Monday - Our Church Going Day

Today we visited four of the twenty ""Painted Churches."   These churches ae on the National Registry of Historic Places.  This is the first one we visited.  This is the only one that we were not able to go into the sanctuary.  They had a gate between the foyer and sanctuary.  We were able to put our camera through the bars and get some pictures.

A little history:  In 1840's German and Czech immigrants came to hill country Texas in search of cheap land and opportunity for better lives.  The trip would sometimes take up to four months and they left everything behind in their home country.  They tried to preserve their heritage, food and values.  One thing that was important to them was their church.  They decorated the churches with the colors and designs they had left behind.

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The interior of the church is painted a beautiful blue with gold stars.  In the 1950's the blue was whitewashed because the diocese thought the color was too distracting for the worshippers; but a restoration effort in 1983 brought the color and stars back to life.

We walked to the cemetery. This picture shows both the old and newer gravestones.

Every section was surrounded by concrete slabs keeping everything neat and orderly.

There was a child section that had evidently been well taken care of.  They had put new stones showing the date of birth, date of death and name of the child.

This was one of the older stones.  He was born in 1818 and died in 1887.

The families respect the burial place of their family members as evidenced by these flowers on a grave that is over 100 years old.

The old outhouses still have the German identifications on them.

Beside the church was a road that lead over a bridge called "Piano Bridge."  It is said that when it was first built with wooden planks, the planks made music like a piano when driven over it.  

The bridge is paved now so there was no music as we drove over it.

This was different from the usual longhorn we see in the pastures.

This is St. Mary's Church of High Hill.  It is known as the "Queen of the Painted Churches."  It was very beautiful.

The ceiling of the church is actually painted canvas.  The canvas was then attached to wooden slats making the ceiling look vaulted.

These posts are handpainted to look like they are marble or granite.  They are really just wood

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This is St. Mary's Church of the Assumption.

We only took pictures from the back of the church.  There was a woman praying and we did not want to disturb her.  The floors are so polished that they shine.

This was in the foyer just inside the church.

This church had a cemetery attached to it and this was the sign for the cemetery.  I looked the words up and they mean "Go with our Lord.":

This is the fourth church we visited.

The dusty rose was very pretty.

One thing we noticed about all the churches was that they are all in rural areas.  As we were driving to them, we could see the tall steeple long before we saw the building.

We had lunch at a Whataburger.  This is the second time we have eaten at one.  The burgers are LARGE.  Their burgers made McDonald's look like miniature ones.  We had heard about the Round Top Antique Show which is held in Round Top and surrounding towns two times a year   This happened to be the fall date.  This town is Warrington and booths lined the highway.  We walked along the highway for awhile before the heat got to us and we had to find some place cooler.  We both decided that this made the Covered Bridge Festival look small and they do this twice a year.

When we went into the town, he population sign had been altered to read 90,000.  I suppose someone is making a joke, but twice a year the population probably does swell to 90,000.  Actual population is only 90.

We drove back to camp and and found some shade outside the motorhome in which to sit and cool down.  I think we both took a nap.  Tomorrow we head south to Corpus Christi to spend a couple of days with old friends, Bob and Renita Harvey.  Carol worked with Bob for 30 years at Firestone.  They have a concrete slab  beside their driveway that we will pull into.  He has a hook-up as well.  So we will be staying at Harvey's RV Resort.