By Dejan Valentinčič

From Carniola to Kansas

The story begins around 1890, when immigration agents recruited a group of young men from Carniola — a region of present-day Slovenia — to work as butchers in Kansas City, KS. At the time, five of the nation’s largest meatpacking plants operated there, and skilled hands with knives were in high demand. Slovenian farmers, accustomed to slaughtering and processing livestock back home, fit the bill perfectly. Women soon followed, finding jobs in the meatpacking plants as well.

Their new home was a rough industrial neighborhood by the Kansas River, near its confluence with the Missouri. Immigrants from across Europe built small wooden shacks there, and the area became known as The Patch — or Zaplata, as the Slovenians affectionately called it.

They quickly began organizing. In 1891, they founded the St. Joseph Society, but when Croatians — who outnumbered them five to one — joined and eventually took over, the Slovenians withdrew and formed their own Sts. Peter and Paul Society.

Then came disaster. In 1903, heavy rains caused both rivers to overflow, forcing residents to flee for their lives. The survivors decided never again to live by the water. They resettled higher up the hill, on land that would become known as Strawberry Hill — today still home to the parish, a few Slovenian families, and a museum dedicated to the area’s immigrant past.

By 1910, about 500 Slovenians lived in Kansas City — roughly 50 large families. Over the next decade, until Slovenian immigration to that part of the country stopped, their numbers doubled. With that growth came ambition.

Building a Parish of Their Own

Having survived a flood and built new homes, the Slovenians wanted to build something lasting: their own church. When they petitioned the bishop for permission to form a parish, he dismissed the idea, saying they were too few and too poor. But Slovenians have never been known for giving up easily. Undeterred, they purchased land and built a wooden church themselves in 1908 — the first Church of the Holy Family. To make a point, they built it larger than any in the neighborhood.

To give their creation legitimacy, they established the “Carniolan-Slovenian Catholic Church Society of St. Joseph” and successfully applied for state permission to open a Slovenian Catholic school. Since a school required a parish church, the two institutions became legally intertwined, and the Slovenians had effectively won their case. A parish school was opened as well. Teaching was entrusted to the School Sisters of St. Francis from Maribor, Slovenia. They would later establish a convent in Lemont, Illinois, and afterwards even left Kansas City but for at that time, they brought the Slovenian language and faith to Kansas. In a couple of years 200 children attended the school.

In the parish’s early years, priests came and went, four of them in eight years. Stability arrived in 1916 with Father John Perše, who stayed for 20 years and oversaw a period of extraordinary vitality. Under his leadership, a new brick church rose — the same one that still stands today, with Romanesque and Spanish influences and Gothic windows reminiscent of Jože Plečnik’s architecture. Some claim Plečnik himself designed the church’s candlesticks, though I wasn’t able to verify the story.

The Long Shepherdship of Monsignor Mejak

After Father Perše’s death, the bishop turned to Father Heliodor Mejak, whose father was Slovenian and mother Czech. Mejak resisted the appointment, protesting that he didn’t speak Slovenian and thus couldn’t lead a Slovenian parish. Again, three priest came and went in eight years. In 1944 the bishop raised the question to Father Mejak again and he insisted. So Mejak reluctantly accepted to become the pastor at Holy Family.

He would stay for 63 years. Despite never mastering the language, Monsignor Mejak became the soul of the community. Even after going nearly blind in old age, he continued to celebrate Mass and manage parish affairs. Parishioners still tell the story of how, when they worried about confessing in English to a priest who didn’t understand Slovenian, he reassured them: “Don’t worry — tell me your sins, and I’ll feel in my heart whether you’re sincere.” It worked — for six decades. When he died in 2007 at the age of 98, he was the oldest active priest in the United States, and the parish’s most beloved shepherd.

Today, Holy Family is administered by the Augustinians. Its current pastor, Father Joseph Arsenault, also serves a nearby Croatian parish, yet not living in any of them, but traveling between them each weekend from his monastery.

Singing and food as the soul of Slovenian identity

Once the language is lost, few things keep a culture alive like music and food. Each Sunday, the parishioners sing Slovenian hymns during the mass. At the service I attended, they sang Oljsko goro temna noč pokriva, Velikonočna aleluja, Spet kliče nas venčani maj, Marija skoz življenje etc, so they went all the way through the liturgical year. The words may no longer be understood, but the emotion remains — a bridge across generations and oceans. At the close, the choir broke into the English version of an Avsenik classic, Slovenia, od kod lepote tvoje. 

After Mass came the 17th annual Slovenefest, held on the grounds of the old parish school. The festival began with the Slovenian national anthem, followed by a polka band and a generous dinner of kranjske klobase, krvavice, kislo zelje, pražen krompir, polnjene paprike and of course potica. Children played games while adults bid at raffles and silent auctions — all to raise funds to keep the parish going.

A Community Apart — Yet Enduring

The Holy Family Parish exists in near isolation, far from the Slovenian strongholds of Cleveland, Chicago, or Pittsburgh. Yet it is not entirely alone: two hours southeast lie the former mining towns of Franklin, Frontenac, Arma, and Pittsburg, once home to Slovenian miners. When the mines closed, the people moved on. Only the Miners Hall Museum in Franklin remains, telling their story — and, in part, the story of Kansas itself.

In Kansas City, the descendants of the original settlers have achieved something remarkable: they have preserved a sense of Slovenian identity despite the absence of new immigrants for over a century. No one speaks the language fluently anymore, but everyone knows a few words, and they put big symbolic importance to it — the festival menus were printed in both English and Slovenian — courtesy of Google Translate. You could find Slovenian words written in many places at the parish hall. It’s a small gesture, but a meaningful one. Their pride in their heritage is palpable.

Faith, Memory, and the Future

Holy Family remains officially designated as a Slovenian ethnic parish — never converted into a territorial one, as happened to many churches elsewhere across the USA. In recent years, the bishop has invited a Burmese Catholic refugee community from Myanmar to share the space. The cooperation here has been smooth.

However, the Slovenians notice one big difference: “We have funerals. They have weddings and baptisms.” They are realistically realizing that the fate of the Slovenian character of the parish is questionable; perhaps in the not too distant future the bishop will order that the parish be transformed into a Burmese one.

The survival of the parish now depends largely on financial sustainability and the dedication of its remaining members. For them, Slovenefest and the weekly Mass are not just traditions — they are acts of preservation. “The church used to be our whole life,” one parishioner told me. “Now it’s part of it. But losing it would mean losing who we are.” After a hundred years on the prairie, the Holy Family Church stands as more than a building. It is a symbol — of endurance, memory, and the quiet persistence of identity in the vastness of America. The loss of the parish would certainly mean the end of the vibrant Slovenian community in Kansas.

What did the parishioners tell me?

Frank Simonich, one of the older parishioners and one of the best experts on its history:

“We are very proud of what our ancestors built here. They came empty-handed, without anything, and here they wrote an impressive story. At the same time, the parish represented everything and their entire life to them. It was their center, where they spent their free time, began and ended their life journey.
The parish and the school did their job. When people arrived, they did not speak the language, they did not have leaders, and the parish empowered them and educated the next generations.”

Cathy Schneider, the parish secretary (the only employee in the parish) and the soul of preserving Slovenian identity:

“I try to put a few Slovenian words or a Slovenian prayer or a motif from Slovenia in each weekly bulletin. This way, the parishioners preserve their knowledge and the memory of being Slovenian remains alive. Parishioners appreciate it and tell me how happy they are about it.
When we were children, we took Slovenian songs, food, and grandmothers in aprons cooking homemade food for granted. Today, people miss that, so they come to church even from far away places, because preserving these traditions reminds them of their childhood.”

Sarah Lee Simonich, a member of the younger generation who is active in the parish and who led the organization of Slovenefest this year:

“My father has a very strong Slovenian identity, he knows that he is what he is because of his faith and this parish. He convinced me to return to this parish, even though I live on the other side of town. The parish there is well-off, and here I can really do something meaningful, something that helps. At the same time, I spend time with my father and strengthen our connection.”