Update: Blog brings family and two stained glass windows

By Jannet Walsh
Murdock, Minnesota

My Minnesota Native Daughter blog has brought me relatives and two stained glass windows.

I’ve had a few people write to tell me of our family connections since I started this blog. It’s been a great opportunity to find forgotten or misplaced information. My lost relatives, or family that I’ve maybe never met, have also told of wonderful family treasures we share. The windows below to the church and are for all to share. (Click on photos to enlarge and right click to save images.)

Found Great-Great-Grandparents, Cousins
Since returning to live in Minnesota, I have found there has been five generations of my family, following the line of my father to great-great-grandfather, living in Minnesota and six generations in the United States. Before my return to Minnesota I only knew there to be history dating back to my great-grandparents in the Walsh family in the United States.

I will now have to visit the grave sites of my great-great-grandparents in DeGraff, Minnesota at St. Bridget Parish Cemetery. One of my newly found Walsh cousins, Margaret Walsh Tomlinson, now living in Canada, has given me the directions and location of the graves. My plan is to make a rubbing and I am sure my newly found cousin would love a copy! (Note to self: Do this before the snow starts to fly. Make that a blog.)


Found Family Stained glass Windows
How could it be I did not know about two huge stained glass window dedicated to my Great-Grandparents Michael Francis and Mary McGinty Walsh in Murdock and also my grandmother’s family, Stephen Foley? It seems my mother Margaret Walsh of Litchfield would have been hot on the trail of this fact or maybe I just forgot. (I really didn’t know!)

There is a stained glass window of the Saint Thomas the Apostle, also know as Doubting Thomas, dedicated with the inscription of Mr. and Mrs. Michael Walsh, my great-grandparents on the south side at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Murdock. Cousin Margaret was also the person that informed me of this grand find.

Saint Thomas is responsible for bringing Christianity to India in the area known as Kerala. In 2008 the first saint born in India, Saint Alphonsa of Kerala, was officially named a saint by the Vatican. See my related blog on Saint Alphonsa.

This morning I received information from a cousin from my grandmother’s side of family about a stained glass window of Saint Paul dedicated to the Stephen Foley Family. Stephen Foley would be my great-grandfather, if I have it right. I didn’t know the connection, but I am glad to be informed by cousin Maggie Dolan Harp, thanks! I will update with a photo and video in another blog entry.

See my grandmother Jannet “Jennie” (Foley) Walsh, 1886 – 1985, in video posted below. I will tell you more about the unusual name of Jannet in another blog. The image is believed to be from circa World War I, as told to me by family.

According to information from Swift County, the second Sacred Heart church was built in 1925, with the first Mass prayed at midnight on Christmas of that same year. The art glass for the stained glass was imported from England and Germany, installed by the Forman Ford & Company.

In the years 1875 and 1876 the late Archbishop John Ireland started a Catholic colony adjacent to Murdock and DeGraff, the very location my family still has a farm. A church was first built in DeGraff, St. Bridget parish. The people in Murdock did not have a way to travel to DeGraff, so a second parish was started as a mission church of DeGraff in 1894 in Murdock, now know as Sacred Heart.

As a child I always understood the story to be an Archbishop from Ireland helped bring my ancestors to this area, not Archbishop Ireland. It’s good to know the Catholic colony is still going strong in the DeGraff and Murdock area.

Links encouraged!

Native Minnesotan Jannet Walsh is a blogger, columnist, journalist, photojournalist, terrier owner, hula hooper and more! Contact her at jannetwalsh@gmail.com. Click here to view full biography. View her other blog at http://jannetwalsh.blogspot.com/.
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