Minnesota Spirit Quest: Guardian Angels Cemetery
The cache is not located near a grave... If you find a fallen US flag, please stick it back in the ground. As always, please be respectful, and cache in, trash out. Also, please only search for cache during daylight hours.
The coordinates will bring you to the gravesite of Matthew J Tschimperle. Matthew Tschimperle was a Navy Fireman who was classified as MIA or Buried at Sea during World War II. His name is listed on the Tablets of the Missing at Manila American Cemetery.
What day was he born? Consider this AB.
What number follows his military rank (F?). Consider This C.
From there:
N 44.47.2AB
W 93.37.00C
Reference Point: If you have time, take a look down to the lonely Civil War Veteran grave of John Goetz. His story is below ....
MnSQ: Guardian Angels Cemetery
In the 1915 "Compendium of History and Biography of Carver and Hennepin Counties, Minnesota", edited by Maj. R.I. Holcombe and William H. Bingham, they wrote: ‘... The Catholic Church of the Guardian Angels was founded in 1858 ...’ (page 232)
In "Chaska - A Minnesota River City, Volume I, The 1800’s", by the Chaska Bicentennial Committee, they wrote: ‘...At about the same time as the church was completed [1880’s?], the congregation acquired a new location for the cemetery. As late as 1881, a map shows the Catholic cemetery located along the present route of Highway 41 (about one mile north of Highway 212 on the west side of the road). Precisely when the first cemetery was established is uncertain, but when it closed the people who had been buried there were re-interred at the new location. Apparently (page 53) the soil conditions at the first site were very poor. Some 1877 remarks made about the first location do not indicate what the problem was. By 1882, however, the church had acquired the site which still serves the church.’ (page 55)
The grave matter of John Goetz: Church hopes blessing sheds light on difficult subjectBy Mark W. Olson
On a Friday morning, Laketown Township farmer John Goetz woke about 6 a.m., built a fire and put the coffee on the stove. Then he walked outside into the barn, climbed into the loft and hung himself.
The Nov. 6, 1884 Herald reported that the married Civil War veteran, father of three children and two stepchildren, “was comfortably fixed financially and had no family troubles, and must have taken the final step while laboring under a fit of temporary insanity.”
Goetz, 51, was buried two days later. The Herald reported that “a very large funeral procession followed his remains to its last resting place.”
What wasn’t reported was the location of Goetz’s resting place.
One-hundred and twenty-six years later, Guardian Angels Catholic Cemetery is still lovingly kept up, with generation after generation of parishioner buried neatly side by side.
That is, except for John Goetz.
Goetz’s grave is a stone’s throw from his parish and family, down a ravine, in a small clearing amidst tangles of brush.
Because Goetz was a suicide victim, he wasn’t buried on consecrated ground.
Consecration
Public understanding of mental illnesses, such as depression, has come a long way since the reported “temporary insanity” of Goetz.
Perceptions in the church have also changed over the years. “When it had been considered an absolute moral evil, it was thought to be the worst possible mortal sin one could commit,” stated, the Rev. Paul Jarvis, in a Guardian Angels newsletter.
“Such so-called sinners would be deprived the privilege of burial within consecrated ground – where disciples were sleeping, awaiting the general resurrection. This prohibition was by no means confined to Catholic Christian practice. This was both a common attitude and practice.”
When Jarvis, Guardian Angels pastor for three years, was familiarizing himself with the cemetery, he saw a path that went off into the hollow. “I followed it and found there’s a lone tombstone there, and I asked about it and, really nobody knew anything about it,” Jarvis said. Even the name on the worn white stone was difficult to decipher.
With help from parishioner and genealogist Debbie Boe, he learned more about Goetz, learning that he was a suicide victim – the reason for his unusual gravesite.
“I know now this sounds a little unusual, but given that he was buried off of consecrated grounds … separate from his family and his church family, I thought that perhaps there’s a way we could bring him into the cemetery. But that would be impractical 126 years later, so I thought the next best thing is to bring the cemetery to him.”
“Not only could we do right of a Civil War veteran and a loving father by consecrating the ground by which he lies, but also highlight, for a large number of people today what is a much misunderstood mental health issue,” Jarvis said.
Turnabout
Among those planning to attend the blessing of the grave are Goetz’s relatives, including Sue and Lyle Goetz, of Waconia, and Joyce Schmidt of Glencoe. John Goetz is Lyle and Joyce’s great-grandfather.
Sue recalls visiting the grave with her mother-in-law, years ago. The area was overgrown and the grave was hard to spot.
“In our times right now, especially when there’s been so many young people committing suicide, that this is the right time,” Sue Goetz said of the blessing. “God loves everyone the same, and it doesn’t make any difference.”
As a little girl, Schmidt’s father would take her for a ride past the cemetery, telling her, “That’s where great grandpa was buried.” He explained that he had taken his own life, which was why he was outside the cemetery.
“I think it’s wonderful,” Schmidt said, of the blessing. “I think we should have done it a long time ago.”
Prevention
Others who plan to attend the blessing are Al and Mary Kluesner, suicide prevention advocates, who had two children die from suicide. The Rev. Paul Jarvis met the Kluesners while at a previous parish assignment.
The Kluesners’ daughter Amy, 21, died of suicide in 1985 while a student at Iowa State University. “It was the shock of our life,” All recalled. “When you get caught with a suicide in your life, you’re totally demolished,” Kluesner said.
“I was wondering, ‘Would God let her in heaven,’ because of my Catholic background. I was so preoccupied with that, it stopped me from doing stuff.”
When Kluesner was a child, church attitudes regarding suicide were still entrenched, Kluesner recalled. “They did exactly what was going on in 1884 in Chaska. They wouldn’t bury them in the cemetery.”
The Kluesner’s son George suffered from bipolar disorder, and died of suicide in 1997. (Kluesner prefers the term “suicided.” “You commit crime and you commit sin. When you say ‘Commit suicide’ you’re already stigmatizing everyone.” Kluesner said.)
Pastoral Care Ministry Coordinator Jean Rief sees parishioners struggle with suicide. “Be present to listen. Let them know they’re not alone,” Rief said, of both those struggling with depression, and those with a lived one who died of suicide.
“I think it’s healing – healing for anyone who suffers,” Rief said of the grave blessing. “Suicide is a disease and can affect anyone.”