Over the past several years, I’ve noticed a continual decline in attendance at my church and a greater decline in parents enrolling their children in religious education classes, traditionally referred to as Sunday School.

The Sunday School program at my church has suffered for many years from low attendance, and from what I’ve been told, it is largely due to high school athletics, extracurricular activities, and generally too much demand being placed on students’ time. But some blame must also fall on the parents. Church does not seem to have the importance it once did. Regardless of religious affiliation, however, the congregations and parishes in the Copper Country today have been handed down to the current generation from the earliest days when the region was a sparsely populated frontier, and are still as valuable.

The immigrant pioneers of the Copper Country struggled against many adversities to establish the religious environments many today take for granted. For those pioneers, church involvement was central to their lives. Churches formed the nucleus of their cultural identity.

The vast majority of them had come from regions of Great Britain and Europe that had been settled for centuries. The region to which they came to was a frontier of dense, virgin forest, from which a small clearing had been hacked to make room for a handful of crude, log huts they would call home.

These people were different from those (primarily Americans) who would later settle the western mining districts: These European immigrants had come from nations steeped in centuries of religious history, belief and tradition, much of which formed their cultural identity. In a new and strange world, not only religion, but churches became even more important to them.

As the Keweenaw National Historical Park states: “Houses of worship provided immigrants, whether they were Catholic, Jewish, or Protestant, with a sense of community and a bridge between the Old World and the New.”

The Cliff Mine location, for example, was not a year old when eight Cornish miners, with Methodist Missionary, Rev. John H. Pitezel, organized the Methodist Episcopal Church, with Pitezel holding the first service in the mining company’s cooper shop.

In his memoir, “Lights and Shadows of Missionary Life,” Pitezel wrote of his time there when he was conducting religious meetings at the Cliff Mine.

“The only place we could obtain at the Cliff,” he wrote, “was a small school room.” He went on to write: “Our public meetings were often seasons of interest and profit; and in the midst of a far too general neglect of divine things, we have reason to believe that the efforts put forth at that station, in the name of the Lord, were owned by him to the edification of his people and the advancement of his cause.”

A year later, he reported: “A flourishing Sabbath school is kept up at the cliff Mine. A church has been built, which we use; but it is owned by the Pittsburgh and Boston Mining Company. Here the work is greatly enlarging, and will need next year two missionaries.”

The second church organized in Clifton was the Grace Episcopal, in 1855, constructing its own building a year later, where services and Sunday Schools were held.

While early Protestant congregations enjoyed the benefit of a common language, the Catholics often found themselves at a disadvantage. The congregation of the Catholic Church of the Assumption, at the Cliff Mine, for example, was made up of both Irish and German members.

A cultural melding of sorts began when a church was used by different ethnic groups, particularly the Catholics. A single church in a smaller frontier comminity served Irish, German, and smaller European immigrant groups. Initially language was a challenge between these two ethnic groups merging into one faith community. But that would take a few decades.

The early churches were hastily constructed, often with log frames and clad with lumber from local mining company sawmills, they were built on posts that created a crawl space beneath them, with no available space for more activities than worship.

During the latter half of the 19th century, in communities built around wealthier mining companies, the number of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe rapidly increased.

In 1861, St. Anne Parish, in Hancock, was established by French Canadians, but later merged with the Irish Catholic parish, St. Joseph. Later the parishes of St. Joseph and St. Patrick would be merged. St. Ignatius, in Houghton, served members from several ethnic groups.

These later churches were intended as permanent structures. Often constructed of stone, they also incorporated deep and substantial foundations, creating basements finished as social halls.

Churches in Lake Linden and Red Jacket also established various churches dedicated to one ethnic group. Over the years, however, some of them merged, consolidating parishes, as well as their ethnic groups. Language differences among these groups did not remain a hinderance or a barrier for long. While separated by language, German, Irish, French, and other ethnic immigrant groups were united by faith. Additionally, they were often neighbors, living in near proximity to each other.

Church social halls often provided excellent opportunities for various ethnic groups to interact, particularly during religious holiday social celebrations at which ethnic foods were served. Friendships developed between members of these groups, cultural traditions were shared and exchanged, including foods and recipes.

Through the years, church social halls became integral to the life of their communities, where luncheons, potluck dinners, and holiday parties and celebrations served as a common bond holding the congregation or parish together. These events added a richness to the lives of the groups, as well as their church as a whole.

Many churches in the later 20th century created and sold fundraiser cookbooks with recipes from their congregations, which include Old World recipes from many European nations, handed down from the earliest arrivals in the Lake Superior copper region.

As church social functions have begun to decline, the people lose something they may not be aware they possessed: Not only are social events an extraordinary way for church members to bond and strengthen their church community, they are also a way to connect their with their ancestors, who established and built the church communities enjoyed today, often while sharing a meal from recipes handed down through the generations.