NORTH ARM — Present and former parishioners of St. Aloysius Church in North Arm will celebrate the 175th anniversary of their parish on Sept. 9 at a 4 p.m. Mass with Bishop Thomas John Paprocki, the celebrant. Father David Zimmerman, pastor, and other priests will concelebrate Mass.

In 1817 Catholic pioneers from Kentucky traveled north through Vincennes, Ind., with their leader Aloysius Brown, to settle at the north arm of Coal Creek in what is now eastern Edgar County. The settlers' children played with Kickapoo Indians, whose camp was located beside the creek.

Their first place of worship, a log structure, was not counted as a church. It was replaced in 1837 by a brick church, and the present tall brick church built in 1900 uses the ornately carved wooden altars, pews, and confessional from the original brick church.

The Catholic community in Paris was a mission of St. Aloysius until the western-bound railroad was built through Paris, bringing in many Irish and other Catholic families to settle there. In 1858, Bishop Henry Damian Juncker of the (then) Diocese of Alton, made North Arm a mission of Paris.

"Still we've had some awesome priests here over the years," says Linda Barrett, a retired school teacher, whose late husband was the grandson of one of the original settlers. "Every Sunday Father Zimmerman comes from Paris to celebrate Mass at 7 a.m. We usually have anywhere from 50 to 80 people at Sunday Mass."

Organizers are expecting 150 to attend the anniversary Mass, and dinner reception afterward in Paris.

"We have had a lot of vocations come from the parish," says Barrett. "A daughter of Aloysius Brown was mother superior of the Sisters of Providence, and a good friend of (now) St. Mother Theodore Guerin."

Springfield Sacred Heart Academy graduates might remember Dominican Sister Mary Blanche Barrett, long-time SHA principal. "She was my father-in-law's sister," says Barrett.