Carroll County IAGenWeb

HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY IOWA

A Record of Settlement, Organization, Progress and Achievement

VOLUME II ILLUSTRATED

CHICAGO THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1912

Transcribed by Sharon Elijah July 15, 2020

John B. Baeumler, the pastor of St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic church of Halbur, established that parish in June, 1901, and has been a potent factor in its wonderful growth during the intervening ten years. His birth occurred in Bavaria, Germany, on the 21st of August, 1867, his parents being John and Margaret (Boyer) Baeumler. The father, born and reared in the province of Brevania, was a farmer by occupation and passed away when our subject was but three years of age. The mother of Father Baeumler still survives at the age of seventy-five years and makes her home in Germany. Her second husband was M. Hagler, who is also deceased.

John B. Baeumler remained under the parent roof until eleven years of age. He spent seven years in the parochial schools and when a youth of thirteen began earning his own livelihood. In 1882, when fourteen years of age, he crossed the Atlantic to the United States, locating at St. Lucas, Fayette county, Iowa, where he worked as a farm hand for six years. Subsequently he spent two years as a student in St. Francis Seminary near Milwaukee and then entered St. Lawrence College at Mount Calvary, Wisconsin, from which institution he was graduated with honors. During the following two years he studied philosophy in St. Joseph’s College at Dubuque, Iowa, and then returned to St. Francis Seminary for a three-years course in theology. In June, 1897, he was ordained to the priesthood and given an assistant pastorate in the Holy Ghost church of Dubuque, Iowa, under Rev. Father Feuerstein. At the end of four months he went to Le Mars, Iowa as assistant pastor, serving in that capacity for two years and eight months. In June, 1901, he came to Halbur, Iowa, and began the work of establishing St. Augustine’s parish. He opened the schools and parsonage in December, 1901, and the fine new church in 1904. The parish was organized with fifty-two families and today has eighty-one, while eighty-five children are in attendance at the schools. Upon arriving here Father Baeumler immediately undertook the task of building a church and schools. The Halbur parish was taken from the Roselle parish (a division being made by Archbishop Keane of Dubuque) and Bishop Garrigan of Sioux City dedicated the new church. The schools were erected at a cost of seven thousand dollars and the church building cost thirteen thousand nine hundred dollars, while the following expenditures were made for church furnishings: decorations, one thousand two hundred dollars; altars, seventeen hundred dollars; pews, nine hundred dollars; furnaces, four hundred and fifty dollars; bells, four hundred and fifty dollars; vestments, banners, statues, etc., twenty-one hundred dollars. The parsonage was constructed at a cost of thirty-three hundred and fifty dollars. On first coming here and with absolutely no funds Father Baeumler negotiated for eight acres of land and began to build. Ten years later the entire indebtedness on the property and buildings had been discharged. Father Baeumler gave his personal attention to the work, overseeing all of the building. He has labored earnestly and zealously to do the work assigned him by his church and in a single decade has performed a mighty task. The schools are under the charge of three Franciscan Sisters of La Crosse, Wisconsin. Farther Baeumler is a member of the Roman Catholic Mutual Protective Society of Iowa.

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