Religiotes Co1111mmities of J11en in Texas
213
Keralum, and Brother Roudet set out overland from Galveston on October I, r852, and reached Brownsville on October r4. 15 Bishop Odin had asked Father Gaye to visit the ranches and towns between Brownsville and Laredo. "There is much good to be done in the ranches and also in Rio Grande City, Roma, and Laredo. If you are able to visit these places, you will find many children to baptize." Mindful of the health of his workers, the kind shepherd recommended to the Oblate Fathers not to exert themselves beyond their endurance in carrying out his sug~estion. Father Gaye, in response to the Bishop's bidding, went to Laredo in March. r853. to help install Fathers Dumas and Louis Planchet, seculars, in the new parish. He estimated the population of the border city to be about three thousand, all Mexicans, except for two or three American families. Two whole months were consumed in incessant labor by the three priests in Laredo to provide for the spiritual needs of the faithful. who had been without a pastor for almost a year. "Those were the times," exclaims Father Gaye, "when everyone. men as we11 as women, used to go to confession." 16 From Laredo Father Gaye set out early in June along the river road to Brownsville. He visited Arrivefio, San Bartolo de Jose Maria Canales, Capitanefio, Redman, Ramirefio, Roma, and Rio Grande City before he arrived in Brownsville at the end of July, r853. Hundreds of children were baptized and thousands of confessions were heard in the ranches and the settlements-almost wholly Mexican-by the zealous missionary. Hardly had Gaye had time to rest from his long and arduous journey before yellow fever broke out in Brownsville and the surrounding country on August r 5. The epidemic lasted until November and appears to have heen brought to the Lower Rio Grande Valley from Galveston, where it had been raging since early May. Before the scourge had spent its fury in Galveston, 335 had fallen victim. Among them was Father Jean Marie Baudrand, who had been sent from Canada in r853 to be the Superior of the college for boys planned for the island city. Father Baudrand was one of the founders of the Oblate missions in Canada. Two days before the fever attacked him in September, a doctor had pleaded with him to go into the interior. "You are not acclimated." the doctor argued. "That would be cowardice!" 15 The first record entered by the Oblates in the books of Immaculate Conception Church is dated October 14, 1852, Records, Immaculate Conception Church; see also P. F. Parisot, Reminiscences of a Texas Afjssionar·y. 5 fi11ssi111, 16 N<1tu .for Ob/at,- Hist<1ry, 23-24.
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