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FROM: Wisconsin State Journal - November 23, 1923 Red Man Worships in Red Man's Own Way in New Dream Church Reserve, Wisconsin - Up and down the Chippewa reservation, on the shores of beautiful Little Lac Courte Oreilles, echo the bells of St. Mary's. They call the red man to worship, in the red man's way, before the red man's own altar. The vision of a flashing eyed Indian priest has been fulfilled. The 'splendid' church he dreamed about morning after morning at the altar of the humble chapel wherein he formerly ministered to his people has become, at last, a reality. Like Medicine Lodge But to the Reverend Philip Gordon, himself a full-blooded Chippewa, splendid does not mean a many-towered edifice like the Cathedral of Cologne, nor on with glided dome like St. Peter's in Rome. To him it meant a building of fieldstone, without, and within dark like a medicine lodge. When there was sufficient money to begin construction, Father Gordon took his problem to Alexander C. Eschweiler, Milwaukee architect. Over and over he repeated the injunction, 'remember this is to be an Indian place of worship, not a white man's church.' Built by Parishioners Today the building nears completion. Services are already being held in it. The Indian parishioners have done almost all the work in Barron quartzite; they split stones, which have lain for ages nearby to form the walls. The deep roof now covered with roofing paper, is to be broken by rough cedar shingles called 'shakes.' Into the windows, George M. Muelenburg of Milwaukee has worked symbolic signs that speak to the red man's humanity in familiar terms. There are many arrows, crossed calumets; the rising sun, the pipes of peace, the wartime arrows and the Christian cross. The hand-hewn rafters will be stained in brilliant reds, blues and orange after the fashion in which the red man adorns his long hickory bows. Deerskins will hang upon the church's walls. And the Chippewa women are weaving the altar cloths incorporating into them images of things accounted powerful in the medicine lodge. Seven Bells The tower still lacks many feet of completion. It has been temporarily roofed over. Yet it meets the requirements. It is large enough to contain the seven bells supplying the last touch of Father Gordon's dream picture. And it is these bells that call dark-eyed Chippewa braves, squaws and papooses to worship their God, in the red man's church, in the red man's way.

Thanks to the Sawyer County Historical Society for this contribution. www.sawyercountyhist.org