Transcript for episode 8 of the 2024 season of Talking Hoosier History.
.Episode written by Jill Weiss Simins, edited by Michella Marino, hosted by Justin Clark, and produced by A.J. Chrapliwy.
Men of the cloth frequently juggle multiple roles: head of the church, community spiritual leader, and faith counselor, among others. But Father Anthony Scheideler, a Catholic priest in Indianapolis, also became a matchmaker. His role in introducing renowned architect Herman Gaul to his future wife would pay godly dividends.
St. Mary Catholic Church is an architectural gem. Its gothic towers help define the downtown Indianapolis skyline, while its bells call the faithful to worship. Not only for its congregation but also for those dining and shopping in the Mass Ave. cultural district, the cathedral provides a glimmer of stately beauty nestled amid the urban landscape. But St. Mary’s is more than just an elegant building. It is the physical testament to a love story—one set into motion by a kind, matchmaking priest.
I am Justin Clark, and this is Talking Hoosier History.
Herman J. Gaul was born in Germany in 1869 and immigrated to the United States in the late 1880s. He was a devoted Catholic who loved the architecture of Germany’s churches, especially the Cathedral of Cologne, with its intricate details, colorful windows, and sculpted stone. From a young age, he aspired to bring a similar gothic vision to the Midwest.
In the early 1890s, Gaul began an apprenticeship with the renowned Chicago architect Louis Sullivan. In 1891, Sullivan’s Chicago firm sent Gaul to Indianapolis for several months to supervise the building of a new plant for the Home Brewing Company. The beer company had incorporated earlier that summer and construction began soon after. The company was influential enough to garner permission from the city to construct a switch that would allow for shipping via the railroad right out of Home Brewing Company’s backyard. Of course, this prompted some objection from temperance factions in the city who claimed this move was a “bow to the brewers.” Despite this pushback, the Home Brewing Company began operations early in 1892 and was a huge financial success.
For the local business community, this ambitious and visible project put Gaul, the new young architect, on the map. For the ladies of Indianapolis’s German Catholic community, it would have made him a fetching romantic prospect. And luckily for Gaul, the 1890s were a great time to fall in love.
Women’s labor has always been necessary for a couple’s survival and trumped romance prior to industrialization in America. A man prioritized a wife who would make an economic contribution to the farm or family business regardless of personal feelings. Likewise, a young woman’s family would make a similar, financially minded decision, using her to link two families together to build wealth. Of course, financial concerns never disappeared from matchmaking, but by the nineteenth century, love became more central to a match, and romantic marriage became more common.
Modern conventions and the rise of industrialization placed more emphasis on the husband as breadwinner and wife as homemaker. And while this social construct had some serious political and economic disadvantages for women, it allowed for the consideration of romantic love in choosing one’s spouse. Gaul’s luck at being born in this period and his dedication to his faith soon led to his own romantic match.
When he arrived in Indianapolis in 1891, Gaul knew that he wanted to stay in the home of a respectable German Catholic family, as opposed to a hotel or boarding house. He was also eager to find a spiritual home. He looked to St. Mary, the heart of the German Catholic community, located at that time on East Maryland Street, between Pennsylvania and Delaware Streets. Indianapolis German Catholics and regional Catholic leadership organized this church for German-speaking congregants in the 1850s. In addition to serving the community’s spiritual needs, St. Mary served as the cultural hub for the local German immigrant community, hosting concerts, theatrical performances, and festivals featuring traditional German food and entertainment.
Gaul’s first stop in his new city was the home of Father Anthony Scheideler, who had been a pastor at St. Mary since 1874. Father Scheideler knew his congregants well. When Gaul asked him to recommend a nice family who might take him in as a boarder and who lived near the Home Brewing Company construction site, Scheideler immediately had the right fit: the Seiter family. They were also of German origin and described by Scheideler as “one of the best families in my parish.”
Christopher Seiter, the patriarch, owned a saloon, while his wife, Cecelia, took care of the home and their children. Over the next two months with the Seiters, the young architect fell in love with their sixteen year-old daughter, Mary, who was seven years younger than Gaul. He was smitten but was willing to be patient for several more years. With a smile on his face that the pastor remembered decades later, Gaul told Father Scheideler:
“I am going back to Chicago, but I shall return soon. I have found the oldest daughter of Mr. Seiter very interesting.”
Father Scheideler was pleased with the match. It’s not clear how often Gaul returned to visit Mary or if they stayed in touch through letters, but Gaul kept his promise to return. On April 22, 1896, Father Scheideler officiated the wedding of Herman Gaul and Mary Seiter at St. Mary Catholic Church.
On his wedding day, Gaul thanked the priest for connecting him “to such an estimable family” and told him he would never forget his kindness. He vowed:
“If you ever build a new church, Father Scheideler, I will be the architect.”
It seemed like the kind of lofty promise a young man would make on a day chocked full of emotions and love, and consequently the pastor “laughed and thanked the enthusiastic young architect but gave no further thought to his promise.”
Gaul and his new wife soon moved to Chicago. He opened his own architecture firm and grew his career over the following decades, building Gothic and Romanesque churches as well as schools, orphanages, and hospitals for German institutions in Chicago and around the Midwest. His first major commission, St. Nicholas Church in Evanston, Illinois, stood proudly on an elevated site and was noted for its “romantic ambience.”
Over the following years, Herman and Mary Gaul welcomed ten children in a seemingly happy marriage. Unsurprisingly, Mary’s name does not appear in newspapers outside of a real estate transfer (along with Herman’s name). She appears to have been busy taking care of her large family with little time to lead a literary or church club that would have garnered her coverage in newspapers.
Meanwhile in the Circle City, the German immigrant population continued to grow, as did the congregation of St. Mary Catholic Church. Father Scheideler knew he would soon need a bigger building as a new century dawned. In 1906, the pastorate purchased land at the intersection of Vermont and New Jersey as a future investment with “no thought of building immediately entertained.” Nonetheless, local newspapers printed news of the purchase.
Father Scheideler may have “practically forgot Herman Gaul and his promise to draw the plans for a new St. Mary’s,” but the same was not true for Gaul. When the architect read about the new St. Mary property in the newspaper, he quickly left for Indianapolis. Father Scheideler opened his door, and standing there was Gaul, with that memorable smile. The architect said, “I have come to make good my promise to draw plans for a new St. Mary’s.” Father Scheideler informed him that, unfortunately, they did not yet have the funding to build a new church, but Gaul was undeterred. He replied, “Well, I am going to draw the plans anyhow, true to my word.”
The two men spent hours chatting and catching up, before discovering that they were both born near the Cathedral of Cologne in Germany. Gaul shared that he had dreamt of building a church like it since he was a boy—a building that would “bear the stamp of its beauty.” And though Father Scheideler doubted that such a feat was possible, the architect simply replied, “Well, we shall try.”
Several months later the driver of an express wagon arrived at the pastor’s door bearing a large package: Gaul’s plan for “a miniature cathedral of Cologne” in Indianapolis. Father Scheideler shared the plans with leading St. Mary’s congregants, and “Herman Gaul’s dream for a new St. Mary’s spread through the parish.”
In the spring of 1910, clergy and parishioners, assisted by hundreds of Catholic school children, broke ground on a new location for St. Mary’s at Vermont and New Jersey Streets. That fall, the congregation laid the cornerstone. Two years later, in July 1912, the new building was complete. The Indianapolis News ran a feature on the architect with the headline: “After Twenty Years Herman Gaul Makes Good His Wedding Day Pledge to Plan for the St. Mary’s Parish a Miniature Cathedral of Cologne.”
While we don’t have a record of Herman’s love for his wife Mary in letters or diaries, we see their love reflected in his physical tribute to her and to his faith. St. Mary stands as an enduring tribute to the community that gave one plucky German immigrant a partner to share in his Catholic faith and German traditions, and with whom he built a family and home. And he owed it all to one savvy matchmaker, Father Scheideler, who just might have known what he was doing from the start.
To learn more about this topic, read “The Love Story That Built St. Mary Catholic Church” by Indiana Archives and Records Administration historian Jill Weiss Simins at our blog Untold Indiana. We’ll put the link in the show notes.
State historical markers are also a great way to learn about Hoosier history. In 2020, we re-dedicated the Greek Orthodox Church marker commemorating the thriving community of Greek immigrants lived in Indianapolis. Many Greek immigrants to Indianapolis in the early twentieth century gained American citizenship, owned shops and restaurants, and incorporated a Greek Orthodox Church, later named Holy Trinity. Visit our website to learn more about this marker and others.
This episode was written by Jill Weiss Simins, edited by Dr. Michella Marino, and produced by A.J. Chrapliwy. Find a transcript and show notes for this and all our episodes at podcast.history.in.gov. And remember to subscribe, rate, and review Talking Hoosier History wherever you get your podcasts. Once again, I’m Justin Clark, and this has been Talking Hoosier History. Thanks for listening!
