Carroll County Historical Museum presents religious

By KATIE LEFEBVRE, Globe staff reporter
May 19, 2005

CARROLL - The Carroll County Historical Museum has a new display of religious items from churches throughout Carroll County.

Marilyn Setzler, the museum curator, acquired the items by sending out letters to all of the churches in the county and also visiting the churches. About 20 of the Catholic and Protestant churches in the county lent items to the museum. The display also includes items from the museum's personal collection.

"I started thinking about it when I wrote my book, 'Cathedrals Among the Cornfields,'" said Setzler. "You go into these churches and see all this beautiful stuff, and I thought it would be nice if we could do an exhibit. My book came out in September and I spent the winter thinking about it. In January, I sent letters to all the churches in the county."

When the letters started coming back, Setzler responded and visited the churches to pick up materials or go through what the church wanted to loan the museum.

The week after Easter, Setzler went to the churches, met with a person from the church and found items that the church was willing to lend. The items that are on display are old or things that are not used in the churches anymore.

"We brought them back and spent a couple of very long days putting it all up," said Setzler. "It has been well received. I have been very pleased."

There was an opening reception and people from the churches came to see how the items from their church were being displayed, noted Setzler.

Throughout the display there are cards with each of the items describing what they are and what church they are from.

Setzler also has information sheets describing the vestments worn for Mass, what the colors meant for the seasons of the church and different vessels used for Mass. Items such as a chalice, ciborium, burse, purificator, amice, cincture, maniple, chasuble and others are defined on the information sheets.

"I wanted people to go away knowing something, so I put some things together if they wanted to take that away with them," said Setzler.

The labels in the vestments usually denoted where the item was made or by whom so that was listed on the description cards. However, Setzler explained, many of the vestments have been re-lined so the original labels are no longer in them.

"When I did the descriptions, I made sure each church it came from was on the description so that people could see what things are from their church," said Setzler, a parishioner at St. Lawrence in Carroll. "I had Father Schott come because I wanted to make sure that what I was saying was correct. Some of the things we haven't used for a while, so he came and went through it with me. That was great because he translated things for me."

According to Setzler, Father Tim Schott, pastor at St. Lawrence at Carroll, had a good time looking at the items since he was a pastor at Roselle at one time.

There are items ranging from banners to bells, vestments, missals and hymnals to a window, chalices, stoles, sick call sets, Communion cloths and books to first Communion sets, altar cards and monstrances.

Some more unique items include a reliquary of St. Theresa from Templeton, a quilt from 1890, an altar from a Lutheran church, a marble baptismal font, a funeral book and a complete set of garments from Holy Angels in Roselle.

"I was vague about what I wanted," said Setzler. "I said I am looking for vestments and vessels or anything else you would like to represent your church's history. They came up with some very interesting things."

A floor plan is on display that was found in the attic of an old house in Mount Carmel. It was the floor plan drawn on fabric for the 1892 church at Mount Carmel.

Several items were also brought in from St. Joseph Church in Carroll that is no longer in existence.

"People come in to see it so it is generating interest," said Setzler. "I think it is important that we remember our religious history. Since Carroll County is so very Catholic it is important. There are a lot of things that we don't use anymore, and we forget some of the rituals we used to do that we don't do as much. This has been a good reminder to people. They come in and they say, 'I remember when we used to use this.' It gives them a sense of their history."

Students from Kuemper Catholic School plan to visit the exhibit, commented Setzler.

"These are things that they probably don't know about as a student or a child," said Setzler. "I just think it gives them a good sense of the very rich religious heritage we have in this county - both Catholic and Protestant. Whenever you read any history, it was always important to at least have some kind of religious service somewhere."

The religious items will be on display at the museum through June. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday in May and June. Tours can be scheduled by calling the museum at (712) 792-1582.