On the plains of
southwestern Poland lies a
cluster of small villages. All are
within walking distance of each
other – the villages of Nowa Wies,
Trembatschau, and Marianka. Their names
now seem foreign to us, but they were
home to our ancestors. Central to these
villages were and are the churches, some of
which date back to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They bear the names such as Church of the Holy Trinity and Church of the Assumption of Mary. In the archives of these tiny churches and on the land where stones mark the resting places of our ancestors, we can find and see the names of those who were the source of our life, Sonnek and Yokiel, Staloch and Stenzel, Kalis and Dulas. The coming of those residents from those tiny villages to America now make up a part of what is St. Casimir’s Parish in Wells, Minnesota.

   It is believed that the first Polish family to come to Wells was Thomas Yokiel and his wife Katherine. They came from Nowa Wies in 1874. This small trickle led to a stream of people leaving those villages and re-settling together in the Wells area. It wasn’t long before there was a realization that a church was needed. In 1881, Thomas Yokiel approached Bishop John Ireland of St. Paul requesting permission to build a church. It was granted and these industrious pioneers built a small wooden church. It was never completely finished as they realized that it was too small. By 1900 a second, larger church was built. By the early 1940’s the congregation was out growing this structure and plans were made to again build an even larger church. Mother Nature, in the form of a tornado, brought these plans to the forefront when the church was destroyed in August of 1946. The present church was completed in 1953 and continues to serve the parish family.

   For over one hundred years this tiny spot on the prairies of Southern Minnesota has been made holy by the lives and deaths of so many descendants of these first pioneers. And so, St. Casmir’s Parish, which began with only a handful of Polish immigrants over 100 years ago, now continues to serve as a center for worship for Catholics of many ethnic backgrounds.

Father Stenzel