf of Covington, Kentucky, constructed three altars. The cost of the main altar was $2,000,00. The two side altars each cost $500,00. Included in the price were altar paintings by Johann Schmitt.  His largest painting of St. Boniface converting the Teutons was placed over the main altar. SS. Theresa and Elizabeth and SS. Anthony and Aloysius graced the two side altars.[14] The diamond Jubilee booklet of 1912 also describes additional art works at St. Boniface church: "The two side walls of the sanctuary offered excellent fields for beautiful paintings, and so the most famous church artist of America, Wilhelm Lamprecht, created two masterpieces. On the epistle side The three wise men adoring the infant Jesus and on the gospel side The powers conferred by Christ upon St. Peter and his successors. There is one more piece of work from the master brush of Mr. Lamprecht. It is an exquisite little painting representing The fourteen Holy Helpers grouped around the infant Jesus."[15]

      St. Boniface church was completely rebuilt in the 1960's. The fate of Schmitt's and Lamprecht's paintings is not known. It must be assumed that they were destroyed during the renovation process.Somehow Lamprecht's small canvas of The fourteen Holy Helpers found its way to Quincy's Gardner Museum of Architecture and Design that was organized in 1974, to encourage the preservation of the town's outstanding nineteenth century architecture. Executive director Michael Kassel informed the author on her visit to the museum in June of 2000, that the Lamprecht painting is on loan from the St. Boniface parish. The subject matter of the Holy Helpers is rarely portrayed in religious art. It refers to a group of saints, who were especially responsive to prayers for help in recovery from illness. Their names varied. St. Anthony of Padua, St. Leonard, St. Nicholas, St. Sebastian, and St. Roch sometimes appeared as alternates in the following more usual list: Adacius, Barbara, Blaise, Catherine of Alexandria, Christopher, Cyriacus, Denys, Erasmus, Eustace, George, Giles, Margarete of Antioch, Pantaleon, and Vitus. Their cult seems to have been at its height at about the time of the Black Death in 1347 and 1351.[16] Wilhelm Lamprecht's painting at Quincy's Museum of Architecture and Design attracts visitors' attention because of its unusual theme. (Figure 98). At the same time it is a vivid reminder that a well-known German-American painter contributed to the beautification of a local church that was founded by immigrant settlers to the area in the early nineteenth century.

     The small western Illinois town of Quincy attracted a group of German Franciscan monks in 1859. Their first friary was erected in 1860, and two years later the most prolific builder of ecclesiastical structures in nineteenth century North America designed four permanent altars for the Franciscans' church, dedicated to St. Francis Solanus: Brother Adrian Wewer was born near Muenster, Westphalia, in 1836 and joined the Franciscan Order at the age of twenty-two.  He was sent to Quincy in 1862. Six years later he built a new Gothic Revival church dedicated to St. Francis Solanus for the Franciscans in the Illinois town. By that date the Franciscans had established a College, which today is called Quincy University, and functions as a private, co-educational liberal arts institution. The campus of Quincy University grew around St. Francis Solanus church, which today serves the student population and town inhabitants. St. Francis Solanus was born in Spain in 1549 and died in Lima, Peru, in 1610. As a member of the Franciscan Order, he had been sent to do missionary work in South America, where he converted many Indians. He is said to have been an accomplished violinist and is often depicted playing for Peruvian natives. [17]

     The sanctuary of the church of St. Francis Solanus was restored in the 1980's. It still features two lovely mural paintings above the side altars by the Milwaukee-based German-American artist Clothilda Brielmaier, who came to Quincy in 1908 to contribute to the interior decoration of the Franciscan church. One of her murals depicts St. Francis with Lady Poverty (Figure 99), and the other deals with The Portiuncula Indulgence of St. Francis and Third Orders (Figure 100). Both frescoes attest to the artist's mastery of the human figure and her finely attuned sense of color. The very presence of a woman painter among the nineteenth century German-American church artists demonstrates that there was no prejudice among her male colleagues, and that she had a very positive reputation far beyond the confines of her Milwaukee domicile.

     The most outstanding success story of a nineteenth century church that has been saved from planned destruction involves the Holy Family church in Chicago, Illinois. Holy Family was the original Jesuit parish of Chicago and the mother institution of Loyola University.  It was the second oldest church of the city and one of five buildings that survived the great fire of 1871. The diocese of Chicago was established in 1843, and the Holy Family parish was founded by the Reverend Arnold J. Damen. Father Damen was born in Holland in 1815 and came to the United States in 1837 to join the Society of Jesus at Florissant, Missouri.  He was ordained in 1844 and arrived in Chicago from St. Louis in the early 1850's. The decade of the 1850's witnessed new waves of immigration from Ireland and Germany. After the dedication of the Holy Family church in 1860, it served the Irish newcomers of Chicago's Near West side at 1080 West Roosevelt Road.[18] The Germans worshiped at St. Francis of Assisi church at Roosevelt Road and Newberry Avenue. This first German parish on the west side of Chicago was organized in 1853 by the Reverend Bernard Weikamp. The church was dedicated the same year.[19]

      The exterior of Holy Family church was designed by two architects from Milwaukee and built in the so-called Victorian Gothic style that was popular toward the latter part of the nineteenth century. The church was once known as the "Cathedral of the Prairie" by virtue of its size and close resemblance to European cathedrals. It is 236 feet long, and its single tower rises to a height of 25 stories. These measurements make it the fourth largest church in the United States. Holy Family once served the largest Roman Catholic congregation in the world, consisting of twenty-five thousand families of mostly Irish-Americans.[20]

     Throughout the years the ethnic composition of Chicago's Near West side neighborhood changed. The original working class Irish parish members moved out, and Italian-American, Mexican-American, and African-American families moved in. In 1984 Holy Family church with a leaking roof, cracked plaster, peeling paint, and damaged statues, had to be closed for safety reasons and was destined to be razed in 1990. Concerned members of Chicago's religious community, former and present residents of the Near West Side, and historic preservationists formed the Holy Family Preservation Society. Their campaign to save the city's landmark resulted in the generous contributions by thousands of donors, and the restoration of Holy Family church began in 1991.  Much of the work has been directed by the German-born painter Dieter Meister, who arrived in Chicago from the Ruhr valley in 1969. With a group of twelve men working in the church interior, Meister had to strip the walls of several coats of paint and cut new stencils for the columns as well as to replace the gold stars on the light blue ceiling above the main altar. That altar, fifty-two feet of elaborate wood carvings, with thirteen sculpted statues, had been dedicated in 1865, and was the work of Anton Boucher an immigrant from Germany. The two side altars, dedicated to Mary and Joseph respectively, were carved by Sebastian Boucher, Anton's nephew.[21] The altarpiece over the Marian altar depicts The Virgin and Christ child with an audience of the Pope and the Faithful and is signed by the German-American painter Johann Schmitt and dated 1872 (Figure 101 and Figure 102). Mr. Timothy Lennon, conservator of paintings at the Chicago Art Institute, has lovingly cleaned and restored the canvas to its original brilliance. The Virgin appears as Queen of Heaven with a rich robe and shimmering crown. Her young son is standing beside her on the globe, blessing the crowd assembled next to Pope Pius X. The individuals making up the group of the faithful appear to be North American Jesuit missionaries. St. Peter's Basilica is visible in the background. Mr. Lennon discovered a second altarpiece by Johann Schmitt in a storage room of the Holy Family church. It had originally been part of the St. Joseph altar at the east end of the sanctuary and depicts The Communion of a Jesuit Missionary. (Figure 103). Both paintings by Schmitt were installed in 1996 in their original location above the two side altars. There is no mention by Schmitt's biographer that the artist worked for the Holy Family church. His contribution to a Jesuit-founded parish is important, since it affirms that his reputation garnered him very desirable commissions. It also sheds more light on the artist's flexibility for handling diverse subject matter, in this case the appearance of historic members of the Jesuit community.

     The four million dollar restoration project of Chicago's Holy Family church is ongoing. This success story of preserving a multi-ethnic historic monument is heartwarming and proves that individual generosity can overcome the threatened destruction of a glorious past.

        Farther west the early history of the state of Missouri in mid-Continent is tied to several European countries. Spaniards were the first Europeans, who came to this region during the sixteenth century. Although Francisco Vasquez de Coronado never came closer to the Mississippi than central Kansas, other Spanish bands did. Frenchmen were the next Europeans to venture into the area in the second half of the seventeenth century.[22] A young French Canadian, Louis Jolliet, paddled a canoe with Father Jacques Marquette down Lake Michigan to Green Bay, and in a few days came out on the Mississippi in 1673. Other explorers followed. The Jesuits arrived in the 1690's.[23] On the occasion of the 1898 Trans-Mississippi "Omaha" Exposition, the German-American painter Wilhelm Lamprecht designed the one-cent stamp of Marquette on the Mississippi. The original painting is kept at Marquette University.[24]

      The settlement of St. Louis was founded in 1764 by the French. It was named after St. Louis IX, king of France, born in 1215. He led two crusades against the Turks, who had invaded Jerusalem. St. Louis was the patron saint of the French king Louis XV at the time of the North American foundation. The new town was located in the Mississippi valley at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. In the 1790's some French nobles and their families fled the Revolution and came to Missouri.[25]

      Although the first foundation of St. Louis was French, it was legally located in Spanish territory, since in 1763 with the Treaty of Paris, France had ceded to Spain all of the territory called "Louisiana" west of the Mississippi, but the Spanish only occupied it in 1770. In 1800 Louisiana became French and was transferred in 1808 to the United States by Napoleon.[26]