Tlze Vicariate, 1841-1847
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cruit volunteers, men and women, to expand the work in Texas, and to secure funds to spread the Faith. Not less intense was his desire to visit the distant parish of San Antonio. "What our priests are doing in the West I cannot tell," he told Timon in the spring of 1844. "It has not been in my power to see them for more than two years." Before Paquin and Brands arrived in May, the worried Vicar ex- claimed, "Alone as I am, I can go nowhere . . . If I leave this place [Galveston] even to go to Houston, the Catholic children frequent the Sunday schools and the Protestant meetings and imbibe ideas quite prejudicial to their faith. Seldom can I go as far as the Brazos River. It is impossible for me to visit the Trinity ... At times I feel very unwell, pure necessity alone compels me to carry on." 56 The intentions of the people were good but they needed instruction. Odin felt gratified at the much larger number who made their Easter duty in Galveston, Houston and the bay area that year. He only wished he had more workers. Father Schneider, whose temper had proved difficult, perhaps because of his delicate constitution, left about the middle of April, 1844, thus causing the overworked Vicar to feel the need of a German-speaking priest that much more. German immigrants had been increasing rapidly, most of whom were Catholics. In Galveston alone there were eighty or ninety German Catholics and more than two hundred others had set out to settle near San Antonio. Just as soon as Timon sent him the men he had promised, Odin intended to name a vicar-general and set out on a western tour. "The impossibility of going to the different places which I should visit causes me great anxiety," he frankly admitted to Blanc in urging him to remind Timon of his promise to send as many missionaries from the Barrens as he could spare. 57 Paquin mtd Brands in Texas. Little wonder that Odin was so relieved when at long last Paquin and Brands arrived in May, 1844. He welcomed them with open arms, immediately named his old friend and colleague Paquin vicar-general and installed the two in his enlarged quarters in Galveston. Shortly before their arrival he had bought two adjacent lots to his modest residence, on one of which there was a house. He planned to enlarge his own residence in order to provide accommo- dations for the priests who came to visit him. Within a month, the Bishop-Vicar, who had impatiently postponed his visit, set out for San Antonio by way of the Lavaca, the Colorado, 56 Odin to Timon, April 16, 1844; Odin to Blanc, April 28, 1844, C. A. T. 5 7Odin to Blanc, April 28, 1844; Odin to Timon, April 16, 1844, C. A. T.
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