Kaczmarek, Francis Aloysius, Rev.
(Apr. 2, 1878 - )
Church builder

If one family were typical of the exodus from Brodowo, a little village 23 miles southeast of Poznan, in west-central Poland, it would have been the family of Andrew and Mary (Wendrowicz) Kaczmarek. For years - exactly how many is uncertain - someone from the villages and towns of Wielkopolska, of which Poznan was the capital, emigrated to Bay City, Michigan, where fresh blood turned the sides of a bay and a river into a vast array of lumber mills and shipyards. By 1875 the Polish settlers of Bay City built St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Church to serve their religious needs and the following year signed a contract with three Felician Sisters to teach their children. By 1880 in the city of 27,210 there were 629 persons from Poland - including 147 married women and 127 sons. Until 1905, most of these people nestled on the east bank of the Saginaw River.

Three years after Francis Kaczmarek was born, his parents and other siblings, if any, followed their countrymen to Bay City, where at least five more children were born. The mother herself was born in July 1859, and it is assumed that Alexander Kaczmarek was of the same age. They reared nine of ten children and sent them to a Catholic grade school, first in Bay City and then in Minonk, a soft coal camp in Woodford County, Illinois. What triggered the migration to another state, whether it was the fire of July 25, 1892, that destroyed much of Bay City or an opportunity to find a better life, is lost in the mists of time. In July 1893, shortly after taking a job in a coal mine with a carbide lamp and a pick, Alexander's wife gave birth to their last son, Vincent, in Minonk. After the father died on April 24, 1899, the mine owner kicked his family out of the coal camp because none of his sons would follow in his footsteps. Francis, then 21 years of age, was in St. Francis Seminary outside the city of Milwaukee.

After he was ordained to the priesthood on June 29, 1901, by Bishop Henry J. Richter in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Father Kaczmarek returned to Bay City, as the rest of the family did before him, and celebrated his first Holy Mass at the controversial St. Stanislaus Church, July 7, 1901. At the time, the Diocese of Grand Rapids had 16 Polish churches and 18 Polish priests to serve the religious needs of about 54,000 Poles. Bay City had 1,959 persons from Poland, compared to 241 in Minonk, and Father Kaczmarek was probably the first Polish boy out of either place to enter the priesthood. Later when the population of Bay City stood at 36,000 the achievements of other Bay City Poles - Alex Izybowski, Edward Jablonski, and Jim Kanicki, to mention a few - were highly touted.

On July 12, 1901, Bishop Richter sent Father Kaczmarek to Manistee, on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, where the pastor of St. Joseph's needed help to take care of the large Polish population. The parish had grown a great deal since it was founded in 1884 by Polish workers in salt and sawmills. He remained there until Sept. 15, 1905. Until June 15, 1906, he was assistant pastor of St. Adalbert's Church in Grand Rapids.

In the meantime, not only were factory towns growing but churches without schools were a common sight in rural Michigan. On June 15, 1906, two years before a forest fire nearly swept the village of Metz off the map of Presque Isle County, Bishop Richter sent Father Kaczmarek there to shepherd Polish farmers who had built a small frame church themselves in 1902 and were without a pastor and a school. The first pastor of St. Dominic's parish, as the bishop named it, immediately added a grade school. In addition, he took care of a mission at Rogers City. Many students of the new school lost their lives or were badly burned when a train filled with women and children trying to get away left the track on the way to Posen, five miles away, and landed in the heart of raging fires. In all, 28 lives were lost. Only the church, rectory, and one farm house remained. Another priest completed a new school in 1910 and taught the students himself.

After completing the first school, Father Kaczmarek was appointed on October 4, 1907, to the pastorate of St. Mary's Church in Gaylord, Michigan, and he also administered to the Catholics of Lewisyon and Johannesburg. The parish, founded in 1880 for the most part by Polish farmers, replaced the original house of worship in 1900 with a red brick church, designed in Gothic style, with a clock on each side of the steeple. Father Kaczmarek erected a new rectory in 1908 and the following year turned the parochial school over to a teaching order from Grand Rapids. When the Diocese of Gaylord was established in 1971, the first bishop of the diocese, who would become Edmund Cardinal Szoka, honored the church in which Polish families worshipped since September 15, 1900, by making it his throne and ruled from it the 21 most northern counties of Michigan's Lower Peninsula until a new cathedral was built. The 1900 vintage church then became a performing arts center.

Lack of Catholic schools to educate the children of Polish immigrants in Saginaw was one of the most important assignments that Father Kaczmarek ever tackled. It began on July 15, 1913, when he was transferred to Saginaw. Until then the Poles had only Holy Rosary school to educate their children. Within a month he started schools, with the Dominican Sisters, a teaching order from Grand Rapids, in charge, in two other city parishes and established a record in the Diocese of Grand Rapids.

As the population of Saginaw grew from 63,469 in 1920 to 83,242 persons in 1930, the education of the Polish children enabled them to find other opportunities for a good life, better jobs, and easier to move from one neighborhood to another. Father Kaczmarek was able to speak on behalf of Polish immigrants and was happy to see them and their children succeed. The children continued their education on a higher level. Eventually the mobility of Polish families and other changes in Saginaw affected the future of Holy Rosary parish and led to its closing long after Father Kaczmarek was laid to rest.

From: Edward Pinkowski (2009)

Kaczmarek, Rev. Francis
Clergyman. Pastor of Holy Rosary Church, Saginaw, Mich.
Address: 736 So. 13th St., Saginaw, Mich.

From: "Who's Who in Polish America" by Rev. Francis Bolek, Editor-in-Chief; Harbinger House, New York, 1943