January 6, 2021

Seven More Saint Cities

By roads-rus

There are between 13,000 and 14,000 people living in Sault Ste. Marie, MI. It’s the oldest settlement in this state and was named by Jesuits in 1668 to honor the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. The first city of the Great Lakes region, Sault Ste. Marie is at the top of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and connects Lake Superior to Lake Huron. The greatest attraction here, which is temporarily closed, is the Soo Locks on the St. Mary’s River between the 2 Great Lakes. Ruth and I have been there to see its visitor center and observed the ships from Duluth passing through the locks.

Duluth is in Minnesota as is St. Cloud, another sainted city named after Saint-Cloud, France. St Cloud, MN has approximately 68,000 people and is about 50 miles northwest of the Twin Cities. Both places were named for a saint I had never heard called Clodoald. He was a 6th century monk and hermit who was a prince before taking priestly vows. Clodoald was the grandson of King Clovis I, and he left Paris to live in the forest where Saint-Cloud, France, is now. His feast day is September 7, and he is the patron saint of nail makers and was against carbuncles, a cluster of boils that result from infected hair follicles. Why? and Yuk!

As I mentioned yesterday, Missouri has several saint cities including St. Joseph and St. Charles. St. Joseph is home to an unusual attraction called the Glore Psychiatric Museum that is far more interesting than it sounds and like no other place Ruth & I have ever been. The hand up top is from the Glore. The city of St. Joseph, population now about 80,000, was named for Jesus’ father and Joseph Robidoux, its founder. This happened in 1847. St. Charles was Missouri’s first capital and has grown to become a city of 71,000 souls north of St. Louis. It was named for a saint called Charles Borromeo, a Catholic cardinal who opposed the Protestant Reformation and is the patron saint of seminarians and spiritual leaders.

The state with the most big cities named after saints is California. Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco are just 3 of them. Los Angeles is called The City of Angels because Los Angeles means “The Angels” in Spanish, and angels traditionally surround Jesus’ Mother Mary. San Diego, which is pictured under the hand, was named for St. Didacus, a Spanish Franciscan. The name San Francisco, of course, honors the very popular St. Francis of Assisi. San Francisco is seen below across the bay.

Hank

About roads-rus

Since the beginning, I've had to avoid writing about the downside of travel in order to sell more than 100 articles. Just because something negative happened doesn't mean your trip was ruined. But tell that to publishers who are into 5-star cruise and tropical beach fantasies. I want to tell what happened on my way to the beach, and it may not have been all that pleasant. My number one rule of the road is...today's disaster is tomorrow's great story. My travel experiences have appeared in about twenty magazines and newspapers. I've been in all 50 states more than once and more than 50 countries. Ruth and I love to travel internationally--Japan, Canada, China, Argentina, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, etc. Within the next 2 years we will have visited all of the European countries. But our favorite destination is Australia. Ruth and I have been there 9 times. I've written a book about Australia's Outback, ALONE NEAR ALICE, which is available through both Amazon & Barnes & Noble. My first fictional work, MOVING FORWARD, GETTING NOWHERE, has recently been posted on Amazon. It's a contemporary, hopefully funny re-telling of The Odyssey. View all posts by roads-rus
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 6th, 2021 at 12:15 am and posted in Saints. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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