Tell It Like It Was – 150th anniversary of St. Vincent de Paul Church bldg.
- Friends of Historic Augusta
- Sep 16
- 10 min read
Rev. Doyle_Donna Ruether Hellebusch_Franz Krekel_Giessen Society_Howmet Aerospace_twin spires
Gentle readers, by the time you read this article, the 150th anniversary celebration of St. Vincent de Paul Church in Dutzow will have come and gone. That’s okay; we’re still here, right? And some of you may enjoy a little historic perspective on current events, just like I enjoy my compulsion to write about them.
Back in July, my friend Gary McWilliams gave me a current issue of the parish bulletin that serves Immaculate Conception, St. Ignatius, and St. Vincent de Paul churches. Gary is an avid reader of Tell It Like It Was and even supports my writing through contributions to Friends of Historic Augusta. He well understands that curiosity fuels my writing, and he wanted to call my attention to the upcoming celebration at St. Vincent de Paul.
So, on August 11, 2025, I called a number I found in the parish bulletin for St. Vincent. The Rev. Dennis M. Doyle answered, and I gave him my spiel. Then I requested that he put me in touch with a parishioner well versed in Dutzow and St. Vincent history. As always, I stressed that I wasn’t looking for an “expert”; I was seeking a person who enjoyed the topic and wasn’t too shy to talk about it with a total stranger. That’s not asking too much, is it?
Guess not. Father Doyle said he would pass my request, and phone number, on to the anniversary committee who were meeting the next day. On August 22, I received a phone call and voicemail from parishioner, Donna Ruether Hellebusch. I texted back and we set up a phone call interview for Monday, August 25. All right!
pO: I’ve got you on speaker phone, and meanwhile the iPad is recording whatever we say. So…I saw Donna Kuchem the other day, and she said she was a Hellebusch. That would make her Donna Hellebusch too. (We laugh.) But I think she said your maiden name was Ruether?
Donna Hellebusch: Yes.
pO: Well, I was looking up Franz Krekel (1779-1862), an early German immigrant to Dutzow, because he’s buried there (I think) at St. Vincent cemetery. Then I noticed on findagrave.com that his grand-daughter, Clara Krekel (1863-1934) was married to a Ruether. Would you be any relation…all the way back to Franz Krekel?
Image of Clara Krekel Ruether from familysearch.org.
DH: Yeah, we’ve been here…actually on the Ruether end, I’m 5th generation, but then I’m in the 6th generation on another side of my family. There’s a lot of us…5th and 6th generations still living in the Dutzow area.
pO: That is amazing, and I suppose Hellebusch is one of those families.
DH: Well, Hellebusch is buried…and that’s my husband’s side…there was a Franz Hellebusch, one of the 1st gravesites marked up in the cemetery. Actually, my kids are 8th generation from him…but he came over (to America) with 10 of his 12 kids. So, you can imagine 10 kids spread out all over here. And that’s what we have in the Dutzow area…we’re semi-related but distantly. And then we intermarry.
pO; May I ask how old you are?
DH: I’m 62.
pO: Can you give me a description…a job description…anything to sum you up in one sentence? That’s not fair, is it? (We laugh.)
DH: I’m in engineering…I think it comes from our German background. A lot of us in the area have become engineers.
pO: Interesting.
DH: My grandfather was in WWI and got meningitis so he couldn’t do the toils of farming. So, he did everything…he ran electrical lines…he was a musician…he was a carpenter…he worked on automobiles. And then he bought a farm when his son was old enough to do the farming work…and my dad inherited the farm…so, we’re keeping the farm…that was my dad’s dying wish: to keep our farm a working farm. My brother’s working it right now.
pO: So, roughly, where do you live?
DH: I’m in Dutzow, right in Duden Hills. I was born and raised here, and my brother too, so two of us are still living in the Dutzow area. There were seven of us kids; the others moved away.
pO: Do you ever see the ghost of Gottfried Duden up there in the hills?
DH: (Laughs.) I think I have a ghost…I built on the Berg place. The Bergs actually came over with the Giessen Society (in 1834). So, you know a lot of the Giessen Society were Protestants, but they ended up turning Catholic…they married Catholic Germans. And the Catholic Germans came over in the (18)40s and 50s. I do have a relation back to the Giessens.
My house sits where the barn (Berg’s) was built. We have a log cabin that’s falling apart and a chicken shed…but I think I have the ghost of a Berg. (Laughs.)
pO: Do you have a position at St. Vincent’s?
DH: I’m on the parish council. And I’m on this committee for the 150th celebration.
pO: Recently (May 2025) I did a story, there at your cemetery, that involved a brand-new headstone for Bernard Marstall. Are you familiar with my stories? They’re published first on the Augusta Museum’s website, and eventually Boone Country Connection runs them online. https://www.augustamomuseum.com/post/tiliw-bernard-marstall-s-headstone-in-dutzow
DH: I need to go online. I’ve been retired for a year and a half. Before when I was working, I didn’t have time for that.
pO: Where did you work?
DH: I was working at Howmet Aerospace. https://www.howmet.com/ I did 35+ years in the Aerospace Industry working for several different companies. I was in St. Charles for a while…11 years. Then I moved to the DACA plant (in Dutzow) for about 11 years, and then I went over to Howmet…for 16 years. But I dearly loved aerospace.
pO: It’s good when you love your work.
DH: My great-great aunt…she was a nun. She was Sister Bernita Poepsel…and she started the whole thing of interconnecting, and that’s where I found out that me and my husband are related…way back when…so, there’s 5 graves originally (at St. Vincent cemetery) …apparently there was more graves that were unmarked, but these were the first ones marked in 1846. There’s a Hellebusch, his ancestor, and his son…they had a cholera breakout or typhoid. Then there was these 2 Poepsels, husband and wife…and my husband descends from the Poepsel and the Hellebusch, and I only descend from the Poepsel.
pO: So, Donna, this is your 150th anniversary for St. Vincent, so obviously you’re not going all the way back to…
DH: Well, this is for the church building…the parish is even older. We celebrated that in 2006 for the parish. The parish was a mission in 1842, served by the priest from Washington. We became our own parish in 1856. We had 2 prior churches before this structure.
pO: Two? I didn’t know that. I did know about the log church.
DH: There was a log church. There was a brick church, and now this one.
pO: Oh wow, what happened to the other brick church?
DH: They tore that one down. I think that one was built in the 1850s. So, we did a booklet for the 150th of the church, and there’s a lot of information in there. If you give me your email address, I can send you some things.
Gentle readers, I learned quite a bit from what Donna sent me. For instance, the cornerstone of the present church was laid in 1874 on the Feast of the Ascension.
Quoting the booklet, “The name inscribed over the door is ‘St. Vincent’s Kirche’ reflecting the strong German heritage of the parish. The church was constructed at an approximate cost of $15,000. Much of the material was brought by river boats and hauled to the site by parishioners with teams and wagons. Huge cedar poles resting on large stones were embedded in sand to support the high vaulted ceiling of the structure. The bricks were formed from clay obtained from a nearby farm currently owned by Joe Borgerding. The foundation and step stones were cut by a local stone cutter, Henry Schweissguth. These stones were quarried from the Lake Creek Valley area. The church was built with an immovable or fixed altar, and the records indicate that it was consecrated on September 25, 1875…” (My addition: please note that Joe Borgerding’s farm is now owned by his son, Robert.)
DH: One of my ancestors, which is Anton Ruether…he donated one of the bells, and there’s a story I can send you from that publication.
Gentle readers, what Donna sent me was a photo of that page of the anniversary publication. Alas, I cannot copy and paste from a photo, so allow me to post the whole photo which you can enlarge and thereby read the interesting history of the church bell.
And I hereby promise myself that I will someday ascend that tower and see that bell. Anyone care to join me?
Page 18 for your reading pleasure ☺
DH: We got a video made. So, I was instrumental in gathering all the photos from 19 years ago when we had 2006 (anniversary of the founding of the parish.) History is really not being rewritten here. It’s all the same history. I’ll give you a link to this video. We’re working on getting a link. So then, you can see some of the pictures from the past.
Gentle lovers of Dutzow, on Monday, 9/8/25, Donna emailed a link to the video which exists on their school’s YouTube channel. I watched and enjoyed it. I highly recommend it.
DH: In 1923 there was a fire, and they had to replace the roof. Then we had a tornado or windstorm, some say, in April of 1924, and that roof got blown off. And we used to have spires on the sides, and after ’24 they took them off. (Check out this next photo from 1908 in which you can see the twin spires.)
DH: You know, Immaculate Conception (Augusta MO) has a unique tie to St.Vincent because in the late 1800s they shared a priest…like they do now. It’s like a hundred years later we’re sharing a priest again.
pO: That’s great. I always try to steer my stories back to Augusta. How about Aloys Struckhoff’s family…did you have any friendships with them?
DH: Oh yeah. Aloys’s daughters were my age. Chris…she was my age…went to school with them. We were on the bus with the people from Augusta.
pO: Over to Borgia…
DH: Well, I went to Washington High. When Immaculate Conception closed their school…they went to the public school…and most of those kids just went to Washington High. In the 70s St. Vincent built the addition and started allowing Augusta to send their kids to St. Vincent School. I think there was like 5 years after IC closed their school that St. Vincent wouldn’t let them (enroll) because…it’s all about how much space you have.
pO: I know IC had Franciscan nuns…did you have nuns there at…?
DH: Yes, Precious Blood.
pO: Don’t know them at all.
DH: There actually from O’Fallon. That’s where my great-great aunt, Sister Bernita…was from…Precious Blood.
pO: Speaking of nuns, one of Paul and Bernice’s daughters, Constance…I think, was a nun, and I saw her at Paul Kemner’s visitation…she’s a Franciscan.
pO: I think you were very helpful, and you know what? That was only 31 minutes. We got a lot done in 31 minutes! Sometimes these things take an hour and a half. Thank you so much, Donna.
Gentle readers, let me tax your eyes a few more minutes. Early in this story, I mentioned Franz Krekel, who emigrated to Missouri from Germany. I first encountered the Krekel name while reading Anita Mallinckrodt’s Augusta’s “Harmony”. On pg. 29, Franz, or his son, Franz Krekel, is listed as an assessor for Augusta. And the amazing Arnold Krekel, son of Franz the elder, is found on 5 different pages in Anita’s book. In a nutshell, Arnold Krekel was…let’s just let Wikipedia say it:
“Born in Langenfeld, Prussia, German Confederation, Krekel emigrated to the United States in 1832. He attended St. Charles College and read law to enter the bar in 1844. He was a surveyor in St. Charles County, Missouri. He was a justice of the peace there from 1841 to 1843, and was in private practice beginning in 1844. He was a county and city attorney of St. Charles and St. Charles County from 1846 to 1850, and was editor of the St. Charles Democrat from 1850 to 1864. He was a member of the Missouri House of Representatives in 1852. Krekel served in the Union Army throughout the American Civil War as colonel of a regiment of Missouri volunteers. He was President of the state constitutional convention in 1865 during which the Missouri emancipation proclamation was approved which formally abolished slavery in Missouri.”
And there’s more! Walter Kamphoefner, history professor at TAMU, pointed out to me in conversation that in the early years of settlement, masses were said in the Krekel family barn which was located in St. Charles County but adjacent to Warren County near Dutzow. (See pg.188 in Kamphoefner’s Germans in America.) From that that same book, one learns on pg. 213, that Arnold “Krekel was instrumental in the founding of the Lincoln Institute in Jefferson City.” Today, we know it as Lincoln University.
Dorris Keeven-Franke, an award-winning author, International Speaker, and a member of the Missouri Speakers Bureau, has plenty to say about the Krekels too. On her website she quotes an account of the Krekel emigration as told by Arnold’s brother, Nicholas. https://dorriskeevenfranke.com/2025/02/27/coming-to-america/ I think many of my readers would find that link and a general one to her website: https://dorriskeevenfranke.com/
By way of introduction, she says: “Today’s story is about the Krekel family who immigrated to America in 1832. Without them, we would not have the City of O’Fallon Missouri today. In the decade of the 1830s alone over 120,000 Germans immigrated to America, and one-third of those settled in Missouri. Those are the emigrants that made it. Thousands would not survive the journey at sea or the difficult overland trek westward.”
In a phone conversation with Dorris Keeven-Franke, on 9/1/25, she said:
DK-F: His oldest son was Gottfried, and Gottfried bought land next to him (the elder Franz)…and they were right at the St. Charles County line. He’s buried at St. Vincent. His oldest son was named Gottfried, just like Gottfried Duden…he was that close of a friend to Gottfried Duden.
pO: So, Franz came with the Geissen Society?
DK-F: No, he did not. Gottfried Duden tried to talk him into that, but he didn’t…he was too German and independent.
pO: Was he one of the founders of St. Vincent Church? Is that safe to say?
DK-F: Yeah, because he’s in the oldest section (of the cemetery.)
Gentle readers, that’s all I’ve got, but let me leave you with a photo of the massive tulip tree that dominates the cemetery in Dutzow.
Be well, be curious, and do good work.
paulO
The Friends of Historic Augusta's S.A.G.E project (Stories of Augusta's German Evolution) is sponsoring this program (TILIW stories) in partnership with the Missouri Humanities and with support from the Missouri Humanities Trust Fund. If you wish to read more stories, or want to make a donation to Friends of Historic Augusta and Tell It Like It Was, please use this link: https://www.augustamomuseum.com/tell-it-like-it-was-stories