welcome to Coffee with Kupke  a
production of Saint Paul inside the
walls
here on coffee with Kupke we grab a
cup of coffee at least we're claiming
this is coffee
we sit with Monsignor Kupke Raymond
Kupke the pastor of Saint Anthony's in
Hawthorne professor at Immaculate
Conception Seminary Diocesan archivist
we sit with Monsignor cupcake to delve
into the history of Catholicism in the
Diocese of Patterson my name is Father
Paul Manning I am the vicar for
evangelization for the nicest of
Patterson and here I am with Monsignor
Kupke so grab your cup of coffee and
let's Jump Right In
I'm gonna take a sip
[Music]
so if I were going to entitle this first
episode
I would entitle it Origins
and I'm going to explain why
um I we want to talk about a couple
things we want to talk about our origins
in the diocese and we also want to talk
about the origin of Catholicism in the
three counties of our diocese so here's
how I'm going to uh open up the topic
Raymond you know that I grew up in rural
ironya part of Randolph Township Morris
County that's ironia not Hibernia
and I feel like growing up in ironia
being born in 1958 that I lived
with one foot in two centuries right
ironia was still
in large measure undeveloped I had a
grandmother who was born in the 19th
century who lived right next door
I lived among a generation that would
last until the 21st century and even now
I have great nieces and nephews who are
going to live well into the 22nd century
so my experience of the diocese at least
um in the first couple decades of my
life
uh was the experience of of growing up
in in two different centuries in a sense
I'm just curious about your origins in
the diocese and and your take on on the
church uh at that time in your childhood
it's funny you should mention that
because
as a freshman at Mars Catholic High
School in Denville in 1961.
uh the girl who sat next to me in
homeroom was from ironia you're kidding
me and I can remember saying to her
where you from and she told me and I had
no earthly idea where ironia was
well is it fair to ask her name uh Pat
galane Delane yeah okay and she was
connected to Saint Mary's in Dover went
to grammar school there but you know
that's where her family was connected to
I know yours
was uh with St Lawrence and Chester yeah
actually initially I think my oldest
sister was baptized at St Mary's in
Dover but but then uh we we moved to St
Lawrence but you you grew up where uh my
family moved to Parsippany
in 1957
and at that point Parsippany was nothing
like what you and I remember from
ministry as Saint Peter's
when I moved to Parsippany my next-door
neighbors had two sons and the older boy
was in the last Parsippany class to be
graduating from Putin High School okay
so yeah it was a much different world
then
I was a member of Saint Christopher's
which at that point was still
technically a mission of Notre Dame and
Cedar Knolls oh my goodness I can't
imagine that Saint Christopher's as a
mission Parish yeah and Saint Peter's
was there as well St Peters was the
other side of Parsippany yeah the other
side of Route 46
so um what about your your take on the
the church in that era right because I
think in some ways
um the first part of my life the church
was still in the 1950s right and then we
had the the uh Church changing
life-changing event the Vatican too so
your take on the on the church at that
time in our diocese
it was very much a building Church
um it was an ERA when the diocese was
growing rapidly and new parishes were
being founded and there was a lot of
construction
so you know it was very much a brick and
mortar period you know
for example
our fourth Bishop Bishop navo
his first Sunday as Bishop
they brought him out to Chester and he
blessed the new church and confirmed
they gave him lunch then they took him
to schooly's Mountain and he blessed the
new church and confirmed you know our
Bishops today had no experience like
that yeah now so Bishop Nava Bishop Nava
well that was that would have been 1964
yeah
well I want to talk about the origins of
Catholicism in our diocese so I want to
mention I hope you know that Monsignor
kupke is the author of this large tome
called living stones
which is not just the history of the
Diocese of Patterson but the history of
Catholicism
in the region of the Diocese of
Patterson and
um Monsignor kupke why don't you tell us
what occasioned the book
I was called in by the bishop and Bishop
dimer okay bishop or dimer was a native
of the diocese I believe he was a rock a
region from Rockaway right his father
was the postmaster in Rockaway I did not
know that and um so he had a lifelong
connection with the diocese
and very much interested in in history
and uh
so he
he kind of suspected that I did for a
variety of reasons so he kind of uh said
you're going to write a history for the
50th anniversary of the diocese
and he he sent me away to Catholic
University to get a master's degree in
church history in preparation for that
so I I kind of knew I had this task this
task out of me and he gave me the time
to do it as well yeah
um now Bishop rodimer's family uh was
from the further west right right he has
relatives and Hibernia and also as far
west as Branchville okay Hibernian not
ironia right yeah yeah he um he would
always joke about his own family because
of his eighth great-grandparents
only one was Catholic it was you know
there's no way he should be a Catholic
bishop of of Patterson but his mother's
mother's mother was an Irish Catholic
girl and
yeah we know how those Irish came
exactly she won the day yeah now Raymond
you're going to be uh sorry Father Ray
you're going to be embarrassed by this
question probably but I remember
uh
decades ago
asking you if you had a photographic
memory do you remember me asking you
that
no so that shoots the photographic
memory that's true but I remember asking
you this and you responded do you do you
you don't remember how you responded but
do you you have a certainly a memory for
uh historical facts yeah not always
dates but facts yes and uh and then you
make them up if you don't yeah exactly
okay but also I've just always had a a
good memory for details I can remember
you know small details that pull in a
whole story from yeah back one well when
I asked you this decades ago you
responded saying I I don't exactly have
a photographic memory but I do see
certain things on a page yeah so you can
recite by memory the the parishes of our
diocese correct pronunciation Wayne
assumption Morristown Blessed Sacrament
Patterson sure okay that's pretty
amazing and also uh some American
historical figures I don't know you
still do it but
with young people you used to be able to
recite uh president vice president
secretary yeah I can do that yeah okay
well that's pretty much photographic in
my mind so I'm good at this yeah okay do
you see the see the page yeah
interesting wow I try to remember my
homilies that way and it doesn't work so
well
so I I want to um
go to the first chapter
which begins in mid 1700s
uh in the geographical region that is
our diocese and you entitle that chapter
quiet Awakening yes
tell me why
well there was a lot going on in the mid
1700s this is when
the United States is beginning to emerge
you know as a country right we're
beginning to appear
and quietly in the midst of that
Catholicism was beginning to make an
appearance very tentatively at first
in Northwestern New Jersey
we can date it really to about 1764.
when
several boatloads of German iron workers
came to work in a new New Jersey iron
Mining Company in what is today like
Ringwood West Milford
Vernon Township yeah there was a nascent
iron mining industry up there
so
these people came from Southwestern
Germany yeah Southwestern Germany the
sarland region
and basically the iron mining industry
was collapsing
in their home region and so so they came
I should know but is that part of
Germany predominantly Catholic yes right
would that be the area where Pope
Benedict came from no no Benedict comes
from Bavarian okay sorry I knew that I
knew that but I don't know my German
geography very well it's kind of
interesting because those families have
been here so long
you know two and a half centuries now
that they had lost
connection to where exactly they had
come from
um they knew they were German and they
knew when they came over
but the families had lost the actual
connection about what part of Germany
they had come from now which families
are you talking about the families up in
what is now Saint Joseph's Parish in
West Milford oh so you mean the current
families had lost current yeah got it
but like a hundred years ago they had
already lost the connection
and um
there have been several you know
genealogical researchers within the
families who have been hunting for this
for years trying to make the connection
back to Europe
but we actually made the connection
about 30 years ago but in the opposite
direction somebody over there looking
German researchers doing historical
research on the collapse
of the German iron mining industry okay
and they began to wonder where these
people had ever gone
so somehow
one of the researchers was put in
contact with my book okay because
somebody else over there said you know
this guy wrote a church history but
there's a lot of material about
700 miners okay so so he got he got a
hold of the book and started reading the
first chapter and realized that these
are the names of the families that he
was looking for wow so he began matching
back and forth and realized that this is
this is his missing tribe of German iron
workers so the collapse of the of the
iron industry in Germany was around what
what time 1760s 1750s okay got it and so
this is amazing I
I've never really thought about or heard
of the the German origins of Catholicism
in our diocese the Irish get a lot of
credit right yes they were there okay so
and a few french okay
so we're in 1764 right uh Catholicism is
quietly Awakening right
and somehow they make contact
with the closest priests
who is in Philadelphia
what is today Old Saint Joseph's Church
which would be about two blocks behind
Independence Hall in okay downtown
Philly so this is a
Parish staffed by ex Jesuits the Jesuits
has just been suppressed yes
so if at some point we probably ought to
figure out a way to let people ask
questions because that would be an
interesting digression but let's stay
where we are
so the the basically English Jesuits
working in the Maryland colony had
spread into Pennsylvania okay because
William Penn
in getting his Colonial Charter
had a reference put in the charter
of freedom of worship to all Christians
most of the colonial charters
excluded papers okay yeah but Penn was
conscious of protecting his own group
the Quakers okay so he got this more
liberal Charter
yeah the Jesuit priest in Maryland saw
that and immediately moved in since
gazelle guy up to Philadelphia which at
that point was the largest city in the
colonies and I think it was actually the
second largest city in the British
Empire at that point English-speaking
City anyway wow so you know they
established a church in Pennsylvania
and it's still there Old Saint Joseph's
the Jesuits still maintain it today
um
so somehow our our Germans up in North
Jersey our iron miners somehow connected
to one of the priests in Philadelphia
there were two there and
English-speaking and a German speaking
and I think I know the name of one of
them I think this is what we're getting
to and it's a name that we should know
right right Catholic American Catholic
history and certainly in New Jersey
history so Ferdinand farmer
um the the
Jesuits in Maryland wrote to their
Superior in Rome to ask the German
Province to send over two guys because
they were experiencing a German influx
you know what we would call today the
Pennsylvania Dutch okay or really
Pennsylvania Deutsche Pennsylvania
Germans yeah now we think of most of
them as anabaptists you know the the
Lancaster Pennsylvania Dutch but some of
them were catholic I did not know this
so they needed a german-speaking priest
in Philadelphia
so the German Province sends over two
priests and on the ship coming over
they decide to anglicize their names
okay I was wondering because farmer
didn't sound German to me so so uh
Ferdinand steinmeier
decides to become a Ferdinand farmer now
steinmeyer means well there's some
indication that farmer is actually a
translation of steinmeyer
the mire of a Stein would be like the
overseer of an estate got it so okay
maybe farmer okay so he winds up in
Philadelphia and um and who was the
other guy the other guy is Matthias
sittingsberger
a reclining uh Patty of me
something sorry that was bad that was
bad so he becomes father manners manners
manners any relation to mismanners no
okay none whatsoever now I I want to
mention at this point your name is
German yes it is yeah and I'm just
wondering is there any Catholic
connection to this region that you're
talking about you know none okay none
whatsoever okay now this these uh iron
miners came from the Tsar land region
which is Southwestern Germany okay we
actually now know exactly which Valley
they came from thanks to the researchers
on the German side
um so I'm imagining you had
conversations you you were the link in
many ways well that my book was they
they picked this up they looked in my
book and you know I mentioned several of
the families by name and they they
quickly
said we know those names yeah you know
and then they began matching it to uh
Farmers baptismal register which has
been published okay so so can you paint
this picture we have these uh German
Catholics does somebody travel down
there to to meet with him or how does
this happen they say that when you die
you get to ask God three questions and
this is one of my three questions wow
wow who made the the connection my
suspicion is
that there may have been relatives
in West Milford that were related to
Germans and Philadelphia okay and that
somehow that was the connection
and so does farmer decide he's he's got
to exercise uh a mission or
a farmer
is
is the most zealous
Evangelical character I've ever come
across he's like uh Francis Xavier wow
you know he
just had a natural bent to
evangelization
so when he finds out about these people
he just gets on his horse and goes up
there
[Music]
um
and farm farmer is a um
he's an archivist's Delight because
because he kept perfect records you know
his sacramental records which are still
extinct today
um they are perfectly legible unlike
some of our contemporaries oh yeah you
know you look in some of our sacramental
registers today and you can barely read
the handwriting but farmer had perfect
handwriting and provides all the
information so we we know
exactly where he wants
on what days you know you can follow him
on Horseback from Philadelphia to North
Jersey based on the places he mentions
you know he came up the Pennsylvania
side of the Delaware River crossed over
at Phillipsburg yep yeah we know this
because he mentions it yeah and then
came basically up route I figured what
it is 517 or whatever the one that goes
to change water up to Hackettstown and
then up into the Iron Mine Country Now
with their I guess there was a Bridget
Phillipsburg I mean our Ferry oh a ferry
yeah how old was Farmer at this time
farmer would have been in his 40s at
that point
let's leave it there
I want all of you who are listening or
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Journal hosted by Brian honsberger and
Freddie Garcia
I want to give a special thanks to Joe
Ginexi our sound and visual engineer
Caitlyn Ferrari Who's involved in Pre
and post-production and Freddie Garcia
who's helping out with this podcast in
addition to doing his own with all that
said I just want to thank you for
joining us in coffee with cupcake keep
making Catholic history in the Diocese
of Paterson