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Contents
Foreword & Acknowledgement
Before the White Man/Coming of the
First Settlers
DeMotte Grows into a Town
Early Transportation & Farming
The First Schools
Dredging of the Grand Kankakee Marsh
Leonard Swart (Interview)
Casper Belstra (Interview)
Northern Indiana Land Company
The Halleck Telephone Company
DeMotte Mercantile Company
DeMotte Library Grows
Cheever's Garage
Eighty Years of Community Banking
Fairchild & Tanner History
Earl Schwanke Article
Keener Township Fire Department
(Art) Lageveen Looks Back
Fire Almost Destroys DeMotte in 1936
Kankakee Valley Post-News
Asparagus & Truck Farming
Businessmen's Association
Lageveen Remembers Incorporation
Belstra Remembers When...
Kankakee Valley Schools
DeMotte Elementary School
(DeMotte) Christian School
Mark L. DeMotte
Charlie Halleck
Walter Roorda, State Representative
C-SELM
Van Keppel Construction Company
Fire Destroys Main Building at Kaper's
The Hamstra Group
DeMotte Historical Society
Tysen's Family Food Center
Belstra Milling
The Fire of 1992
United Methodist Church
DeMotte Christian Church
Community Bible Church
Calvary Assembly of God
Bethel Christian Reformed Church
First Christian Reformed Church
Faith
Lutheran Church
St. Cecilia Catholic Church
United Pentecostal
First Reformed Church
American Reformed Church
DeMotte Town Court
Incorporation of DeMotte
August 10 Incorporation Hearing
September 1965 Incorporation
First Town Board Election
The First Town Board
DeMotte Town Council 1969-1997
DeMotte Town Hall
DeMotte Park Board
Wastewater Treatment Begins
DeMotte Chamber of Commerce
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St. Cecilia Catholic
Church
On November 22, 1987, St. Cecilia
Catholic Church celebrated its 35th anniversary in DeMotte. Bishop John G.
Bennett established St. Cecilia Catholic Church as a mission of Sorrowful
Mother parish in Wheatfield on July 22, 1952. Father Donald Hardebeck,
pastor of Sorrowful Mother at the time, was given the charge of
establishing the DeMotte church.
Exactly one year later on July 22, 1953, Father Hardebeck broke ground for
the mission church of St. Cecilia on 9th Street in DeMotte. Thus began the
fulfillment phase of the mission that Bishop Bennett had established at
DeMotte in 1952. Bishop Bennett had just closed St. Cecilia parish in
Fairmount, Grant County, Indiana where it had existed since the 1900's
"gas boom". When he sold the property in 1952 it is likely he used some of
the money for the purchase of the DeMotte land when he asked Father Donald
Hardebeck, pastor at Wheatfield, to name the mission in honor of St.
Cecilia. Two thousand dollars came from the Diocesan Mission Fund and
$1,000 from the Wheatfield parish as a gift to start the mission.
The first building was designed by Krol and Hastrup, Engineers, Inc. of
Chicago, and cost $30,624 which was some $20,000 below its completed value
because of 42 volunteers that also worked on the project.
 There
were 52 families in the mission parish in 1953. Fr. Hardebeck celebrated
Mass for the first time in the new church on Easter Sunday, 1954. On June
20, 1954, Bishop Bennett came from Lafayette to formally dedicate the new
church.
The mission church was intended to become a rectory with a garage when
parish growth developed to the point of expanding. From 1954 to 1974 the
pastors of Wheatfield came to celebrate one Mass each Sunday. In 1974,
Father David Cooley, coming from the Medaryville parish, became the first
resident pastor ending the church's mission status.
On his arrival in 1974, Fr. Cooley came to the 9th Street rectory which
Fr. David Clifford of Sorrowful Mother had purchased in 1973. As plans for
a new church with parking facilities unfolded, it became evident the
intended site on 10th Street would be impractical. Meanwhile, Bishop
Raymond Galagher and Father Frederick Perry, pastor at Sorrowful Mother
had purchased 20 acres in 1966 from John Toppen at 15th and Birch in
DeMotte. It was on this site the new St. Cecilia Church and rectory was
selected to be built. The old church was sold in 1978 to the Jasper County
Library system to be used as a branch library at DeMotte.
By 1967 St. Cecilia had grown to about 100 families and
its growth continued until in 1987 church rosters named 364 families that
belonged to the church. Today, in 1997 there are 380 active families who
call St. Cecilia their home parish.
 Father
Thomas Fox, who became the second pastor of St. Cecilia's in June, 1976,
broke ground for the new church on May 15, 1977. The construction contract
was awarded to Hamstra Builders. The new church facility included the
church, offices, and parish hall along with a large parking lot. It seats
400 people and has a Blessed Sacrament Chapel for weekday Mass with
additional space in the choir and cry room. The hall capacity is 250.
The estimated cost of the new edifice was $480,000 and it was dedicated on
June 24, 1979. Bishop Galagher dedicated St. Cecilia's Education Center on
September 13, 1981.
Father Fox was pastor of St. Cecilia until July, 1984 when Father Edward
Stone was appointed pastor. In July, 1987, Father Paul Wicklum was
assigned pastor of St. Cecilia and remains in that position in 1997. Fr
Wicklum states that he has served longer in one church than any other
pastor in DeMotte. The dedication program booklet printed in 1979 said,
"The substantial church built by this generation is a testimony not only
to the faith of our fathers but to the future Catholics who may rejoice in
the many celebrations that take place in the house of God, the gate of
heaven."
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