Crawford County WI Archives Church Records.....St. Gabriel's Parish
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com October 27, 2007, 9:47 pm

ST. GABRIEL'S PARISH—REV. PETER BECKER
Bishop Schwebach

   Father Becker, though born abroad, had made his theological studies at St.
Francis Seminary, Milwaukee, and was ordained there in 1887. Equipped with many
years' experience in parish work, he assumed the office of pastor at St.
Gabriel's parish in 1907. During the ten years of his pastoral term, he
accomplished much for the spiritual and material betterment of the parish, for
he possessed in rare degree the two essentials of the ideal pastor, namely,
priestly holiness and a sense for parish management.

   The full extent of his influence as a zealous priest is known to the good God
alone; but if the veneration in which his memory is held by both Catholics and
non-Catholics of Prairie du Chien may be taken as a measure of the good he
accomplished, Father Becker must be said to have reached very near the ideal of
sacerdotal sanctity.

   By anticipation, earlier in this narrative, reference was made to improvement
later to be undertaken in the church building. The original St. Gabriel's
rock-church, as designed and built by Father Mazzuchelli, was—to quote his own
words—"of a chaste Gothic style." Father Becker, in his first year as pastor,
proceeded so to metamorphose the 'chaste Gothic' of Father Mazzuchelli as to
make it conform to a 'Grecian' type of his own conception. In other words, he
built a considerable addition to the east end of Father Mazzuchelli's
rock-church—that part which today includes the sanctuary and both sacristies,
and within this enclosure he erected 'Grecian' arches to front the high altar.
Likewise, at the west end of the church, he built in an addition of solid rock,
joining the entry below with the gallery above. In carrying up the masonry work
thus begun, he finished the front with two steeples, the taller of which
contains the belfry and is surmounted by a gilded cross.

   But one part, and that the major part, of the chaste Gothic structure Father
Becker left, as he had found it, intact: the massive walls. Built of native
lime-stone, taken rough-hewn from the bluffs that skirt the eastern boundary of
the Prairie, they stand today, even as they have stood from the beginning,
solid, immovable. Time has dealt kindly with this venerable building, this
'House of God.' Neither fire, nor storm, nor flood has in the least way done it
injury during the long ninety-six years since its walls were erected.

   Not content with remodeling the church, Father Becker turned his attention to
the remaining buildings of the parish property. As a result, improvements were
made in the school and in the parish hall, that has proved so serviceable these
many years.

   Only once during his long term as pastor he left his post for a short visit
to his native Germany. In his absence Rev. John Theiss, S. J., a member of the
faculty of Sacred Heart College, acted as temporary pastor. Immediately upon his
return from Europe Father Becker undertook to make other improvements in his
parish. Besides decorating the interior of the church, he replaced the old pews
with new ones, erected a pipe-organ, and changed the heating system from hot-air
to steam. Finally, with an eye to the fitness of things, he expended a goodly
sum of money in beautifying the grounds surrounding the church and school. Yet,
in the end, when he relinquished his pastoral office, he left a neat sum in the
treasury, with all debts cancelled.

   In 1916, failing in health and worn out from his labors, Father Becker
reluctantly retired. For many years, however; he continued to make Prairie du
Chien his home; and at Prairie du Chien, too, the place that had for so long
witnessed his priestly life and labors, he died in 1932.


[Photo - ST. GABRIEL'S CHURCH—1936]


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

Centennial History of St. Gabriel's Parish
PRAIRIE DU CHIEN WISCONSIN
1836       1936
DR. P. L. SCANLAN, M. D.


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