On a shelf in Dick and Chris Niehaus’ living room in St. Peters sits a golden, cross-shaped container holding a tiny sliver of bone from a saint.
The container, called a reliquary, and the sliver of bone, called a relic, tell the story of another St. Peter, St. Peter Claver, and the only Vatican-sanctioned miracle to happen in ºüÀêÊÓƵ.
Dick Niehaus, 52, has a direct connection to the miracle. So do lots of aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews and others descended from German immigrant Ignatius Strecker, who came to ºüÀêÊÓƵ in 1853.
“The story was always part of the family conscience and lore, ever since I can remember,†says Dick Niehaus. He is Strecker’s great-great-great-grandson.
Strecker was a hard-working, devoted family man and worked at a soap factory near the riverfront. In 1861, when he was 40 years old, he was accidentally hit in the chest at the factory with a piece of iron. The injury didn’t seem serious at first, and there was no open wound, but over the next few years he was in constant pain. A surgeon opened his chest and found that his breastbone and some ribs were deteriorating. Strecker developed tuberculosis and was given two weeks to live.
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The family didn’t live far from St. Joseph’s Catholic Church at 1220 North 11th Street, which has since expanded and is now known as the Shrine of St. Joseph.
Around the same time, Jesuit priest Francis Xavier Weninger came to the church on a mission to preach about Peter Claver. Claver was a Jesuit priest, and for 40 years in the first half of the 17th century, he served and ministered to slaves shipped to Cartagena, Colombia.
Strecker’s wife heard about the mission and encouraged her husband to go. On March 16, 1864, weakened by his illness, he managed to get to church. “As soon as the relics were laid upon him, he said to his wife, ‘Now I can dance,’†Weninger later wrote. Strecker walked out of the church and went back to work within a few days.
Strecker lived another 16 years. His death wasn’t even connected to his earlier sickness; he died of typhoid fever. It’s unclear how many children he had, but he fathered at least one daughter after his miracle cure. He’s buried in Sts. Peter and Paul Cemetery in south ºüÀêÊÓƵ.
Relics and miracles
In order for a person to become a saint, Catholics say that a miracle has to happen through the intercession of that person.
It’s a lengthy, complicated process, but the miracle of Strecker’s cure helped Peter Claver become a saint in 1888.
Often, churches have objects associated with a saint or a piece of a saint, called relics. It’s not unlike keeping a piece of clothing or a lock of hair from a loved one, explains the Rev. Dale Wunderlich, who celebrates Mass at the shrine. It’s a tangible way to express faith, like genuflecting, singing and walking in processions, he explains.
“It’s just a way to keep in touch,†he says of praying with a relic. “It’s not magical. It’s not an amulet. It’s a tangible presence of a person who has been recognized as a saint.â€
How did the Niehaus family get a relic of a 17th century Jesuit priest? Fast-forward to the 1950s. Niehaus’ great-grandmother, Florence Thomas, had never met her grandfather, Strecker. But she grew up always knowing the story.
“We were always told as children never to repeat this because people would not believe it,†she said during a KMOX interview in 1964. “We always prayed all my life in thanksgiving for grandpa’s cure.â€
In 1954, she read a ºüÀêÊÓƵ Review story about the miracle and got in touch with the priest at St. Joseph to tell him about the family connection to the story. She then wrote to the Vatican and asked for relics of Peter Claver. She got four for herself and her children. For the next several years, Thomas took one of the relics to more than 350 people around the area who prayed for St. Peter Claver’s intercession for a cure.
Henrietta “Aunt Hank†Ilges, 84, of Troy, Mo., drove Thomas, her mother-in-law, around to many of the homes. Ilges has two of the relics, one of them is currently with a terminally ill little boy in Imperial.
Niehaus’ relic has been used by his family over the years, and his wife, Chris, has brought it to show her fourth-grade students at St. Joseph in Cottleville. They’ve let friends borrow it during their illnesses and surgeries. Their family has stayed relatively healthy over the years.
Is it the relic? Dick Niehaus can’t be sure.
“I’m more kind of using it as maybe an evangelization kind of a purpose as opposed to healing,†he says. “I’ve probably reached more people just by talking about the story. Who has never heard of a saint? You can’t even drive down the road without coming across a city named after a saint.â€
The shrine of St. Joseph itself has two more Peter Claver relics. One is inside a reliquary embedded in a statue of the saint at the back of the church, and one inside a cross-shaped reliquary kept at the front of the church.
They believe that’s the relic that was used in Strecker’s miracle cure. Wunderlich says some people have come to the shrine with serious illnesses, prayed for the intercession of St. Peter Claver and believe the saint was responsible for their healing.
Jim Fesler, 59, of south ºüÀêÊÓƵ County, a volunteer at the shrine, had stage 4 cancer in 2011 and has been cancer-free since 2014. He believes praying with the relic and the intercession of St. Peter Claver cured him. “I put my life in God’s hands,†he said. “Now, every day when I wake up, I say, thank you, Jesus, for another day.â€
Descendants gather
Last week, as they do every year around the anniversary of the miracle, descendants of Ignatius Strecker gathered at the shrine for a special Mass. Fesler was there, and so were people from the neighborhood, and so were families of two babies who were baptized after Mass.
“All of us are really a part of a much greater miracle. It’s called salvation history,†said Wunderlich during his homily, explaining how God would send prophets, sages and kings to bring people closer to him. “Salvation history is really an ongoing miracle. We are all able to be here by God’s grace.â€
This year, there were about 50 Strecker descendants. They sat in the front of church together, posed for group photos on the altar and crowded afterward into the rectory for brunch.
Dick and Chris Niehaus were there with their family, and they brought their relic. Aunt Hank was there, and she brought hers. As their relics sat on the tables brought out for the gathering, they looked at old photos, laughed and talked, studied family trees and counted on their fingers how many “great, great, greats†separated them from Ignatius Strecker.
“We’re all great,†said a laughing Dianne Chitwood, 51, of Wentzville. Her father, Francis Aubuchon, 89, of Troy, Mo., was the oldest Strecker descendant of the group.
He’s Strecker’s great-grandson, and he’s the beaming man in the wheelchair at the center of the group photos, holding the shrine’s cross-shaped reliquary for St. Peter Claver.
But before the celebration, and after the Mass, a volunteer in white gloves held up the reliquary in front of the entire congregation.
It’s something they do after every Mass at the Shrine of St. Joseph.
Wunderlich tells them about the miracle. And the people line up to honor St. Peter Claver.
One by one, they touch and kiss the relic. They pray for healing, health or a miracle of their own.