LE SUEUR, Minn. - For nearly all of his almost 83 years, Martin "Sal" Malinski rose each morning and went to bed each evening under the shadow of the steeple of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Lexington.
He told his wife he couldn't go on bus trips with her because he couldn't sleep without the steeple out his window.
On Aug. 13, as the church neared its moving date to a new home down the road, Malinski died in his home in the shadow of the church.
The movers delayed the moving date, originally set for Aug. 17, for one day so everyone could attend Malinski's funeral.
On the day after Malinski was laid to rest in St. Joseph's Cemetery in Lexington Township, the church made a five-mile journey down Le Sueur County Roads 32 and 26 before coming to rest at the Le Sueur County Pioneer Power Show grounds in rural Le Sueur.
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This fall, a basement will be dug and the church moved atop. It will be located next to the school.
Loren Riebel, a Pioneer Power Association member who spearheaded the project to secure and move the historic 1902 church, said people doubted he'd be able to move the church intact with contents or be able to raise the $75,000 needed to complete the project, which included moving the church, a new basement, filling the old basement and paying the electric companies to take down or raise transmission lines while the church was on the move.
He secured the church with statues, altar and pews; and he needs to raise about $9,000 more to pay for the project.
Riebel has grand plans for the former St. Joseph's Church. He hopes to collect histories of old cemeteries and churches in the area and keep them in the church now known as Lexington Church.
"It's going to be a remembrance of these past little churches," Riebel said.
