Calvary Cemetery

CALVARY CEMETERY is located in the northwest quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 18 of Jefferson Township. This cemetery is connected with the Catholic Church at Churchville, Iowa, and is located one mile west of Churchville.

Michael Churchman was born in Germany in 1808. He came to Warren County, Iowa in 1854, and laid out the town of Churchville in the same year. His wife, Helen Wunderlin, was born in Switzerland, and the couple had nine children.

Churchville was on the stage coach line from Fort Des Moines to Winterset, and travelers stayed at the Churchville Hotel, the first building in the town, erected by Mr. Showmaker in 1856. Later the town boasted a Catholic Church, a German Lutheran Church, a blacksmith shop erected about 1907, a bank built about 1908, and three general stores.

The Catholic Church was built in 1890 and a Catholic School was added in 1903 and used until 1933 or 1935. The church burned down in the spring of 1933.

The German Lutheran Church was in Churchville from 1903-1914 and at that time it was moved to Martensdale. Many residents of churchville were buried at St. Patrick's Cemetery in Madison County.

Between 1860 and 1870, Michael Churchman donated land for the cemetery and the Catholic Church. He owned Section 17 at that time. The oldest legible tombstone in Calvary Cemetery is inscribed "J. B. Rose" and dates back to the 1854. Two rows of unmarked graves in Calvary Cemetery are the resting place of victims of small pox and diphtheria epidemics.

Early families in the Churchville area included Dehecks, Walshs, Linans, Davitts, Huss, Waldrens. Roses. Wonderlins, Halls, Weils, Murphys, Banks, Grossmans, and Martens.

On May 30, 1954 Churchville celebrated the centennial of its founding.

Cemetery and Death Records of Warren County, Iowa, Warren County Genealogical Society, Walsworth Publishing Company, Marceline, Missouri: 1980.

View records submitted to the Iowa Gravestone Photo Project for Calvary Cemetery.