Fifteen Minutes South of Pacific, a Historic Shrine Still Welcomes the Faithful and the Curious

By Pauline Masson – 

The Black Madonna Shrine, a historic walking garden graces a gentle slope in the picturesque LaBarque Hills 15 minutes south of Pacific. Open to the public and free, the shrine offers a welcoming stroll on any day in good weather.

The historic retreat, which was built to offer solace to laborers and patients of a now abandoned infirmary, is a surviving reminder of a once thriving pioneer enclave of Irish immigrants. To this day the communities of Pacific, Catawissa and Byrnesville are reminders of the labors of the LaBarque Hills settlers. Today LaBarque is dotted by a number of upscale and stately residents drawn to the same natural beauty that drew early immigrants.

“The beautiful and pristine La Barque Hills were transformed from wilderness into a thriving farm community by the Irish immigrants who settled there,” said Joseph McNamee, teacher and author, in his history of the area and early settlers in the book Sage of Little Ireland. McNamee dated the arrival of European settlers to LaBarque Hills to 1825.

History was already outpacing itself when the Black Madonna Shrine and the infirmary that spawned it were built. 

Seventy years earlier, in 1870, a small cloister of Sisters of Mercy bought 220 acres and built a convent and small chapel to train young nuns. They named their settlement St. Michael’s Novitiate at Josephville. But after only 40 years the hardships of the remote frontier proved too difficult and the sisters returned to the mother house in Webster Groves. 

St. Louis Archdiocese archives note that the beautiful and substantial convent and chapel would for years be a monument to the sisters labor and zeal. 

“The sturdy cedar trees, planted by them, have long since grown to maturity and still shelter 11 graves marking the end of the earthly careers of some of these heroic pioneers,” the archivist wrote. “The Sisters had no way of knowing that, years later, their efforts would result in the creation of St. Joseph’s Hill Infirmary as a nursing home operated by the Franciscan Missionary Brothers.”

In 1927 St. Louis Archbishop John Glennon invited a group of Franciscan monks in Poland to come to America and build a nursing home for men and boys in the country. He gave them the Sisters’ convent and grounds. 

The Brothers converted the old stone convent building into a care facility that they called an Infirmary, naming it for St Joseph, the saint that inspired the Sisters of Mercy to name their community Josephville. The monks labored continuously, farming, caring for livestock, preparing meals and caring for the sick. Occasionally the Brothers would hunt or swim in the swimming pool they constructed. They bought more land, built a mile of road and tilled about 100 of their 500 acres, raising wheat and alfalfa. They kept 1,000 chickens, twelve cows and some pigs.

As a respite from the continuous labor, in 1938 Brother Bronislaus Luscze cleared out the trees on a slope south of the infirmary. He built a small cedarwood chapel and hung a portrait of Our Lady of Częstochowa above the altar as a reminder of his homeland. The original painting, thought by Poles to be a 2,000 year old painting of the Blessed Virgin Mary Queen of Peace, known lovingly as the Black Madonna, hangs at the Jasna Gora Monastery in Czestochowa, Poland. The monks and infirmary patients were invited to visit the chapel as a retreat.

As word of Brother Bronislaus’ work spread through the area, visitors began to arrive. No one was turned away. Over time Brother Bronislaus hand crafted a series of grottoes, using concrete and native Missouri tiff rock acquired from the nearby mining town of of Potosi. The stone and rock structures are made to resemble natural cave formations. The grottos feature statues St. Francis, St Joseph, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Sts Peter, James and John, Gethsemane, Our Lady of Sorrows, Assumption and the Nativity.

Visitors, intrigued by the beauty of the grottos, brought their trinkets – seashells, costume jewelry, ceramic figurines, and other colorful bits – that Brother Bronislaus mingled with the stone structures. He used cake pans shaped like lambs and rabbits as molds for the concrete animals that sit at the feet of St. Francis. 

After an arsonist burned the original cedar chapel to the ground in 1958, Brother Bronislaus built an open-air chapel that continues to welcome visitors to this day. Cardinal Stefan Wysznski, Primate of Poland, donated a painting of the Black Madonna to replace the one lost in the fire. John Carberry, Cardinal Archbishop of St. Louis donated a glass-encased icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa from the former Church of Our Lady of Czestochowa in St. Louis. The altar stone at the Our Lady of Sorrows grotto is from the original monastery chapel. The tall Crucifix that towers over the Gethsemane Grotto, visible for a great distnace in winter, was used as landmark by local hikers making their way through the nearby woods.

Brother Bronislaus spent twenty three years building the shrine, and died from heat stroke in 1960 at the age of sixty-six, while working on a grotto of Our Llady of Fatima.

As word of the garden of grottos along a welcoming walking path spread, the shrine was opened to the public and became a destination of religious pilgrimages, prayer services and masses. A picnic pavilion was added to the site.

The monks built a stately four-story infirmary and adjoining chapel in 1948 to replace the old convent. By that time the infirmary housed 135 patients, who were cared for by 57 Franciscan Missionary Brothers. Area Catholics in the LaBarque community were welcomed to attend Mass in the infirmary chapel.

During much of the 20th century, the LaBarque Hills made up a close knit Catholic region that included the parish churches of St. Columbkille, Byrnesville; St.Patrick of Armagh, Catawissa; and St. Bridget’s in Pacific. Roughly halfway between Pacific and Byrnesville – Hwy O to Hwy F to St.Joseph Hill Road – was Josephville, the St. Joseph Hill Infirmary and Black Madonna Shrine. 

In 1864 Father Edward Berry, recently arrived from Ireland, was appointed pastor of St. Patrick of Armagh, the first church of the Irish communities. In addition, he was given charge of two mission churches, St. Bridget’s Church Parish of Downpatrick, Pacific, and St. Columbkille’s Church on Big River, Jefferson County. When the Sisters of Mercy built their chapel, St. Michael’s novitiate at Josephville, Father Berry was asked to celebrate Mass there as well. Joseph McNamee reported in his book Pioneer Priests, that residents often saw Father Berry walking, and later on horseback, to tend his parishes. The territory embraced by the four churches was in the form of a circle about twenty miles in diameter, McNamee noted. 

Throughout the 20th century and into the early 21st century, Catholic families retained their connection to St. Joseph Hill Infirmary. Dr. Wm. O. McHugh, a dentist who grew up in the McHugh-Dailey building in Pacific, was at the infirmary one day a week to treat residents. Prominent LaBarque landowner James Brennan, was the Infirmary accountant. The Society of Joseph, a lay advisory board of 200 members was organized to support the nursing facility. An auxiliary, the Society of Josephine, enabling the ladies to help, had 130 members.

In 1956 another artistic monk arrived, Brother Matthew Gallagher, O.S.F., who would prove to be a prolific fundraiser. He became artist-in-residence at St. Joseph’s Hill Infirmary. He was given the Sisters of Mercy stone chapel as an art studio that still stands at the St. Joseph Hill Road entry to the (now closed) infirmary.

Brother Matthew completed hundreds of paintings, of still life, clowns, and religious figures, many on barn wood, that were sold to raise funds for the Infirmary. An Internet search revealed that many of his works are still available.

St. Joseph Hill Infirmary was closed in 2008. Though a glimpse of the stately structure is still visible from the St. Joseph Hill Road entry. A chain rope blocks entry. To the right a glimpse of Brother Matthew’s studio chapel is almost invisible behind trees and foliage.