Community story
For 147 years, Fenton has shown up for St. Paul Catholic Church. Now the parish's Queen of Hearts jackpot is past $84,000, and only three cards remain.
Fenton, Missouri — St. Louis County
For 147 years, St. Paul Catholic Church has run on one thing: people in Fenton showing up for each other. They showed up for a priest who came by horse and buggy. They showed up to build a church, a school and a hall. This year they showed up for their neighbors in numbers that put the parish near the top of the Archdiocese of St. Louis.
Now they’re showing up for the Queen of Hearts. The jackpot is past $84,000, and only three cards are left.
In 1878, Archbishop Peter Richard Kenrick ordered a mission church for the Catholics of Fenton. They built a white-frame church on land once owned by Samuel Vandover and celebrated their first Mass there on Christmas Day, 1879. Their priest, Father John Feltman, came by horse and buggy from Assumption Parish in Mattese, and only every other Sunday.
That was enough. The families kept coming, and the mission became a parish with its own pastor, Rev. James Kern.
In 1918 the parish laid the cornerstone of the brick church that still stands on Main Street in Olde Towne Fenton. A school opened in 1921 with two classrooms, run by the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood from O’Fallon. The parish hall followed in 1926 and became the place for dances, wedding receptions, basketball games and fundraisers. By the early 1950s, the school had so many students that some classes moved across the street into the hall.
When the town outgrew Main Street, the parish built again. On Easter Sunday 1959, St. Paul celebrated its first Mass on a new campus near today’s Highway 141, the former grounds of the Hessoun Orphanage. The school grew in 1963, and on November 4, 1984, Archbishop John L. May dedicated the church St. Paul worships in today.
This year, St. Paul parishioners pledged $258,163 to the Annual Catholic Appeal, more than double the parish’s $118,458 goal. The gifts came from 463 donors, 73 of them giving for the first time. St. Paul finished first in its deanery for percentage over goal and among the top 25 parishes in the archdiocese for total dollars.
In September, the parish’s second annual St. Vincent de Paul golf tournament brought out 31 teams and raised $23,000 for neighbors in need across Fenton and Jefferson County.
St. Paul’s first Queen of Hearts game ran 224 days, from February 21 to October 3, 2025, before Ken Kohl turned over the Queen and took home $22,384.
Game two started October 28, 2025, and the jackpot has been growing ever since. It is now past $84,000. On Tuesday, Dewayne J. drew the 9 of Diamonds and won $1,500. There are 3 cards remaining on the board. Two of them pay $2,000. The third is the Queen of Hearts, and whoever finds it takes half the jackpot, a projected $42,025.
One of the next three drawings will find her.
For 147 years, what has kept St. Paul going is people deciding to be part of it. This jackpot works the same way. Every ticket makes the jackpot bigger and supports the parish, and there are at most three drawings left.
To find Mass times, ministries and parish events, visit stpaulfenton.org.
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