SACRED HEART (1914)

Peter Peetz, a railroad section foreman, homesteaded in 1903 the future site of the Logan County

town named for him. After a Burlington railroad subsidiary, the Lincoln Land Company, decided to plat a town in 1908, Peetz provided the townsite.

Initially, the Peetz family went to Mass in nearby Sidney, Nebraska, then at St. Anthony's in Sterling. Mrs. Peetz persuaded Peter Sasse at Sterling to say Mass once a month in the Peetz home. Twenty Catholic families gathered for these services, inspiring Father Sasse and Peter Peetz to think about building a parish. Peetz raised $300 and co-signed a loan from the Catholic Church Extension Society in Chicago to start a building fund.

Parishioners volunteered to construct the high-spired little frame church completed in 1914. It remained a mission tended by the pastor of St. Anthony's in Sterling until 1925. Then, after prodding from parishioner John Fehringer, Bishop Tihen assigned William Scherer to be the first resident pastor. The house across the street from the church was bought and converted to a rectory where the congregation stocked Father Scherer's larder with eggs, butter, milk, meat, and vegetables.

Philip Ryan, the fourth pastor, and parishioners dug out the basement by hand to create a parish hall and added sacristies to the little frame church in 1944-1945. Omer V. Foxhoven, pastor from 1962 to 1965, presided over the 1963 dismantling of the old frame church and construction of a modern, red brick church in 1964, the parish's fiftieth anniversary.

The new $68,000 parish home, designed by architect Henry De Nicola, showcased six stained glass windows by the noted Belgian artist, Bradi Barth. Miss Barth worked bits of local color into her stained glass compositions: The creation scene includes the cat who became her constant companion as she worked, while the Coronation window includes in the background the old frame church of Peetz.

Father Foxhoven wrote a golden anniversary history booklet, "Golden Yields Through 50 Years from Golden Fields," to record the history of this wheat-belt parish, concentrating on the farm families that have sustained this church, including the Bules, Davises, Elenzes, Fehringers, Fogales, Gertges, Goransons, Groegers, Hoffmans, Johnsons, LeBlancs, McRaes, Meyers, Nelsons, Peetzes, Roelles, Schilzes, Schumachers, Schweitzbergers, Steyaerts, Trujillos, Van Driels, Veiths, and Wiesers.