I remember a number of years ago, my mother-in-law brought me on a little road trip to see the church and cemetery where her grandparents were laid to rest.  A few years ago, I couldn’t remember where we had gone, but I had an image in my head of a pretty little church tucked into the woods somewhere, with the cemetery very close by on the same grounds. The cemetery wasn’t very large.  

We decided to find this cemetery and church a few years ago.  We did a little family research and managed to find it, but when we got there, it wasn’t right. We were driving up the dirt road to get back to where the church and cemetery were, but it looked different; not like the memory I had frozen in my head.  I knew there was a church there, but this cemetery had no church.  We pulled in and parked anyway.  Upon closer inspection, we found the crumbled foundation of a church. It looked like ruins that had been there for generations, not a few years.  This piqued my interest, of course. 

Fast forward to the present day and our 251 adventures, we went back to that cemetery.  I know now that it was St. Jerome’s cemetery and the church had shared the same name.  It’s a pity that it’s gone not just because of what that tells us about the local Catholic population, but St. Jerome is my son’s confirmation saint, so I would’ve loved to have taken him there to see an actual church building and not just ruins.  

I found a great article on the church in the Manchester Journal online.  I’ve linked to it here

You can also find current pictures of what’s left of the church here