An abridged version of the following article was published in the July/August 2024 edition of “New Earth” (Diocese of Fargo’s monthly magazine) and was written by Fr. Andrew Jasinski.

Two statements in a newspaper one hundred forty-four years ago mark the beginning of a new chapter in the history of the Catholic Church in the Dakota Territory: “Bishop Marty arrived Saturday night” and “Fr. Bernier left this morning”. Each statement appears in separate article published in the daily newspaper of Yankton, Dakota Territory, on Monday, September 27, 1880. The first noted the arrival of the recently ordained bishop of the Dakota Territory, while the second mentioned the departure, two days later, of one of only 12 priests who served the faithful in the vast territory. From this point forward, the Catholic Church was less about missionary activity and more about establishing parishes for the prairie settlers. This is the story of one priest and how he only recently found peace on the prairie.

On modern roads, the trip from Yankton to Wild Rice is about 325 miles. One hundred forty-four years ago, the trip was certainly longer. There were no cars, buses or planes. The trip took Fr. Bernier at least a few weeks in October to complete. If he did not have the luxury of traveling by horse, it may have taken him over a month.

However, this was just a small leg of a much longer journey. Two years earlier he left his home near Trois Rivières (Three Rivers), Canada, and traveled to Yankton, over 1,600 miles away. During that trip he may have traveled by train, stagecoach and steamboat. He had answered the call for priests to serve settlers on the prairie. He had been in Yankton for over a year before Bishop Marty arrived and appointed him the first resident pastor of the French settlement in the town of Wild Rice, located about 10 miles south of a small railroad town called Fargo.

Fr. Bernier knew that his trip in late 1880 was coming to an end when saw a tall wooden cross in the distance. So that people could recognize them from far away, tall crosses were often erected to mark the location of a Catholic mission churches. What Fr. Bernier found was a simple wood structure that served as Holy Cross Mission. Today, a tall wooden cross still marks the site, which is now along a busy highway. It was here that he made his home and began his ministry among the French settlers. Larry Boulger, a third-generation funeral director in Fargo, said, “My dad said, ‘If it wasn’t for the French, there would be no Catholics in Cass County.’” The first written record of Fr. Bernier’s labors was a baptism he performed on December 8, 1880.

Within a year, he had relocated the parish from the flood prone area near the Red and Wild Rice rivers to flat land about 6 miles away to the southwest, renamed it “St. Benedict”, and established a cemetery. Seven years after that, he built a large church that seated over 200 people. He encouraged people from Trois Rivières, Canada, to come and settle in the area. Among those who came was his own brother, Thomas.
In 1891, three years after the construction of the church, our first resident pastor died from pneumonia. He was 58 years old. We do not know that exact location where he was first buried. Following an old tradition, he may have been buried under the church. Whatever the case, this was not the end of the road for him.

When a new church was constructed in 1913, Fr. Bernier’s body was exhumed, and buried under the new church. Well, ... almost all of it. His skull had been put in a box and kept for a time on the new pastor’s desk. It was later put into a niche in the wall of the church, where people could view it. In 1947, when a basement was dug under the church for a parish hall, his body was transferred to the cemetery; it was buried a third time! Many years later, the niche in the church was covered, and the skull was hidden in the wall. But it was not forgotten. As part of renovations of St. Benedict Church in 2007, the wallboard was removed, and the skull was on display once again.

St. Benedict Church moved to a new site in Horace at the end of March 2024. The old church was demolished in early summer. What became of the skull?

On June 29, 2024, Fr. Bernier’s 191^st birthday, Fr. Jasinski, the current pastor at St. Benedict Parish, had the privilege of burying the first resident pastor, on the land he had chosen for the church, in the cemetery he himself had established. Although it was the end of June, the temperature was only in the 50s and the wind blew at 30 miles per hour. Perhaps it was not unlike what Fr. Bernier experienced when he had arrived one hundred forty-four years earlier. Eight people gathered around the small hole that would receive his skull. Among them was Larry Boulger, whose family’s funeral business has long ties with St. Benedict parishioners, Patty Bernier, the widow of the late Ken Bernier, the great-grandson of Thomas Bernier (which made him a great grand-nephew of Fr. Bernier), and some other parishioners.

Since no one present had ever met him, before the burial Rites Fr. Jasinski read a brief description of Fr. Bernier from the 1880 article which told of his departure from Yankton: “Father Bernier, though retiring in his nature, has made many friends in Yankton, both in and out of the church, and he carries with him an abundance of good will.” His “good will” established a lasting legacy for him at St. Benedict Church. We are indebted to his work of nurturing the Faith among the pioneer families, a Faith that continues to flourish on the prairie five generations later.

Requiescat in pace. Fr. Athanase Bernier, rest in peace (finally!).

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