The Kapliczka in Wisconsin, a proud Polish heritage

As you drive around Wisconsin, you might wonder what the religious shrines you see along the roadways are all about. Many times they stand there, alone. These are part of the Polish-American heritage. They are known as Kapliczka, or wayside shrine. The word "Kapliczka" derives from the word for chapel. They hold great meaning among Polish-Americans, and other Christian European-Americans.

December 21, 2006

This is a photo of a Kapliczka, a wayside or roadside shrine, Polish Catholic in their origin. It is located on CH C and Willow Road, southern Marathon County, near Shantytown and close to the county line with Portage County.

We note the location of the Kapliczka with reference to the roads and to Dombrowski Farms, a potato business we highlighted in an article, "The ballet of the 'Central Sands' potato harvest."

Being just a few miles north of Portage County, we are in the heart of a magnificent Polish-American community. It also turns out that we are in the heart of Wisconson's potato agriculture business, and, of course, there is a long and close tie between this kind of agriculture and Polish heritage.

Not far to the south, near Stevens Point in Portage County, is the Polish Heritage Highway, about which we also wrote a story.

Catherine Hodorowicz Hennessey, writing "Kapliczki: Poland's Small Treasures" for the Polish American Journal in 2004, says this:

"Anyone who has traveled in Poland is familiar with the site of numerous religious figures and statues along the roadside. Sometimes, instead of a religious figure or statue, there is a cross or a building that resembles a little house or miniature chapel. They can be seen almost anywhere—at the entrance of a village, up on a hill, at the outer boundaries of a village or town—but most frequently, along a main thoroughfare or at a major crossroads. As a result, these small religious chapels and figures are commonly called roadside shrines. In Polish, these outdoor, roadside shrines are called kapliczki.

"The word origin of kapliczka is distinctly Christian. As far back as the 7th century, a small building containing the coat and relics of St. Marcin began to be called capella, a diminutive of the Latin cappa, meaning cover or cloak. In countries accepting Christianity, capella became a common term for every small building outside of a church that gave shelter to a religious object or figure. In Poland, the term emerged as kapla, kaple, and eventually kaplica, meaning chapel. Kapliczka, a diminutive of kaplica, refers to something smaller than an actual chapel; the words today, however, are used almost interchangeably."

We commend her entire article to your attention. She has documented very interesting history briefly and in an easy to understand way.

This is a closeup photo of the inside of the Kapliczka we showed earlier. The editor apologizes for getting his reflection in the photo. On the left, you see a statue of Jesus Christ and on the right a smaller one of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

This is another Kapliczka located on the grounds of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Polonia, Portage County.

As you can see, the statues inside are different than the other one, this time the Blessed Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus.

We will continue to update our album as we come across more such shrines in Wisconsin. These will be found not only on roadways, but on the properties of private residences.

In Poland, the structures are generally placed at crossroads, in places where people of the local community have experienced spiritual revelations, or in places of importance to the local community. They are normally low cost structures and built by the faithful without regard to wealth. Such structures continue to be built in Poland. They are a key element of the Polish countryside.

We'd like to show you a few examples of kapliczki in Poland, the first two presented courtesy of the Polish edition of wikipedia.

In the village Nowosielce, Przeworsk administrative district, Poland

In Brenna, Poland

In Bobolicach, Poland, Photo by Arthur Magdziarz

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