Echoes From The Attic and Poems, St. Joseph Catholic Church, Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana
Submitted to the USGenWeb Archives by Don Johnson, Feb. 2001
Typed by Belford Carver
Written by by Edna F. Campbell
Copyrighted by Edna F. Campbell
With special thanks to her family for permission to use her works.

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ST. JOSEPH CATHOLIC CHURCH TO MARK 100TH MILESTONE

Historic St. Joseph Catholic church in Ponchatoula will observe its one hundredth 
anniversary in 1975.  Already preparations are being made, family photographs are 
being processed and history is researched.

Mrs. Louis E. Layrisson, the former Inez Parker, is looking forward to the church 
anniversary celebration.  Mrs. Layrisson was born and raised in Ponchatoula.  She 
attended the Catholic School as far as the grades wentand then graduated from 
Ponchatoula High School.  She has never attended another church and among the 
first to have a large wedding in the present church, she was married to Louis E. 
Layrisson, a prominent young businessman in 1928.

Recorded in church history are facts that the congregation was served by 
Benedictine Fathers from Covington Abbey and Spanish Dominicans before the 
American Dominicans, who are still serving the church, took over in 1937.  The 
massive church constructed of red brick with high towering dome was built in 1927.  
It replaced a small structure which was demolished to make way for the present 
structure.  The building also took in a burialground.

The congregation, which operates a parochial school through the eighth grade, has 
recently completed a multipurpose gymnasium and recreational building.  The Rev. 
Charles Johnson is the church pastor.

BACKGROUND

The early records of St. Joseph tells of its beginning as a mission by the Rev. 
John Scollard in 1866, with mass said in private homes.  In 1875 Rev. Scollard 
had the first Catholic Church in the area built.  A square of ground on the corner 
of West Pine and Seventh streets was given by the late Charles Yokums.  In 1890 
the Benedictine Fathers took over the administration of the Parish.  A rectory was 
constructed around 19056.  The Dominican Fathers who had taken over the 
Benedictines built a parish hall in 1912.

It was in 1927,  when Rev. Gonzales was pastor, that the small church building was 
demolished and replaced by the present structure costing $50,000.  The church was 
built over the little cemetery in which the Rev. Schollard, Mr. and Mrs. Charles 
Gerald Yokum, the donors of the property, and others were buried.

When the present St. Joseph Catholic Church was built in 1927, on the site 
selected for the church, was a small Catholic cemetery of nine graves.  The 
families of the deceased chose to allow the new church to be constructed over the 
graves.

Among those buried were Father John Scollard, OSB, the first pastor of St. Joseph, 
and Mr. and Mrs. Charles Yokum who donated the land on which the church is built.  
The names of those buried under the church are engraved on a marble plaque which 
is affixed to the wall of the sanctuary.  The names are, Rev. John Scollard, 
1818-1886; Gerald Fannaly, 1828-1888; Abbie Fannaly, 1843-1907; James W. Tucker, 
1860-1896; Waddy A Tucker, 1891-1893; Theresa Harris Lane, Born - 1893; Charles 
Yokum, 1846-1899; and Katherine Strader Yokum, 1851-1903.

(From ECHOES FROM THE ATTIC, VIII, 1974, by Edna Campbell)

(Pics of church and Mrs. Layrisson)