Congregants to miss loss of Penfield Catholic church services

May 21—PENFIELD — Julianne Hedrick saw many in the St. Lawrence congregation bow their heads Saturday evening when their parish priest delivered the news: Penfield's sole Catholic church (est. 1898) would soon hold its last services.

While members of the church in the close-knit Champaign County town of less than 200 typically gather outside the historic yellow chapel after each Mass to catch up, Hedrick said few had anything to stick around for this time.

"There was a lot of silence, everybody just got in their car and left. Sadness, you could tell," Hedrick said Monday. "I had been praying that it would stay open, and you know your prayers are always answered?

"Sometimes, the answer is 'no.' And that's what I felt — the answer to my prayer is 'no.'"

News of the eventual closing of St. Lawrence Catholic Church arrived as part of a the Peoria Diocese revealed last weekend. Six area churches will no longer offer services, and many other parishes will merge with neighboring ones.

St. Lawrence will be merged with St. Malachy in Rantoul and St. Elizabeth of Hungary in Thomasboro, with Rantoul becoming the primary worship site. The "difficult yet necessary changes" laid out by Bishop Louis Tylka — in response to a shrinking pool of priests and waning church attendance — will take effect July 1, with an estimated timeline of one to three years before the transitions diocese-wide are complete.

Hedrick, a Penfield resident and St. Lawrence parishioner of 76 years, has generational ties to the local church. Its congregation was established in 1898 but, as her great-grandmother passed down, the followers quickly outgrew its first wooden chapel building.

Hedrick's great-grandfather, a cattle rancher, was among those who helped dig the foundation for the current site in 1905. He recruited the biggest horses in the area to drag up rocks and later donated funds to pay for one of the double-pane stained-glass windows inside, Hedrick said.

The church is where Hedrick witnessed countless baptisms, first communions, confirmations, weddings and funerals. St. Lawrence used to run a grade school across the street, so she remembers the place awash with activity, the church packed with people and children singing.

The final word on the chapel's fate hurt, Hedrick said, because of those memories and because St. Lawrence supplied a place not only for religious programs but camaraderie — people worked closely together during fundraisers and turned out in force to supply food for dinners following funerals.

She acknowledged that it's always sad whenever something is taken from you, but it's helpful to know St. Lawrence isn't the only church going through this change.

"I'm not sure which one most people will pick to go to, maybe they'll go to Urbana, I don't know," Hendrick said. "But you'll never be a part of that like you were here. It's almost a huge family and so now your family is all kind of split up."

'Day is coming'

Bob Dorsey, another longtime Penfield resident, said he was one of the last classes to graduate from the former St. Lawrence grade school.

He served as an altar boy and recalled assisting the pastor with communion ceremonies, ringing the bells during the Eucharist and listening to the vinyl records the nuns played in the church's backroom as they attempted to teach him how to speak Latin.

Though likely just a rumor, Dorsey remembers hearing that pilots at the old Chanute Air Force Base used the St. Lawrence steeple as a landmark while they learned how to fly jets over the countryside.

The church was where his parents were married in 1947, and it was also where mourners gathered for both of their funerals. St. Lawrence used to have lots of dedicated attendees, Dorsey said, but estimated it now tends to get three to four people during weekday services and 15 to 20 on the weekend.

Ultimately, Dorsey said, he'll miss having his church in such close proximity — it's what helped him attend weekly Mass over the years. However, "it's come its time" as nothing lasts forever, he said.

"I always figured it this way: 'You know, Bob, you live right across the street from the church. There's going to come a day that it isn't going to be there,'" Dorsey said. "And that day is coming very quickly."

'One more nail'

Rhonda Gordon wasn't raised a Catholic but became St. Lawrence's organist 15 years ago when the church couldn't find one within its own congregation, she said.

The church is where she married her husband and where their daughter was baptized and had her first communion.

She said that, living in a small town like Penfield, the church can serve as a "backbone of a community."

The St. Lawrence congregation has held fried chicken fundraisers for more than 75 years and volunteers to provide food for the local tractor shows.

But while she has good memories of the place — the parishioners were always really kind and supportive, she said — Gordon echoed that the change feels "like it's part of life. Everything changes, nothing stays the same."

Except for the four years Richard Early spent in the Army, stationed in Hawaii and then Korea, the 96-year-old has lived his whole life in Penfield.

He's attended Mass at St. Lawrence every weekend throughout those years; it was just how he was raised, he said.

But without St. Lawrence nearby, Early said he likely won't be able to attend Mass anymore because his travel distance will jump from a matter of one block to that of many miles.

He tied the loss of the church — which he said used to boast a congregation of more than 200 families but now has around 60 — to the "very disturbing" disappearance of many other things in town.

Penfield used to have a sale barn of live animals, a grocery store, a hardware store, a hotel, an entertainment hall, two schools, three taverns and three churches.

The loss of St. Lawrence feels like "one more nail in the coffin," he said, possibly the "last nail to be driven."

"It's just everything's changed, it's moved along," Early said. "I suppose it's like when the settlers come into the area, there wasn't anything here and now it's just reversing."