Isadore's Secret: Sin, Murder, and Confession in a Northern Michigan Town

Revelations

Revelations Spring, 1917 Confession of secret sins ought also to be always prudent, and made to a prudent man, and not to young priests, nor yet foolish old men. —The Nun’s Rule an ungodly and burdensome prediction ushered in Isadore’s new priest. On May 15, 1917, in a simple ceremony, Father Edward Podlaszewski was installed as the new parish priest at Holy Rosary Church. He was 31. Though short in height and slight in stature, Father Edward’s plans for the parish were mighty. He was the church’s third resident priest, the second man to lead the parish after Father Andrew’s abrupt transfer in 1913, and his route to Isadore had been circuitous. In the decade after the disappearance of Sister Janina, Father Andrew had been transferred out, replaced first by Father Leopold “Leo” Oprychalski, from St. Joseph’s in Manistee, from 1913 to 1917 and then by Father Edward. The shift in authority between Father Andrew, Father Leo, and Father Edward had been ordered by the diocese in Detroit. After Father Andrew failed to find Sister Janina or determine what had happened to her, the Isadore farmers could no longer sustain any faith in his leadership, and the senior clergy in Detroit found a creative way to replace him. In 1913 he and St. Joseph’s Father Leo had been asked to change places. Father Leo took over for the unpopular and indelibly tainted Father Andrew, and Father Andrew moved to the more 60 prosperous St. Joseph’s, where the parish was not so familiar with the gossip surrounding the missing nun. Rumors that Father Andrew was somehow involved in the nun’s disappearance had never entirely faded away, despite his steadfast efforts to find her, and his forceful protestations of innocence. Still, these whisperings were confined to Isadore and to correspondence within the upper echelons of the Catholic Church; people in his new town of Manistee knew little about them. St. Joseph’s was, strangely, a promotion for the very priest Isadore had discarded. “When Father [Andrew] removed himself . . . it could be said he was forced,” one of the area’s first settlers later said. “He was a different type of priest who behaved rudely toward the parishioners.” Father Leo, a baby-faced man with an enveloping kindness, a history of accomplishments, and an approachable manner arrived in Isadore in 1913 with the assignment to right the wrongs of his predecessor and restore Holy Rosary to its rightful place of leadership and spiritual example among the local farm families. It was a challenging task, but Father Leo was undaunted. His work at church-building was well documented and admired by church leaders and parishioners alike. He, too, brought with him his own ambitions. In 1889 he had taken over St. Mary’s in Alpena after a devastating fire had leveled the church, the rectory, and two hundred neighboring homes. It took only a few years for him to dedicate a new church, rebuild the rectory, found the Rosary Society, and staff the convent school with Felicians from Detroit. At St. Joseph’s in Manistee, he had been further credited with building a new school after the first one burned down, and frescoing the inside of the church, giving it a dramatic and European sensibility. Father Leo saw the opportunity of replacing the simple white church building in Isadore with something much more grand, and planned to raise the funds for a new building to bring Holy Rosary out of its spiritual isolation and insular mindset. All Father Leo needed was time and money. He had secured both in Alpena and Manistee, and when he arrived at Isadore there was nothing to convince him that he couldn’t do the same in this new outpost, despite its remote location. In the previous century, rural parishes were known to hold on to Revelations 61 their priests for decades, some holy men even spending their entire working lives at a single church. This had not been the case at Isadore. The church had been built in 1882, and Father Leo was its fifth resident priest in thirty-one years. Two of these had been traveling priests who ministered to several rural churches, and then the next three men were dedicated to Holy Rosary only. Father Leo was of Polish descent, just like most of the Isadore community; the parishioners liked and even loved him, and by all accounts his tenure at Holy Rosary should have been a...