Today I’ll be driving through southwestern Indiana’s coal country and then up to the Terre Haute area to visit St Mother Theodore Guerin. As is my tradition with these trips, I will be listening to old episodes of Weird Studies. Sets the right mood, since these trips are almost always centered on some religious or “weird” place.
8:12am
First stop of the day at Camp Olivet. This creek is where I was baptized. It’s where many (most?) of the area’s Holiness folks were baptized. They baptisms always happened on Sundays after morning service. Someone would go into the water to chase off the snakes while Joe started singing “Shall We Gather at the River?”
9:26am
Stop 2 in Linton. It’s bigger than I remember it being. More businesses and chains than I expected. The main reason I stopped was a donut sign. Yes, I’ve already had breakfast. Shut up.
10:32am
Stop three in Prairie Creek, founded in 1816. I’m now in an area of Indiana I’ve never visited. I took this picture of a barbershop because it caught my attention. And the tree, well just look at it.
11:19am
Arrived at St Mary-of-the-Woods campus. Beautiful place.
On the way here, quite by surprise, I passed the federal prison which has held and executed a number of notorious criminals, like Timothy McVeigh. Disturbing place to see or, rather, feel. A prison like that on the south side and a saint’s shrine on the north: Terre Haute, you’ve got some kind of nexus thing going on.
That’s St. Mother Theodore Guerin, the saint whose shrine I’m visiting today. She’s worth reading about if you’re not familiar with her. There’s a nice exhibit before you enter the shrine proper that tells the story of her life. Her casket is in the center of the shrine on a dais. Benches are set all along the walls with a votive candle stand at one end and three bone relics in a frame on the other.
The Church of the Immaculate Conception is a beautiful heap of Indiana limestone. The marble inside is nice too. Brings to mind a Lawrence County limestone story: The rich bosses of the quarries wanted their headstones to be imported marble because limestone was too common; the workers had the limestone headstones. I prefer the latter. Dump the bosses off your back.
I arrive just in time for Mass so I slip into a back row and stay until the distribution. I think that’s the first church service I’ve attended in twelve years!
There are several lovely statues, shrines, chapels, and grottoes all over campus.
2:40pm
Final stop of the day in Worthington. The diner is good. Alas, no cherry pie.
6:32pm
Shaping up these trip notes. It was a good day. While I really enjoyed the drive, there weren’t a lot of places of interest to stop along the way. I came across a few antique/junk stores but they were all closed. Nevertheless, St. Mary-of-the-Woods and the St. Mother Theodore shrine were worth the trip.
