Members of St. Mary’s Catholic Church will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of their church – steeped in history and nurture – Labor Day weekend.

The church, which has a predominately black congregation, was founded in February 1906 when the Rev. Aloysius Heick arrived in Vicksburg from Marigold in the Mississippi Delta.

At the time of Heick’s arrival, Mississippi had 900,000 black residents, of whom fewer than 2,000 were Catholic. Most were on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

In Vicksburg, he found fewer than 50 black Catholics and most of those were members of St. Paul Catholic Church, the first Catholic church in the city.

Heick was a member of the Society of the Divine Word, a Roman Catholic order of priests and brothers founded in Steyl, Holland, in 1875. Their specific mission in Mississippi was to serve as missionaries to black people. The order is also known by the initials SVD.

Heick had been sent to Marigold on his mission in 1905 but was moved to Vicksburg when he met overwhelming resistance to his work in the Delta. The people of Vicksburg were more welcoming, and Heick was soon able to rent a three-room frame house at 112 Holley St.

Heick transformed the house into a chapel and his living quarters and was able to celebrate the first Mass at the nascent St. Mary’s on Feb. 2, 1906.

With the establishment of a small chapel in the Holley Street house, the congregation of St. Mary’s began to grow and it quickly became obvious that more permanent facilities would be needed. With the help of a substantial donation for the time from Mother Katherine Drexel, founder of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, St. Mary’s was able to buy property at Second North and Jackson Streets.

The several buildings on the site were converted into a chapel, a convent, a school and living quarters. The first Mass was celebrated on the new property June 10, 1906, Pentecost Sunday.

For the celebration of a century, activities begin at 7 p.m. Friday with a hospitality hour at St. Mary’s Center, across Second North Street from the church.

Activities Saturday begin at 10 a.m. on the church grounds and will consist of the RiverCity Ribfest and Barbecue Cookoff.

At 3 p.m. Sunday, the Very Rev. Joseph Latino, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Jackson, will be the lead celebrant at the anniversary Mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church at Second North and Main streets.

The Mass will be followed by the anniversary banquet at the church center.

The final activity of the anniversary celebration will be an outdoor Mass at 9 a.m. Monday at River Stage Plaza at Washington and Crawford Streets in downtown Vicksburg.

Many Catholic churches start schools and St. Mary’s was no exception. In September 1906, the first nuns from the Missionary Servant Sisters of the Holy Spirit arrived in Vicksburg and began work to get the school started. Within a month, they were ready to open the school’s doors to the first students, 30 children from the black community. The enrollment soon rose to 40 and continued to grow until St. Mary’s Elementary and High Schools reached a peak of 530 children in 1943.

The schools closed in the 1970s with the final classes held in 1974-75. During their peak days, children walked many blocks to reach the schools and families who lived in rural areas drove 25 or so miles per day to reach the school.

The sisters of the Holy Spirit kept the schools going for 70 sessions and finally left Vicksburg in 1975. As a result of the education they received, the graduates of St. Mary’s are involved in many professions today.

The white Catholics were helpful in the founding of St. Mary’s. Heick received help from the pastor of St. Paul Catholic Church in those early days. The Sisters of Mercy, who had established St. Francis Xavier Academy before the War Between the States, contributed an altar, altar settings, sacred vessels, candlesticks, pews and the priest’s vestments. The people of St. Paul also raised nearly $280, a sizable amount for the time, for St. Mary’s.

The Rev. John Hoenderop became the second pastor of St. Mary’s in 1908 to find the congregation had grown to 83 Catholics and the enrollment in the schools up to 150 by that September. Also by that time the church had been able to build a brick building housing a chapel and classrooms.

When he returned to the parish in 1917, Hoenderop guided the remodeling of the convent and began to organize construction of a new church. In spite of many delays, a new church building was constructed and was dedicated in 1923. It is in use to this day.

As the years went by, the congregation of St. Mary’s built a gym and activities building across Second North Street and named it in honor of the Rev. Francis Baltes. They also built a new rectory on the site of the old convent behind the church.

According to Harrison Havard Jr., a St. Mary’s member and a graduate of St. Mary’s High School, the schools gave blacks access to a better education for their children.

&#8220They also gave us a sense of belongedness in our church and our community,” Havard said.

He said St. Mary’s also had a personal impact.

&#8220It gave me a religion I am very fond of and love. I feel it gave me a spiritual base,” Havard said.

Leona Stringer, another St. Mary’s graduate, church member and a member of the centennial planning committee, said the church and schools had an effect that lasts to this day.

&#8220What was lived, what was shared with the students is still with those students today,” she said. &#8220We have been stamped.”