Alright *cracking knuckles* let's discover our mystery church

If you've been following along at home, you'll remember that a few weeks ago I had someone who came across the blog email me a photo from an unknown La Crosse church which was labeled Christmas La Crosse 1937.  Problem is, no such church exists today.  Hence, mystery!

So after some digging, we found that it appeared likely that this was St John the Baptist(ethnic German) which merged with St James(French & Irish) which still exists today. 

Case closed?  Well turns out I asked my great uncle who is a life long member of St James for some help.  That whole side of my family grew up blocks from St Johns(but attended St James).  He looked at the photo and verified that this indeed was NOT a photo of St John's.   Here is what he found for me from the St James rectory; a rare photo of the interior of St John's from 1955.  There's the Baptist himself on top, the statue still exists in St James church today.

St John the Baptist - La Crosse - 1955

Uhhhh, so not the same church..... right?  So I went through and reviewed photos of all La Crosse parishes(minus Holy Cross parish which I am still working on).  By the way, Cathedral's 150th anniversary is coming up in a few years so I already am tasked to do a lot of this work anyway.  I'm not just some psycho obsessed with old Catholic churches..... hehehehhahehahahAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAA  HEREEEEE'S JOHNNY!!!!  ........................ but I digress.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, so I have verified photos of interiors of the La Crosse churches.  I put what I have on Flickr.  ... Yes if you locals notice some wreckovation fodder, I will be doing some major before/after posts for some of the other parishes.  But still nobody matches.   Note to self; I still need to update the source information for where I grabbed these all from on Flickr.

So a dead end?  Here's the thing, the family is German, St John's is the ethnic German parish.  The family was also married at St Johns.  Also, the family in question lived close to St John's and the next closest German parish, the Cathedral, was already overcrowded - hence the need for two other German parishes in the city(Holy Trinity being the other). 

So... is it possible between 1937 and 1955, the parish underwent a "renovation?"  Let's face it, it would be a magna wreck-ovation if that is what happened.  Also another factor could be World War II.  If anti-German sentiment were aroused, it may be that St John's was looking to hide that German identity from the hostility.   My contact confirmed that some of his relatives did change the spelling of their names to sound more French around that time.  So there were other factors that could mean this wreckovation theory is likely.  If true, it also goes to show the liturgical movement which we all have come to ... enjoy.... started much earlier than Vatican II. 

Diocesan archives have no other photos.  If anybody from La Crosse has family that's been here their whole lives, I'd appreciate it if you could ask if they have any old photos in churches, weddings, First Communion, ect.

I did run into some newspaper clippings that suggest a possible "renovation."



So I think I'm back to my original conclusion of St. John's except probably at about 60% confidence.