Old Monastery Christmas Tour, Nov. 25-26, Dec. 2-3 in Wien

A collection of family-treasured Nativity scenes, a tribute to local veterans and a trip to the attic will highlight this year’s Old Franciscan Monastery Christmas Tour at St. Mary of the Angels parish in Wien.

Guided tours of the church and 1876-vintage rectory adorned in Christmas finery will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. on Saturdays, Nov. 25 and Dec. 2; and from 2 to 4 p.m. on Sundays, Nov. 26 and Dec. 3.

Free-will donations will be accepted to benefit preservation and ongoing restoration of the church.

Hot chocolate, coffee and cookies will be served in the rectory dining room, except on Dec. 2, when a soup and chili supper will be held in nearby St. Mary’s Hall from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

A gift boutique, including many unique, homemade and handcrafted Christmas items, will be open in the downstairs parlor, with proceeds also benefiting church restoration.

Tours will begin in the impressive, Gothic vaulted church, built between 1876 and 1892.

The church is located on Highway 129 in Chariton County — 9 miles south of Highway 36, or 17 miles north of Highway 24 in Wien.

Some gave all

Each room in the rectory, which served as a Franciscan friary until 1914, is being decorated according to a theme.

The upstairs hallway and library will be awash in red, white and blue, with photos of living and deceased veterans from the Wien parish and missions that were once served by Franciscan friars there.

Special honor will be given to the six men who were killed in action: Hamden parishioners Raymond Marek and John Poeschl, who died in the Korean War and Vietnam War, respectively; and Wien parishioners Aloysius Nanneman, Eugene Long, Alvin Kunkel and Clarence Weimer, who died in World War II.

Rebecca Bentley, a member of St. Joseph parish in Hurricane Branch, who is related to both of the fallen from Hamden, suggested honoring those who had given the full measure of devotion in service to their country.

“We decided to honor them and the rest of the veterans from our parish and all the other parishes that were served by the Franciscans at Wien,” stated lifelong St. Mary of the Angels parishioner Joe Bertsch, one of the volunteers who’s decking the rectory’s halls.

Mrs. Bentley attended the tour two years ago with her mother, Margaret (Marek) Koehl.

“After the tour we received a wonderful thank you note from Rebecca in the mail, and she said she would be interested in helping,” said Mr. Bertsch. “This is her second year helping decorate.”

Upstairs, downstairs

Structural elements of the home will be on display during the first-ever public tours of the attic.

“We went up there and cleaned up and have decorated it with a winter theme — with some trees and snow,” said Mr. Bertsch.

The Communion rail from the church, stored in the attic, will also be on display, as will a leaf-pattern metal stencil from when artisans first decorated the church interior.

Situated at the end of the hallway will be the 1949-vintage stable and Nativity figurines that adorn the church each Christmas.

An adjacent room will be filled with Nativity scenes on loan from several families.

Members of the parish’s Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) are outfitting one of the rooms with a contemporary Christmas theme.

A miniature Christmas village scene will be the focal point of the dining room.

Mr. Bertsch is decorating a room with Case International Harvester tractor toys and memorabilia.

His great-uncle bought a new International Harvester ractor from a dealer in Salisbury in 1956. The dealer had loaned the tractor to a visiting circus troupe, which used it to draw the elephant wagon into the big top.

Mr. Bertsch still uses the tractor “to quarter a few bales of hay” each year.

Since his boyhood collection consists mostly of John Deere replicas, Mrs. Bentley brought several of her grandson’s Case IH toys to help decorate the room.

The upstairs bathroom, with fixtures dating from the 1950s, reminded one of the volunteers of Elvis Presley. So they’re decorating it with a playful mid-century motif.

Hamden connections

Permanently displayed in one of the rooms are artifacts from the old Immaculate Conception Church in Hamden.

Closed since the early 2000s, the rustic mission fell into disrepair and was finally demolished this spring.

Many artifacts and mementos, including window frames and the confessional, were removed for safekeeping.

A newly built memorial incorporating the bell, the steeple cross and a rendering of the church in granite is nearing completion.

The Immaculate Conception Room in the Wien rectory includes the tabernacle, altar stone, statues and Stations of the Cross from the old Hamden church.

The St. Joseph and St. Anthony of Padua statues, both holding the Christ Child, were originally set into smaller altars in St. Mary of the Angels Church.

When the friars built the current, larger altars in Wien, the smaller ones and the statues were given a new home in the Hamden church.

Two simple pews from Hamden and an image of the Blessed Mother that once looked down from the Immaculate Conception sanctuary are now permanently at home in the Wien rectory.

The mission cross from Hamden now adorns the sacristy of St. Mary of the Angels Church, while the restored reed organ makes music in the rectory dining room.

The Nativity scene from Hamden will be on display with the rest of the artifacts.

Was a mission hub

In the parish’s Franciscan days, priests would travel by horseback to offer Mass on a circuit of surrounding missions.

Some of those continue today as parishes, while others have faded into memory.

The rectory has had many priestly residents and been gradually transformed since the friars moved on over a century ago.

Yet it, along with the church and surrounding community once known as Mount Saint Mary’s, still speak with authority about days and centuries gone by.

As pastor from 1964-66, the late Father Joseph Starmann founded the Brotherhood of Christian Unity, an ecumenical group to promote Christian unity through prayer. Leaders of various nearby church groups and their families lived in and near the rectory.

Father Clarence Wiederholt, a retired U.S. Air Force chaplain whose photo will be included in the veterans display, served in Wien from 1976-87.

Father Philip Moriarty, who died in 2009, was the last priest to call the rectory home.

“Wien is a place where family and tradition are very important,” he once noted. “Here, you drink of Catholicism at its very best. The people here are some of the finest I’ve ever met. They have great reverence for the faith.”

Command performance

The Old Franciscan Christmas Monastery Tour started in 2015 after parishioners and visitors observed how few people had ever seen the inside of the rectory, which is now used mostly for classes and meetings.

A group of parishioners decided to hold an open house. Christmastime seemed like a good time, so they went about decking the halls.

It was intended to be a one-time event, but visitors convinced organizers to make the open house an annual tradition.

This year, volunteers begin planning and decorating the rectory in October, working for several hours each Tuesday night.

Some also spent Sunday afternoons decorating.

In good hands

This and other fundraisers help fuel the ongoing restoration of St. Mary of the Angels Church.

Exterior work has been completed. Plaster work and repainting of the interior, adorned with Gothic woodwork created by the Franciscans who once called the friary home, are scheduled to begin in August 2018.

Taking good care of this place is important, said Mr. Bertsch, because “the church is where the community is. It brings the community together. That’s how it’s been for generations.”