Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Queen of Peace

Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Queen of Peace is a historic church on FM 340 in Sweet Home, Lavaca County, Texas. It was built in 1918 and added to the National Register in 1983. Since about 1860, the pioneers of Old Sweet Home and later those of the present town on the Railway, which came through here in 1887, attended the churches at Koerth, Yoakum, Hallettsville and St. Mary’s. In 1895 a dance hall was remodeled into a church here under Father Forest who shortly afterwards dedicated it as Bishop under the title of Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Rev. Father Method Vaculik came here twice a month from Yoakum, and after 1900, his successor, Father Heffernan, who arranged for the purchase of three acres of land for a parish cemetery. From 1906 to 1910 Father Benes attended this mission from St. Mary’s and from 1911 Father Kopp from Koerth. From June 1916, the Rev Godfrey Kuratko continued attending Sweet Home from Koerth, had the new brick church built here, Bishop Shaw blessing the cornerstone in 1918 and Bishop Drossaerts the Church on June 3, 1919, under the title of the Virgin Mary, Queen of Peace. A rectory was built in 1928 and Father Kuratko (Father "K") took up his residence at Sweet Home while continuing to serve Koerth until it got its own pastor again in 1937. Only in the first half of 1937 Father Drozd was administrator while Father Kuratko administered the Hallettsville parish during the last illness of Father Mathis. In 1966 Father Kuratko officially retired after serving the parish fifty years. He was succeeded by Fr. Vaclav Bily and then Father Alphonse Padalecki. Father Charles Sonnier followed in 1988 and served until his death in 2016. The parish of Sweet Home has given four sons to the priesthood: Reverend Fathers Marcus Valenta, Henry Herbst, Leo Pesek and Matthew Huehlefeld. Nine daughters of the parish have entered religious life.