Adam Hiemenz built an altar...

A few weeks ago, a Q came up on facebook: Which Hiemenz built the altar for the Cathedral church in St Cloud?  Eddie said it was his grandfather Adam (1839-1924).   "Adam moved into town in 1896 and started work on the church". Cool, but the timing is off, as well as which church was meant.

You probably know all this already since early St Cloud church history is so exciting to both our readers, but let me lay it out again in case someone strays in here, m'kay?

According to the 1915 article below, Immaculate Conception (the German Church) was dedicated in 1865.  It stood on the corner of 9th and St Germain till it burned down in 1920. Chances are it already had a fine serviceable altar in 1896.
(Excerpts from the History of Stearns County, Mitchell, 1915)  

 The other church in St Cloud in those years was Holy Angels, the pro-cathedral (meaning it was temporarily serving as the cathedral, but that honor hadn't been bestowed for sure, even tho it lasted for 60 years).  
This is the church on the campus of Cathedral High School, on 6th Ave N.  It was a beautiful, top heavy church on the river bank which added even more height.  The sentence below--"The erection of the vicariate into a diocese in 1889 brought a change"--meaning Immaculate Conception parish over on St Germain was divided, sending some families to Holy Angels according to where they lived in St Cloud.
But read on....Holy Angels was "still poorly furnished" in 1890, and Fr Bernard Richter fixed that.  I believe the altars below were the altars that Adam Hiemenz built in the pro-cathedral, Holy Angels.  Isn't that COOL?

(BTW, I spoke with a native Hungarian speaker yesterday and mentioned this story and the name Hiemenz.  He said in Germany (and Europe), the name would be pronounced Hymans, rather than He-menz.  Hmm!)

September, 2015--Remember the name Raymie Hiemenz?  A friend and cousin of dad's, he was a face we would have recognized from family gatherings.  He was Eddie's brother, son of Grandma's sister Angie.  This morning, Raymie's son Tom emailed (Tom identified the kids in a photo for us in 2011) to add a photo he had of his great grandparents, Adam & Rose Hiemenz.  With the miracle of online photo editing software, Tom added color to the photo (and glasses for Adam ☺)--isn't it cool?  (Adam died in 1924 so this was early last century). Wow!

THANKS, TOM!