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vice to others and undoubtedly often led his congregation in special prayers for those serving in World War I.
Father Andrew Gmelch succeeded Father Prendergast becoming pastor at Bay St. Louis on January 17, 1918. Born in Germany, Father Gmelch studied under the Benedictines in Cullman, Alabama, and completed his ecclesiastical studies in New Orleans where he was ordained in 1901. Prior to coming to Our Lady of the Gulf, Father Gmelch had labored in the Mississippi Delta towns of Clarksdale and Merigold and also in Vicksburg and Canton.
Soon after becoming pastor, Father Gmelch saw the need for Waveland and its mission to be independent of Our Lady of the Gulf'. He proposed Waveland as a separate parish; Bishop Gerow approved and on July 1, 1919 appointed Father M.J. Costello, then an assistant at Our Lady of the Gulf, as first pastor of St. Clare’s church in Waveland.
Long a friend of the Divine Word (S.V.D.) Fathers, Father Gmelch approached them in 1921 to take charge of the St. Rose school for colored children taught by the Sisters of St. Joseph since 1885. In 1922 Father Christmann of the Divine Word Fathers bought property in Bay St. Louis for the future St. Augustine’s Seminary and that same year became acting principal of the St. Rose school. The following year when the Mission House for the Colored was moved from Greenville to Bay St. Louis, Father F.X. Bakes, S.V.D., who had taught at the Mission House, became head of the school. In 1924, the first four Missionary Sisters, Servants of the Holy Spirit, relieved the Sisters of St. Joseph and taught there until the closing of the school. Realizing that the black population needed a church larger than the small school chapel. Bishop Gerow declared St. Rose of Lima Mission independent of Our Lady of the Gulf and on November 14, 1926 dedicated St. Rose of Lima as a parish church with Father Bakes as its first pastor.
Father Gmelch, an able business manager as well as spiritual director, solicited about $30,000 to furnish the interior of the church. -------------------------------- 14 --------------------------------------
To him we owe a debt of gratitude for making Our Lady of the Gulf one of the most beautiful churches in the area. The focal point of any Catholic church is, of course, the altar, and the high altar at Our Lady of the Gull' is particularly impressive. Built of Italian Carrerra marble, the altar commemorates the first centennial of the parish. Centered on the front of the altar is the symbolic figure of the pelican. Popular fancy once considered the red tip of the beak of the pelican as evidence of the bird’s ripping open its own breast to feed its young, hence a symbolism of the church nourishing the faithful. A higher, ancient symbolism and a more commonly accepted one today is that the pelican is a symbol of the Holy Eucharist. The use of the symbolic pelican is particularly appropriate here on the Coast where these large birds can often be seen skimming gracefully over the surface of the water.
Over the high altar is a dome with a large painting of Mary as Our Lady of the Gulf to whom the church is dedicated. The background is a restful shade of blue, the color associated with the Virgin. In the painting she is robed in a deeper shade of blue and holds in her arms the Christ child. Angels surround and hover over the pair. In the foreground, sailing ships like those that first approached these shores in the seventeenth century ply the blue-green waters of the Gulf. Almost touching the ceiling on the right of the dome is another depiction of the symbolic pelican. Interestingly juxtapositioned on the left is the sacrificial Lamb of God.
The exquisite stained glass windows done by Mayer and Company in Munich, Germany at the cost of $14,000 could not be duplicated today for many times that amount. Each window depicts an
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