by Dennis Dalman
Most – if not all – people who visit the graves in the St. Joseph Parish Cemetery are unaware that 11 orphans lie buried in the ground on the northwest corner of the graveyard, behind the Catholic church.
On that 30- x 40-foot patch of ground, there are no gravestones, no monument, no markers – no nothing to indicate those orphans’ bodies are there, under the ground, forgotten for more than 100 years.
At the time of burial, wooden crosses were stuck into the ground, but those crosses have long since rotted away into nothing.
That is why two relatives (David Marthaler and first-cousin Robert Simon) are trying to raise funds to memorialize those children by placing granite gravestones on that sad, empty corner of the cemetery. The gravestones, each costing about $1,140, would be made by stonemasons at St. John’s Abbey.
Anyone wanting to contribute should send a check to Robert Simon, 16173 County Road 51, St. Joseph, MN 56374. Write “Gravestones” on the check’s memo line.
Or go to the GoFundMe page at https://gofund.me/36c1f345.
Marthaler
David Marthaler, who lives near Detroit, Mich., is the grandson of Frank Simon Jr., now deceased, who was one of the orphans lucky enough to live, but whose little brother, 5-year-old John Simon, was one of the orphans who died of influenza in 1883 shortly after arriving at the orphanage. John is one of the 11 orphans who was is buried in the St. Joseph cemetery.
Marthaler, now retired, was for 30 years an FBI special agent, living in the Detroit area. He graduated from Apollo High School in 1979. In 1983, he earned a degree from St. John’s University with a dual major in economics and accounting. He then joined the Reserve Officers Training Corps and served in Army Special Forces before becoming an FBI agent. He and his wife, Jane, have four grown children.
Helen Simon, David Marthaler’s mother, was the daughter of Frank Simon Jr., the orphan who survived.
Cemetery visits
In a long telephone interview with the Newsleaders, Marthaler described a long chain of death-haunted family history.
Many of his mother Helen’s relatives are buried in the cemetery in St. Joseph. David, raised in St. Cloud, has vivid memories of his mother and him visiting the St. Joseph Parish cemetery many times in the 1960s. She would stand in a silence brimming with memories by her parents’ graves, her grandparents’ graves and at the sorrowful place covered with 11 decaying wooden crosses.
Orphanage
In 1882, the Simon family’s parents died of pneumonia. The mother, Elizabeth (Meyer) Simon died first of pneumonia. About a year later the father, Frank Simon Sr. died (apparently of influenza). Their eight children were suddenly parentless. Orphans.
The farm was then sold. The older children went to live with relatives. But the three youngest children (Frank Jr., 9; John, 5; Louisa, 2) were placed in the St. Benedict Monastery’s Orphan Asylum, a big building next to the monastery where nuns served as the children’s teachers and protectors. At any given time, about two dozen orphans were cared for at the orphanage.
Louisa Simon left the orphanage at age 14 to live with relatives. Frank Simon Jr., praised highly by the nuns for his helpful work, left the orphanage at 15, worked on farms and then purchased 280 acres of farmland in Collegeville Township. Simon Jr. married a woman named Helena Stock, and one of their 13 children was Helen Simon, David Marthaler’s mother. His father was Eugene Marthaler, who taught business accounting for many years at St. Cloud Tech High School.
The Benedictine Sisters operated the on-site orphanage from 1875 to 1893, at which time another orphanage operated by the Franciscan Sisters opened in Little Falls.
A sad but true fact is that in the pre-vaccine 19th Century, death of both parents happened all too often because the spread of diseases often cut lives short, including the lives of all too many children. Just three of the most common causes of death were diphtheria, tuberculosis and influenza.
Sorrowful list
Sister Pat Kennedy did research in the St. Benedict Monastery archives and uncovered a sorrowful list – the names of the orphans who had died.
John Joseph Simon, 5
Died May 15, 1883.
Anna Sweeney, 2
Died Aug. 20, 1883.
Christina Peffer
(Exact age unknown)
Died Aug. 24, 1883.
William Black, 6
Died Sept. 2, 1883.
Josephine Degross, 1
Died Dec. 1, 1887.
Lucia Lingnan, 2 months
Died Jan. 28, 1888.
Gregory Sylvester Boland, 5
Died Feb. 9, 1888.
Adelaide Blanchard, 2
Died April 14, 1888.
John Miller, 4 months
(Died in St. Cloud Hospital)
Sept. 10, 1888.
Rose Jourdan, 12
Died Nov. 21, 1889.
Charlotte Johnson, 7
Died Jan. 29, 1890.
Tombstones
Each tombstone for each of the 11 buried orphans will include the following engravings: name, age, dates of birth and death.
“Help us honor the lives of these young orphans by contributing to our campaign,” Marthaler said. “Together, we can ensure their final resting place is marked with the respect and remembrance they deserve.”
Again, here are ways to contribute:
Send a check to Robert Simon, 16173 County Road 51, St. Joseph, MN 56374. Write “Gravestone” on the check’s memo line.
Or go to the GoFundMe page at https://gofund.me/36c1f345.
Simons
During his interview with the Newsleaders, David Marthaler happened to mention a fun fact:
He noted many people in the St. Joseph/Collegeville area know the name “Simon” well. That is because for more than 100 years four hand-me-down generations of Simon men have served on the Collegeville Township Road Commission, including Frank Simon Jr., his son Richard, Richard’ son Donald, and currently Donald’s son Sam.
This is a photo circa 1882 of the St. Benedictine Orphan Asylum residents. John Simon, who died at the age of 5, is in the front row on the steps. His brother, Frank Simon Jr., is on the right standing next to the boy who is at the farthest in the photo to the right. Their little sister, Louisa, 2, is one of the girls sitting on the stairs. The Newsleaders could not confirm which one in the photo she is.
David Marthaler
