The Painted Churches of Texas

Earlier this year, Denisa read an article about the "Painted Churches" around Schulenberg, Texas. So when we realized that Schulenberg could be on our northerly route through this big state, we made a point to stop. This is actually a travel day, so we parked the motor home at the Pilot station on the highway, and took off on a little road trip in the pickup. Our first stop was in the tiny town of Praha, at the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church.

Denisa is always taking way too many pictures of flowers, and she did that today in the rose garden outside this church. So she's going to throw in a few here while we explain some history of these painted churches.

When groups of settlers from Europe came to the United States in the 1800's, they often settled together in communities. They missed their beautiful churches back home in Czechoslovakia or Germany or Austria . . . so they attempted to build beautiful cathedrals here.

This group of settlers used the native Texas limestone on the outside, but had only wood to adorn the interiors. While they didn't have the mosaic tile ceilings or marble columns from Europe, they used intricate paint jobs to decorate their churches. That is why these old churches are called "The Painted Churches."

They also did a masterful job of carving intricate altars and pulpits that are still in use today.

While the actual name of the church is much longer, Denisa has renamed this the "flower church." That's because the top of each wooden column has a unique flower painted on it, and the ceiling is covered with flower gardens.

Mentioning a flower church, also gives Denisa another opportunity to squeeze in a couple more rose pictures that were taken outside.

Our next stop is back towards the town of Schulenberg at St. Mary's Church at High Hill.

This is called the "Queen of the Painted Churches" for its grand arched high ceilings and beautiful attention to detail. It was built by a group of Austrian-Moravian settlers that have been worshipping here since 1860.

Again, it features beautiful carvings at the front of the church . . .

and detailed paintings on the ceiling.

One thing unique to the "Queen" is her gorgeous stained glass windows. All the large side windows are dated in 1899, and they have certainly stood the test of time.

Because they didn't have Austrian marble for the columns, these painted churches used wood beams that were painted to look like marble. Each column holds a saint, with female saints on the left and male saints on the right. When the church was built, the women sat on the left side of the church, and men sat on the right.

While we were visiting these churches in some random order that made sense to us, we met a carload of people at the first church. They were three siblings and their three spouses that had met for a Texas vacation this year. After seeing them at the first church, we laughed and visited again when we saw them again at our second church.

So all of us really laughed when we saw them again in the parking lot at our third church--Sts. Cyril & Methodius Catholic Church near Dubina.

They encouraged us to hurry inside, as a tour guide had just unlocked this painted church for a paying group of sight-seers. So we were lucky to get a full view of this church that we will call "The Blue One."

With its blue ceilings, this painted church was built in 1909 by its congregation of settlers.

In the 1950s, the congregation decided to update their sanctuary, and covered all the intricate art with a fresh clean coat of white paint. It wasn't until the 1980s that the congregation came together to repaint the artwork that was shining through that white paint.

We wandered through the cemetery next door, with names on the head stones like "Blahuta" and "Kosarek" and "Sekerka." This community still has the roots from their homeland in Europe.

By the time we finished at the cemetery, the tour group was gone and the gate at this site was locked. We're glad we got to walk inside earlier, as this view of the blue church wasn't nearly as beautiful.

Just down the road we spotted a pasture that was ablaze with bluebonnets. We had already driven by, but Mark made a fast u-turn to bring us back to the open gate. Wouldn't you know it--our new friends were already there, laughing as we pulled up!

They had seen us drive by, commenting that we should have stopped to offer to take a group picture of them among the wildflowers. So when we turned around, they were all laughing and calling to us like old friends. Of course we took a picture of the six of them, and they took a picture of us together as well.

We stayed around longer, enjoying this most beautiful display of wildflowers. In between wandering God's churches, we have also found God's bluebonnets!

We wandered down more little country roads to find our fourth and final painted church of the day. This is St. John the Baptist Church in the tiny town of Ammansville. Any guesses on what special paint job we will find inside this basic white little church?

If you guessed pink, you are right!

If you also guessed that our new friends were here, you are right again! By now we are talking about exchanging addresses so we can send Christmas cards to each other. In the meantime, they offered to take another picture of us together.

It's interesting to look closely at the "marble" columns and hand rails. They're all actually wood, painted to look like marble.

We finished our tour of the Painted Churches of Texas with a couple of food stops in Schulenberg. As we ate a famous sausage wrap at City Market, we were just a little disappointed that our new friends didn't walk in the door. A stop at the bakery across the street finished our travel day detour. We headed back to the motor home to continue down the road to our next destination. But we are glad to get to wander God's wonderfully painted churches here in Texas.