About a year and a half ago, we lost one of the good guys, Fr. Michael B. Smith – our friendly neighborhood priest. He had this way about him. Always smiling, always making whatever room he walked into feel a little brighter.
Fr. Mike served at Immaculate Conception of Mary, a neighborhood church that had been around for over 100 years. A few weeks ago, the church closed its doors for good. Another parish lost to the tax of time. A one-two punch that hit us right in the gut.
A Railroading Priest
Fr. Mike loved trains. I mean loved them. He’d take the train anywhere he could. His office was packed with scale models. A Pennsy T1 and a New York Central Mohawk were prominently displayed along side old railroad marker lamps. The rectory walls? Covered in railroad art. A Penn Central system map that once hung in his office is proudly on display inside P&LE 565. You see, trains weren’t just a hobby for Fr. Mike, they were in his blood.
Beyond the trains, Fr. Mike was also really into flags – vexillology, a hobby he introduced me to many years ago. Drive past the rectory on any given day and you’d have likely seen an obscure flag you’d never heard of flying alongside Old Glory. The Hawaiian Navy Ensign was one of his favorites. Had you stopped by to visit, he’d walk you through every detail: why this color, why that stripe and what it all meant, all of it. He valued symbols, what they meant and how they could tell the story of history.
What does any of this have to do with Caboose Falls?
When we found this place and learned that its founder, Fr. Schleicher, was a Catholic priest and a train guy, we imediatly thought of Fr. Mike. Two priests, different dioceses, different parts of the country, both drawn to this weird overlap of faith and railroads. I’m a railfan myself, and I’d always figured Fr. Mike was an anomaly. Crossing paths with another priest/railfan? That felt like more than just some random coincidence.
So today we raised the Immaculate Conception of Mary parish flag. Not in mourning, exactly, and not in protest of the church’s closure. Simply as acknowledgment of Fr. Mike and the parish we loved.