St Joseph’s Catholic Church was founded in 1868 to serve the FrancoAmerican textile workers and services sector in Cohoes. Prior to that time, FrancoAmericans attended Catholic services at the Irish, St. Bernards. Attending services in French was a very big deal to the Franco community. Elizabeth Bissonnette’s family gave their share to help build it.
This was the church where John Albert Wills and Elizabeth Bissonnette stood on August 26th, 1903 and promised to be husband and wife. He promised to raise their children in the Catholic Church but would not, himself, convert. He was 29, she was 23 years old. This was the church my aunts and uncles were baptized in, where they made first communions and where they married.
Since 2009, St. Joseph’s has been permanently closed as a church although used as an event site. In 2008, I attended a church service there. It was probably one of the last Catholic services. While it was an event site, I was able to visit and attend some events there. I took photographs.
The architecture of St. Joseph’s was similar to many other catholic Churches built in this period. Stripped of its ecclesiology adornments, it still remained a beautiful site maintaining its dignity whether empty or filled with community, voices, and sounds of its organ.
