St Ambrose Holy Family Mission

We are a holy family, modeled after the Holy Family. We welcome people of all cultures to
worship and to religious education. We care for one another in our congregation and take
initiative in doing whatever is needed in our church. We want to reach out to the community,
especially in proclaiming the gospel and in ministry to youth and the elderly.

Somos una familia santa, segun el modelo de la Sagrada Familia. Las personas de cualquier
cultura son bienvenidos a juntarnos en la adoracion a Dios y en la educacion religiosa.
Cuidamos uno para el otro en la congregacion y tomamos el iniciativo para hacer cualquier
cosa necesaria en nuestra iglesia. Queremos extender la mano a la comunidad, especialmente en
proclamando el evangelio y en el ministerio a los jovenes y a los ancianos.

July 23, 1998

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Holy Family Mission in Mereta

“We have fifty children at Catechism in Mereta on Tuesday afternoons; there are three lay
teachers helping with instruction; the church on Sundays is filled to capacity.” With these
words, Very Rev. Bernard J. Binversie, pastor of St. Ambrose in Wall assured his Bishop,
Most Rev. Thomas J. Drury, Bishop of San Angelo, who was in Rome for a session of the
second Vatican Council, that building a church at Wall’s mission in Mereta was a good thing.
The new mission church, largely funded by the Catholic Church Extension Society, had been
dedicated the previous summer on July 28, 1963. The mission was called Holy Family at the
request of the major donor.

Today, in 1998, we celebrate the thirty-fifth anniversary of this dedication. This little booklet,
not a scholarly work by any means, is written to give some of the history of the town of Mereta
in the flats east of San Angelo, and of the Catholic Church in that area. We celebrate the
bishops and priests who have encouraged the Catholic people in this area in their faith, the
sisters from Mexico who came in 1964 to do the initial evangelization, and the people who
have made the growth of the congregation possible and who are so active in their faith
community today.

But we are getting ahead of our story. Let us go back in history to the 1880’s when a man
named John A. Loomis from England came to the area by way of Syracuse, New York and
bought three parcels of land, including what was to become Mereta, Texas. The town of
Mereta would eventually be set out on the Northeast corner of the Conrad Ewald Grant no.
1632. Over fifty acres of land were involved.

Another man, W.J. Fisher, came to the area in 1890 from East Texas, settled several miles
from this site and built a grocery store and cotton gin. These men met and Mr. Loomis told
Mr. Fisher if Mr. Fisher would find a doctor to serve the area, Mr. Loomis would donate land
for a town and move Mr. Fisher’s store to the site. Mr. Fisher agreed and brought Dr. D.L.
Hess to the area. Mereta was born. Mr. Fisher also brought the Post Office he had been
operating out of his home.

To have the town and post office, a name had to be selected that was different from any other
town in Texas. Two stories exist of where Mereta got its name. One story says it’s a
misspelling of Marietta, the name of a friend of Mr. Loomis’ daughter. The other is that
Mereta is a combination of names of twins Meta and Reta Burns, whom Mr. Fisher knew in
East Texas.

Loomis filed his donation on June 5, 1906. Fisher, as a county commissioner, approved it.
The town was never incorporated and has never had elected officials, but community
leadership throughout the decades has been strong.

It was also in 1906 that County Commissioners established the Mereta Independent School
District. Before that, children were educated at Sheepshed School on the Loomis Ranch; this
school, located between two barns (hence, the name) had been in operation since the 1890’s.
Mereta’s school was active until it was annexed to the Wall I.S.D. on October 9, 1968.

The years from 1906 to 1920 were growing, bustling times. Three stores, a post office, a
pharmacy, and eventually the Revell Hotel with twenty rooms and a very busy dining room
were built. The principal occupation was farming and the cotton gin was a focal point of the
town’s business. It was a steam-run modern facility, said to be the best at that time in this part
of Texas.

Telephones were available and soon a barbershop and confectionery, Woodman Hall and a
building called the “Tabernacle” were built. The later two were the sites of many social
activities and revivals.

Picnics were a major form of socializing and the Fourth of July Celebration each year was
especially large, with a live band, a speaker, barbecue, and fireworks. Lasting three days, it
filled the hotel and private homes with visitors and left many camping outside. Some say the
annual gin barbecue each summer in Mereta recaptures the spirit of these Fourth of July
celebrations. Other picnics were held in Mullins (now Veribest) and the people of Mereta
participated.

But Mereta always had two major problems – not enough water and too much wind. The sand
storms were legendary. Other events also affected Mereta’s decline - manpower leaving for
service in World War I; the flu epidemic of 1918; bad crops and permanent damage to the gin
when it burned in 1920 and cotton had to be hauled to the town of Miles for ginning.

In 1930, a new electrically run gin in a steel, fire-proof building was started by Mr. Andy
Brown, encouraged by Mr. Dudly Bledsoe, who eventually became its owner. Mr. Bledsoe
sold it in 1939 to the Mereta Co-op, which had been formed by local farmers. The Mereta
Co-op Gin has existed to the present day, though modernized along the way. The co-op
today also buys grain, and sells fertilizer, feed, seed, and agriculture supplies.

In the forties, another World War took many young men of the community away and affected
Mereta’s population. In the 50’s as these young men were again among the workforce and
people from Mexico seeking work in the fields settled in the north part of town, Mereta was
on the verge of new growth. But the drought of the 50’s, lasting almost seven years, again led
to decline as farms failed and people moved away.

When rain finally came, the great flood of 1957 became a part of Mereta’s history. Building
Highway 1642 connecting Mereta with Eola and Miles in the early 60’s made Mereta
accessible to travelers more easily and improvements followed. A service station that still
exists today was built across from the gin. The Catholic Church built a permanent home for its
members and today in 1998 is the only church building in Mereta.

There had been a long history of the Church of Christ in the area from the 1920’s. The
Church of Christ was especially active during the 30’s and continued until 1955 when it
disbanded and members joined others in San Angelo, Eola, and Miles for worship.

Baptist and Methodist preachers came through periodically to preach revivals at the
Tabernacle or at the river. On July 26, 1914, the Mereta Missionary Baptist Church of Christ
came into existence. In April of 1945, the members began a church building that was
dedicated to March 16, 1947 as Mereta Baptist Church. It was operated under Southern
Baptist guidelines until it closed September 30, 1985 due to the decline in the community. The
building now houses Noe’s Café at the corner of Highway 1642 and Beldsoe Road in
Mereta. Jehovah witnesses came to Mereta annually (and still do) to do house to house
evangelization, but never established a Hall here. A few members live in Mereta today.

One cannot talk about churches in Mereta, Catholic or otherwise, without mentioning the
tabernacle. What was this place? Originally, it was built in 1904, located on the east side of
the original town site and consisted of a 50x50 foot roof supported by wooden posts, with no
walls and a dirt floor. Preachers used it for revivals and baptized people in Lipan Creek that at
the time was filled with clear water the year round.

In 1925 the tabernacle was moved west to the public square and “remodeled.” Wall with
windows were added, along with a concrete floor. A stage, dressing rooms, benches, a piano
and a large pot-bellied coal-burning stove were all installed, paid for by local citizens. It
served the community well for social and religious activities but eventually was razed. The site
presently is home to the baseball field.

The Tabernacle became part of Catholic history in the area when Father Jerome Vitek, pastor
of St. Ambrose in Wall, began coming to Mereta in 1958 to teach religion classes to the
Catholic children and used the Tabernacle for these meetings, as well as to offer Mass for the
Catholic families in town. This ministry ended when the Tabernacle was razed and father Vitek
was transferred.

In 1960, Father Joseph Walters became pastor at Wall and was responsible for church life in
Mereta. In November of that year in a letter to Most Rev. John L. Morkovsky, Bishop of the
Amarillo Diocese of which Mereta and Wall were part, Father Walters suggested attaching the
territory of Mereta to Eola, which already had a regular Sunday mass, which many people of
Mereta were attending.

Rev. Bernard J. Binversie became pastor of Wall on April 4, 1962. It was during his tenure
that momentum increased to establish Mereta as a formal mission and to build a Catholic
church in the town. By that time, the Diocese of San Angelo had been established, with Most
Rev. Thomas J. Drury as Bishop of the area.

Father Binversie must have pushed hard for this church at Mereta because Bishop Drury, in a
letter to the general secretary of the Extension Society, wrote that “Father Binversie is a very
zealous priest and he gave me no rest until we revived the place again.” The building was
constructed by J.L. Traywick at a cost of $16,325.00. A major contribution of $10,000.00
was made by Mr. And Mrs. Romy Hammes through the Catholic Church Extenson Society.
The Extension Society also contributed vestments, altar linens, candlesticks, a bronze
tabernacle, a baptismal font, and other articles. The response of the Extension Society was
hastened by the fact that the diocese and parish were willing for the Extension donors to name
the new church. “Holy Family” was chosen.

The land for the church had been donated by Mr. And Mrs. Ed Wanorek, Sr. of San Angelo.
It consists of 3.021 acres, with a water well in the center.

Other donations included the altar donated by Court St. Catherine of Siena, Catholic
Daughters of America, of Wall and a statue of the Holy Family donated by Allie and Hattie
Kellermeier.

The new church had a seating capacity of almost 100. It had red brick on the façade and a
bell tower a few feet away. The man who dug the septic tank remarked that the new building
was aptly located: Upon this rock I will build my church!

The new building was dedicated to Most Rev. Thomas J. Drury on July 28, 1963. Rev.
Francis Schoutteten, OMI, in Spanish and in English, preached the sermon. The choir from St.
Ambrose in Wall sang under the direction of Mrs. Erwin Schwartz.

In September 1963, Father Binversie wrote the Catholic Church Extension Society: “The
church is packed at each Sunday Mass, and I have never seen a group of people as tickled
about having church.”

The first Baptism in the new church was that of Sammy David Kellermier, son of Clarence and
Marjorie Kellermier on August 18, 1963.

In March 1964, the folding chairs were replaced with pews bought from Nally Pickle Funeral
Home in Big Spring, which had bought them from a church in Galveston. Holy Family Mission
church now had a more permanent look.

Having a church building provided the setting for the next step: Evangelization. In the Fall of
1964, four sisters from Monterey, Mexico, members of the missionary Catechists of the Poor,
came to the Diocese and specifically to Mereta. From October 27 – November 22 of 1964,
the sisters took a census, visited homes, established a religious education program, conducted
missions, and prepared people for the sacraments. Their final report listed sixty-nine homes
visited, seven Baptisms, twenty-three children and thirty-four adults receiving First Communion
and sixteen marriages blessed in the church.

Therefore, Mereta’s new Catholic church thrived. The first church committee was elected in
July of 1963 at the Mereta Park House and the Altar Society and a religious education
executive board were formed in 1964. The St. Pius X Club was also formed that year of
teachers in the religious education program. For a while both Saturday evening and Sunday
Masses were celebrated at the mission each weekend.

First Holy Communion was celebrated from the beginning. Records show a remarkable
fifty-three people received the Sacrament of Confirmation on March 2, 1964, celebrated by
Bishop Thomas Drury; subsequent classes every few years through the 1980’s averaged about
ten to be confirmed. Today Confirmations take place with the students of St. Ambrose at
Wall.

The first marriage at Holy Family, other than convalidations, was the wedding of Lucinda de la
Garza and Noe Martinez on January 23, 1965.

The first funeral in the new mission occurred when Pedro Villareal died on June 9, 1964. He
was buried on June eleventh.

“Each year there is a day to the Blessed Sacrament, a May crowning of the statue of Mary, a
Guadalupe celebration on December 12 and an Easter Egg Hunt following Easter Mass.”
These events, recorded by Father Bernard Binversie in 1971, continue even until today.
Father Binversie planted trees and the constant care given to them by him and his housekeeper
give us shade near the parish buildings today. During his pastorate, he taught religious
education, coordinated the program, and made sure the faith was proclaimed. He also served
as Chancellor of the Diocese of San Angelo during this time.

In 1977 Father Benversie was transferred to St. Lawrence Parish in Garden City and Fr.
Kevin Heyburn assumed the pastorate of St. Ambrose in Wall and Holy Family in Mereta. Fr.
Heyburn, a native of England and former military chaplain, came to Wall from St. Joseph
Parish in Rowena.

The First Parish Council members of Holy Family Mission were elected in 1977. They were
Edward Kellermeier, Alfred de la Garza, Ed Wanorek, Nola Wonerek, Amado de la Garza
and Herbert Biederman. Marjorie Kellermeier, as president of the Altar Society, also sat on
the Council.

Plans to renovate the church building began to be discussed during Fr. Heyburn’s
administration, as well as the need for a parish hall. The parish hall, with a kitchen, was
completed in 1982, just before Fr. James Plagens became pastor. The Extension Society also
assisted with a donation.

In 1988, on July 31, Holy Family Mission celebrated it’s twenty-fifth anniversary as an
established mission with it’s own facilities. Guests included the Bishop of San Angelo, Most
Rev. Michael D. Pfeifer, OMI, and Mr. and Mrs. Ed Wanorek who had donated the land for
the church building. The dinner following the Mass was held at the Mereta Fire Hall. A mariachi
band from San Angelo provided entertainment. Almost annually during those twenty-five years,
picnic suppers had been held on each anniversary, some at the Mereta Park House, and others
at the Fire Hall.

Fr. Plagen’s tenure saw a total renovation of the church; adding a new entryway, stained glass
windows and sanctuary updating. When the church was rededicated on February 16, 1992, a
new six-room religious education building was also blessed. These renovations and buildings
have been made possible by the generosity and hard work of the parishioners. A plaque in the
church records some donations. But mention must certainly be made of the participation off
Holy Family parishioners in what is usually called the “St. Ambrose Fall Festival.” In reality, the
Mereta parishioners are fully involved with every aspect of the festival – preparing the meal,
participating in the auction, playing the games. One fifth of the net income is received by Holy
Family Church.

Msgr. Larry J. Droll, the present pastor, assumed leadership of Holy Family Mission in 1992
when he became pastor of St. Ambrose Parish, while continuing as Chancellor of the Diocese
of San Angelo.

“Father Larry asks us to name two things we like best about Holy Family Church. It was
unanimous that the best aspects of Holy Family Church were camaraderie among parish
members and the location and small size of our church.” This account in the Parish Council
minutes soon after Msgr. Droll’s appointment indicate positive evaluation of the place.

Msgr. Droll initiated rotation of council membership, saw to the completion of furnishings for
the church and religious education building and gave leadership and support in all parish and
mission programs. His gift with music adds to the liturgy, as well as to the fun the children have
as he plays his guitar and sings with them. Enabling leadership among the people is one of his
other strong points.

In 1996, Msgr. Droll arranged for Sr. Carrie Miller, Slw, to serve Holy Family Mission as a
Pastoral Associate. She worked during the 1996-97 school year with children’s programs,
marriage enrichment and pastoral care. Sr. Maria Gaheb, OP, has served as Pastoral
Associate 1997-98, encouraging prayer among adults and children, enhancing the liturgy, and
initiating English classes for the people.

Today, some Holy Family Mission members live in walking distance of the church building –
others on farms and ranches at some distance. Many families have moved to San Angelo, but
come back to Mereta for worship. Most people interviewed feel the building of their own
church has done a great deal to bring cooperation among all the people. Attendance at Mass
and other church activities has grown and the church provides a gathering point for many
people. Groups visiting outside of church each Sunday give testimony to the community spirit
experienced here. Asked about the impact of the mission on Mereta's town people, one
person said that , because of meeting in church, “we know each other.” That leads to caring
for one another in the Lord.

Community life at Holy Family in Mereta includes annual events like Las Posadas at Christmas
time, vacation bible school for the children in the summer and one “Small Christian
Community” that meets weekly for prayer in Spanish. The religious education program is
flourishing, with 60-70 students each year in classes up to the eighth grade.

Mereta itself has changed over these many years. Many streets and alley’s set up by Mr.
Loomis when he began Mereta are now gone or have been changed. For example, the present
pumps at the service station and the office for the gin are in what was part of a street. The
former school, now co-op property, is sitting in the middle of an alley set out by Loomis.

Times go by, lives change; but God never changes and maybe this is the real message Holy
Family Mission brings to Mereta and to the church that worships in these buildings. Just talk to
the people who grew up here and come home now to worship. They will tell you.