This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.
It's been just over fifty years since I memorized Luther's Small Catechism in preparation for my confirmation quiz, but I still remember the last line of each section: "This is most certainly true." I'm a little less sure of exactly what it was that came before.
That's why I envy the folks who are fortunate enough to live in the small community of Shullsburg, Wisconsin, not far from the Mississippi. They don't need any catechism, large or small, due to the quick and imaginative thinking of Father Samuel Mazzuchelli, a pioneer priest assigned to the Mississippi Valley in 1830. Believing that no activity had meaning outside the teachings of the church, Father Mazzuchelli traveled up and down the Mississippi River founding, designing, and building churches and educational institutions.
One of these churches, St. Matthew's, was built in a brand-new mining community named Shullsburg, where the good father was invited to lay out the whole town. It turned out to be an opportunity to broaden his interest in religious education. There was already a main street through the village, and there was a county courthouse there. Father Mazzuchelli appropriately named this street Judgment.
It was only the beginning. Other streets took on the names of moral qualities. There was Truth, Happy, Pious, Peace, Goodness, Justice, Faith, Wisdom, and others.
Father Mazzuchelli paid careful attention to how the streets related to each other, automatically instilling life's lessons on children growing up in Shullsburg. Shullsburg children know, without ever opening a catechism, that Faith and Wisdom come together near Friendship, that Goodness meet at the school playground, that Peace and Happy streets intersect beyond Justice—a very short street. St. Mathew's Church stands at the corner of Judgment and Truth. Similarly, Truth is above Virtue, while Faith comes before Wisdom. Eventually, all roads lead to Judgment.
All of this, as I remember now, is most certainly true. If I had grown up on something other than Boxelder Street, I might be a better person.
Rock Island Lines is supported by grants from the Illinois Humanities Council, the Illinois Arts Council—a state agency—and by Augustana College, Rock Island.
