JENNINGS — Our Lady Help of Christians Catholic Church, 710 N. State St., is celebrating its 100th year. The structure, patterned after Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, was dedicated on Feb. 29, 1916 after nine years of construction.

“The church was built with stones made by hand one at a time, block by block, when horse and buggies were the mode of transportation,” said church member Helen Louviere.

The centennial will be commemorated with presentations, a concert, tours and memorabilia displays 2-4 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 28, at the church.

“I just think of all the people who have passed down the faith … who through the good times and bad remained faithful to God and the church, even through all the changes,” said church member Flo McNally. “I think the church is beautiful, but the church is not the building. It is all the people.”

Louviere, who has been a member since moving to Jennings in 1974 with her late husband, Robert, a native of Jennings, said she has wonderful memories of the church.

“Robert was an altar boy and baptized and confirmed in the church,” she said. “And our son received his first Communion here.”

Robert began researching the church’s history in 2000 and documented his last entries two weeks before he died in December.

According to the research, Helen Louviere said, Catholic immigrants began arriving in the Jennings area in the mid-1800s. They were served by Immaculate Conception parish, established in Lake Charles in 1869.

“Catholics of French descent were moving into the area from the east and from nearby Lake Arthur,” she said.

A group was formed to plan to build a Catholic church, but the plans failed to materialize, McNally said.

Under the Rev. E.J. Fallon of Lake Charles, a wooden chapel was built in 1889. The chapel was built south of the railroad at the corner of Madison and South Main streets. It was unpainted, unfinished and largely unfurnished.

It was used until 1914 or 1915 and was demolished after 1917. The Henry Houssiere home was later built on the site.

Archbishop Francis Janssens blessed the chapel in Jennings and administered Confirmation on May 14, 1890. He listened to Fallon’s suggestions that the Jennings church become a new parish in the archdiocese and established Our Lady Help of Christians on Dec. 7, 1891.

The Rev. Cornelius Van de Ven, a native of the Netherlands, was the founding pastor. The need for a rectory was solved when Peter Bollich offered a rent house with a fence and stable next to the church for $8 a month.

Van de Ven was appointed pastor of Immaculate Conception in December 1892 in Lake Charles and later became the first bishop of Alexandria.

The Rev. Joseph Peeters was appointed pastor of Our Lady Help of Christians in 1892 and remained pastor until 1917. He undertook the building of the present church and built the two-story white wood frame house at the corner of Church and Third streets that served as the rectory. It is now the parking lot located behind the church.

Peeters invited the Marianites of Holy Cross, a religious order from New Orleans, to establish a school and build St. Henry’s Academy at the corner of Third Street and North Cutting Avenue.

“Once built, the school started having Mass in the top auditorium, and the second floor was used as a church until 1916,” McNally said. “The income was not sufficient to build a church that Jennings needed, so they kept collecting money.”

Declining enrollment forced the school to close in 1916. The building only was sold to E.D. Conner in 1928 for $750 with a $200 down payment and monthly installments of $55. The property was purchased in 1929 by Charles R. Houssiere for $2,000.

From 1907 to 1916 the present church was built, although much of the interior was not completed until 1919. The plans were drawn by Peeters and his brother Louis.

“They built it cement block by cement block as the money was available,”  McNally said. “The sand was brought on barges down the Mermentau River.”

The original floors of the church were wood and there was no air conditioning, McNally said. “People used cardboard fans with holy pictures on them and opened the windows until air conditioning was installed later,” she said.

There were originally three altars in front of the church, Louviere said. The church was renovated in 1949-1956 and again in the 1970s. The two side altars were removed and the pews reconfigured. Both interior and exterior renovations were completed by 1976.

A prayer garden was dedicated in October 1987.

A convent — now the rectory and church offices next to the church — was built in 1958 for the Teresian Sisters, who were to staff the school being built on a 10-acre site on Roberts Avenue. Our Lady Help of Christians School opened on Sept. 2, 1958.

Our Lady Help of Christians School and Immaculate Conception School were consolidated in 1969 and renamed Our Lady Immaculate School with a north and south campus.

Our Lady Help of Christians Catholic Church