Parish History
St. Francis of Assisi parish was formally established in Little Italy by Bishop John B. Morris as a mission of St. John’s Seminary June 15th, 1922. The Catholic Extension Society offered the parish tremendous financial support, in the honor of an Indiana farmer named Francis Theodore Knue who died in 1916 and was the father of two Roman Catholic priests. A plaque in his honor still resides in the vestibule of the church. Prior to the erection of a permanent church, Mass was said in the nearby Ledwidge schoolhouse beginning in 1919. Sources indicate that the original church was a deconsecrated Catholic Church named for St. John the Evangelist located in the Ola community in Yell County. The building was brought to Little Italy and reconstructed board by board in the center of the community, on land donated by the Perrin family, and it served as a testament to the strong, Catholic faith of the community’s Italian immigrant population. Catholic parishes already existed in nearby Bigelow and New Dixie, but because of the area’s importance during Prohibition, a priest from the seminary was dispatched to offer Mass for the Italian settlement.
In addition to the church’s ecclesiastical role, it was the community’s chief public building for many years. Meetings were held there, community events were held on its grounds, and the bells in the bell tower served as the community’s warning system. When severe weather, house fires, etc. occurred within Little Italy, the bells were rung to indicate an emergency.
One of the earliest pastors of St. Francis Church was Fr. Albert Fletcher, a professor at St. John’s Seminary, who eventually was appointed the fourth bishop of the Diocese of Little Rock in 1947. To access his mission parish, Fr. Fletcher and the other early pastors would travel via train to Little Italy and spend the night at the homes of parishioners, before offering Mass on Sunday morning. The church was the center of life for Little Italy’s inhabitants in those early days and it remains so now. One founder of Little Italy, Maria Busato wrote in her memoirs in the late-1960s, “Non cambiate de posto alla Chiesa che noi vecchi la biamo messa in mezzo al paese comiate i dire tari mo no la Chiesa.” Translated this means, “Don’t move the place of the church. We, the older generation, put it in the middle of the community and we are proud that it is there.”
Beginning in 1927 the church has served as the host for local Grape Harvest Festival and is still celebrated today as Little Italy’s Italian Festival, nine decades later. After the long pastorate of Rev. Msgr. Francis Allen, at the end of the late-1930s, the parish became a mission parish
of St. Boniface Catholic Church in New Dixie.
After the liturgical changes implemented by the Second Vatican Council in 1967, then-pastor Fr. John Hlavacek (Pastor 1964-1974) commissioned a redesign and expansion of the church. The original structure was deconsecrated and the current St. Francis was built; construction finished in 1969 on land donated by the Bertolo and Maria Balsam family. Thus, the current St. Francis Church became one of the first churches in Arkansas to meet the liturgical norms enacted by the Vatican II Council.
Though designed in the modern style of the late-1960s, there are many hidden beauties within the current St. Francis Church that connect it to the community and parishioners. The predella (the elevated area on which the main altar sits) is made of marble terrazzo, which hints at the craftsmanship of many of the area’s Italian artisans. The main altar was hand crafted in oak by local craftsmen Henry Wagner and his son Joseph based on a description provided by Fr. Hlavacek. The Gothic cross under the main altar was also based on a description provided by Fr. Hlavacek and hand crafted by Joseph. Joseph is a member of the parish with his wife, Anita Belotti Wagner, who is a granddaughter of Joseph Belotti, the founder of Little Italy. The side altars, Podium, and Baptismal font were built by another craftsman using the Wagner-built main altar and Gothic cross as a model. The interior of the current church includes six large paintings depicting the life of St. Francis of Assisi painted by local artist Alma Gipson and commissioned by Fr. James West (Pastor 1990-1996) during the 1990s. The Stations of the Cross located inside the sanctuary were donated in honor of John Chiaro in 1995 and were blessed at the Vatican by Saint Pope John Paul II. Also located in the sanctuary two reliquaries are displayed which contain over 20 first-class relics of prominent saints in Church history, as well as relics of our Lord, including the True Cross and the Crown of Thorns. These relics were given to the Church from a dissolved Carmelite Convent in Pennsylvania in honor of Judy Dorer.
Today St. Francis of Assisi parish remains the cohesive tie that binds the community together. Many families have joined the initial founding families in worship here and the spirit of Christian service is alive in this parish. We welcome you to our parish and we cannot wait for you to become part of our parish family—because at St. Francis, we are one, big family of believers in Christ’s redeeming grace.