Burial, Marriage, and Baptism Record Transcriptions Copyright© by Gloria Dettleff
St. Mary Catholic Church
Carlyle, Illinois
In looking for the history of St. Mary Catholic Church of Carlyle, IL I found some astonishing information. This church was first established in 1853 making it the second oldest church in Clinton County, IL. The railroad coming in allowed this church to increase its membership so in 1871/1872 a new building was dedicated with a tall steeple. Then the storms of 1896 hit Carlyle leaving the town and the church in ruins. Since their insurance was only a small fraction of what it would cost to rebuild, the rebuilding took many years to complete. By 1907 the new Romanesque style church was completed with many spires added to the original steeple. It had marble from St. Genevieve, MO and more marble from Italy and Africa. The glass came from Germany and a $1700.00 organ was in place. Then in 1940 a fire threatened to take it all away again. Fortunately, the marble sanctuary survived but the organ, the glass and all the Appalachian oak seating were gone. In 1968 a tornado hit the church. This disaster took the stain glass windows, threw benches all over and damaged the roof, tower and interior. In 1974 another storm hit and so the parishioners reinforced the windows with heavy plate glass.
In the 1950s the parishioners erected the Our Lady of Fatima Shrine in the sunken garden of the cemetery. This has unique rocks from Missouri and Arkansas, pieces of Petrified Forest from Arizona and salvaged pieces of wood from the fire damaged church. The conglomerate pieces that make up this shrine as well as all the pieces of the church symbolize the people who made and erected these structures. Their names and life's moments are listed in the following databases of Baptisms, marriages and burials. These transcriptions were compiled using the LDS site for Illinois, Diocese of Belleville Catholic Parish Records which can be found here: https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1388122
Please note that many of the early records have torn pages, the handwriting is difficult to read and all entries are written in Latin. In the Baptism records pages 150 and 151 (July 1885) and pages 158 and 159 (May - June 1886) are missing from the LDS site. Also, some names and dates are obscured due to the book not being completely opened so that the writing towards the book's binding is not visible.