The following four paragraphs were taken from Chapter 11 entitled “The River Flows South and West”, in the biography of St. Mary Katharine Drexel, The Golden Door, published in 1957, two years after her death:
In 1901, Mother Katharine had made this trip not only to inspect the school (St. Francis de Sales), but also to discuss setting up small catechetical centers in nearby places in Virginia. This necessitated a considerable amount of train travel. Once in a coach between Richmond and Lynchburg, the train stopped at a small station marked Columbia. She noticed a gilt cross gleaming through the trees and said to her companion, Mother Mercedes, “Do you think that is a Catholic Chapel?” Mother Mercedes replied that she did not think so, as she had been told there was no Mass celebrated between Richmond and Lynchburg.
On their return to St. Francis de Sales they learned from one of the students that there was such a chapel in a little town nearby. The two Sisters went to see this chapel and found it fairly large and in excellent condition; to their surprise they also found it in perfect order, swept and dusted; on the altar clean linen and fresh flowers. There was no sign of life, but even as they were still staring about they heard shuffling steps behind them and turned to see an old Negro looking at them with keen interest. He told them he was Uncle Zeke, and that he was a convert of Father Wakeham and had been with the Wakehams for years. His daughter, Rebecca, was the student who had told them about the Wakeham Chapel.
“Ever since the death of Mrs. Wakeham in 1891, I come here to clean the Chapel every morning and say a prayer there’ll be Mass again some day”, he told them. Then taking them to the carefully tended family cemetery, he showed some headstones weathered by the years, others very new.
Mother Katharine, much touched by the old man’s loyalty and devotion, told him that she could not promise that Mass would be said in the Chapel, but she could send a few of her Sisters from St. Francis de Sales there each week to teach Catechism (Her Sisters remained a part of St. Joseph’s until 1971) and perhaps later she would open a small school. As soon as Mother Katharine returned to St. Francis de Sales, she made arrangements to carry out that part of her promise.
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In [the] early 1900[s], when Mother Katharine Drexel made arrangement for the Josephite Fathers to say Mass, the Wakeham Chapel unofficially became a Public Chapel, known as St. Joseph’s.
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Note: At a special Mass on October 15, 2000, honoring the canonization of St. Katharine Drexel, at St. Joseph’s, Bishop Walter Sullivan, Bishop of Richmond, VA, added to the name of St. Joseph’s/”Shrine of St Katharine Drexel”.
