Francis Cassatt Clopper built a church for his wife, Ann Jane Byrne, a Catholic. Constructed around 1836, the original church building was destroyed by a fire in 1883. It was immediately re-built and this is the church we see today. The cornerstone from the original 1836 church is still there. Saint Rose of Lima became a parish in 1972, approximately 160 years after Francis Clopper and his wife, Ann, came to the area.

Name Date Comment
Steve Newhouse 4/7/11 Is this at the corner of Clopper and Game Preserve RD? If so, I attended a wedding there (Marta, do you remember?)
G'burg Alumni 7/21/11 This is really neat to see. I used to drive my car down Game Preserve as fast as I could and blow the horn flying underneath the bridge. I was also married in the church. Good times
Nancy Zanner Correll 7/27/11 Yes, this is at the corner of Clopper and Game Preserve. I too remember that it used to be protocol for drivers on Game Preserve to honk the horn in warning to oncoming traffic before attempting to drive under the bridge; there is room for only one car at a time. However, blowing the horn is now considered rude (everyone now stops at the stop sign on each side and looks carefully before proceeding) since there are houses built just feet from the railroad tracks. (But who expects quiet when they've decided to live next to railroad tracks?! Legend has it that that bridge is haunted (stories go way, way back on this), and when I was younger, my friends and I would scream our heads off in abject terror every time we drove under that bridge.
Suzanne Cissel Brodt 10/8/11 Many fond memories of St. Rose Church. In the 50's and 60's and maybe even earlier, Fr. Meyer said Mass there as well as St. Martins. I can remember one Christmas Eve Midnight Mass, the children's choir sang the entire Mass in Latin. We were in the balcony and I was terrified it was going to fall down.
Chip Ward 11/9/11 Loved to get out of school to mow the grass in the cemetery at St. Rose when I went to St. Martins. There used to be a Civil War grave marker under a tree in front of the church. My dad Geroge Ward took me to meet the Caulfield ladies, I think we called her Mrs. Rose, and she told the story of how the solder came to their house, wounded, died there and was burried under the tree.
Fred Powell Jr 2/22/12 @Nancy, your dad was my dentist. TheDigitalDad's "The legend of the Game Preserve Road Bridge" documents the tale of the legend I documented from childhood stories told 3, 4 of us by a hobo. Guess i was destined to be a writer. My cookbook is in its final edit, but TLGPRB, just completed in November with nanowrimo, is just going into it's first major adult edit. Prt of the story focus on the cemetery behind the church pictured. Fred/* GHS73 alumni
PE 'Packy' Pickrell 5/9/12 To broaden the story about the wounded soldier just a bit, I ran into a local Civil War buff that claims the family that took in the CSA wounded had also lost their own son in the Union Army at the same time and thus they were both buried in that grave. Also on another note John Denver sat along Clopper Road, so they say and penned out the words for his chart buster famous single "Country Road" that became a big hit.
Larry French 2/9/13 The marker of the fallen Confederate soldier remains near the front of the church. Like Chip Ward, I went to St. Martins in the 50's and often got out of school to participate as an altar boy at funerals at St. Rose presided over by Father Meyer.
Brian K. Blough 4/2/13 My first wife and I were married here on September 2, 1978. Later, it was on to the Holiday In for our honeymoon night!
Lynn Rister Kelly 9/29/15 I had many recitals and my first communion in the Parish Center next door. I still have never forgotten the smells inside that church :) ( A good thing I should add). Almost a colonial smell.
Danny Brodt 10/3/15 Spent many times serving Mass here as an altar boy. With the likes of Fritz Brown and the McNally boys. Mrs. Stang lived on the corner of Game Preserve Rd and Clopper.
Monte F Poindexter 6/7/16 Emily Virginia Cissel (John L Cissel Father) (Susanna Cissel) is buried here. While conducting research about James Edmund Rabbitt (Emily's husband) I find no mention of Emily's cause of death. Can anyone help? Susanna?
Monte F Poindexter 8/9/16 Beautiful ceremony for Rita Rabbitt, God Bless her and Emily Cissel who has rested well over the many years at Saint Rose of Lima. Thank You All!
Nettie Harris 10/27/17 Do you have any programs for senior citizens ?
Bill French 5/17/20 This was the church of my childhood. My family had attended mass at St. Rose across generations and are buried in the beautiful cemetery out back. My brothers and I were altar boys here (see Larry French above). The additions to the grounds are beautiful. St. Rose is a profoundly sacred spot.