Mary Tholen Oral History

Oral histories created by University of Kansas students, staff and faculty as part of the Religion in Kansas Project are archived at http://hdl.handle.net/1808/12524 in KU ScholarWorks, the digital repository of the University of Kansas.Oral history interview with Mary Tholen conducted by Clint Shriner in Kansas City, Missouri, on December 10, 2009. In this interview, Mary Tholen describes her experiences growing up as a member of the Catholic Church, primarily in Hays, Kansas. She also discusses her German heritage. She describes the Catholic Church's efforts to raise money during the Depression years by methods such as renting pews to parishioners. She discusses the importance of individual priests who served the Catholic community in Hays, and describes incidents of tension between Catholics and Protestants in Hays. She also discusses changes to the practices of the Catholic Church that resulted from the implementation of Vatican II. This interview was conducted for the Religion in Kansas course taught at the University of Kansas by Dr. Timothy Miller in the fall of 2009.Friends of the Department of Religious Studie