St. Mary's Catholic Church - Bremond, TX - Roman Catholic Churches on Waymarking.com

The community of Bremond traces its origin as a terminus station for the Houston and Texas Railway Company.  The landscape is little changed to the present day: wide prairies dotted by farm communities and ranch homes.  It is to this community that the first Polish settler came in 1873.  Joseph Bartula and his family sailed from Pilzenski, Galacia in Poland to begin the Polish Catholic legacy since 1876, which lasts to this day.

The history of Catholic worship in the community begins modestly and develops with grandeur. Father Fleury Biusant, a French priest - offered the first Mass and other sacramental rites in the home of J.C. Roberts, which today serves as a most faithful landmark, located on the outskirts of town, to the beginning of Catholic worship.  The fervor of Polish religious piety eventually developed alongside the prosperity of the community toward the construction of the first church in the spring of 1879.  The first services were conducted on that year’s Pentecost Sunday.  It was a small frame building raised by the united efforts of Catholics and Protestants. Several services were held each Sunday to accommodate the growing number of worshipers.  Saint Mary’s Church was well established and growing when it received its most celebrated pastor.

Reverend Ignatius J. Szymanski, born in Poland and educated in American seminaries, began the construction of a church building dedicated in 1908 on a grand scale, which would evoke memories from the Polish immigrants of church architecture in the land across the waters.  Under his pastorate, the parochial school under the patronage of Mary Immaculate was initiated.  Three sisters of St. Joseph from Stevens Point, WI arrived in 1911 to hold elementary level classes in the first church building.  Later the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word from Shiner, TX served as teachers until, in 1932 the school year was reopened under the Felician Order of Sisters.

A new school building build on spacious scale was constructed in 1936 and is used to provide elementary education for the children of Saint Mary’s.  Father Szymanski continued as Pastor until 1941 when he was laid to rest in the church cemetery, although his legacy endures in the recollections of the senior members of the parish.  The Felician Sisters continued to teach until the closing of the school in June 1996 and the students were transferred to Bremond public school.  Each year, on the third Sunday of October, the Church grounds are crowded with visitors who come to support the Church at the Fall Homecoming Festival.  The parishioners band together to serve a barbeque and polska kielbasa meal and hold auction, which includes handmade quilts, wood-works and trailers of livestock.  All this is done to continue the mission initiated by their ancestors and passed on to their children.