User:Starkhistory/sandbox

St. Joseph Church, often referred to as Stark Settlement Church, was a Roman Catholic Church between Cedar Rapids, Iowa and Atkins, Iowa, and served as a mission for St. Patrick Church of Fairfax, Iowa. Built on farmland donated by Andrew and Mary (Wieneke) Stark, services began in 1880 and continued until the church was closed and dismantled in 1959. South of the church is St. Joseph Cemetery, commonly known as Stark Cemetery, which was also land of Andrew and Mary Stark until Mary, then widowed, and their children and spouses, deeded the cemetery to the Archbishop of Dubuque 1914. The cemetery is serviced by St. Jude Church of Cedar Rapids and is the resting place of Andrew, Mary and many of the founding settlers.

Stark Family
Matthias and Anna Maria Stark, from Gramschatz, Bavaria, were issued a passport on 14 March 1848 for travel with their children, including Andrew, their oldest at fourteen. They arrived in the port of New York on 21 May 1848 having traveled on the barque Vater Gruner captained by B. Kehrmann from the port of Bremen. The family traveled to Naperville, Illinois and lived there for approximately 7 years before settling in the Iowa sometime before 1856 on the homestead in which the church would be built.