Joe Muth, the beloved jack-of-all-trades handyman of Mount Saint Joseph, is seen with pet dog Bozo in 1930. Muth was one of the seven members of a fishing club for the Mount’s lake. COURTESY OF ARCHIVES

The constitution of the Mount Saint Joseph fishing club

BY EDWARD WILSON, ARCHIVES

Few things say Kentucky summer like getting out the fishing poles and heading to the lake. This felt like the perfect summer article to kick off the fall printing season of The Western Kentucky Catholic.

Last October, Sr. Mary Timothy Bland, OSU – one of the archival volunteers at Mount Saint Joseph – told me she had discovered the constitution for a fishing club for the Mount’s lake. (For those who are unaware, the Mount has a lake that sits across the road from the convent on another patch of land owned by the Ursulines.) I had never heard of this club and was interested to see the document.

She showed me the constitution and I was amazed. What a great little piece of forgotten Mount history. I told her I wanted to write an article on it but wanted to wait for summer, when people would be fishing. It would make it much more appropriate. So, thanks to Sr. Mary Timothy, here is the “Constitution of the Lake Club of St. Joseph, Kentucky.”

On Wednesday, April 8, 1931, a day that the sisters remarked was a day of “Wonderful weather!” seven men from St. Joseph, Ky., gathered with a purpose. That purpose was to sign the constitution of their newly organized club. The sisters had agreed to let the men start a private fishing club utilizing the Ursuline lake. The men were Joseph H. Ballard (the postmaster of St. Joseph, Ky.) Bert Ballard, Oliver Cecil, J.D. Merimee, Charles Thomas, Joe Muth (the Mount’s beloved jack-of-all-trades handyman), and Fr. Joseph J. Diemert (the Mount’s chaplain, teacher of philosophy and pastor of nearby St. Alphonsus Parish.)

Fr. Joseph J. Diemert is seen in this undated photo. Fr. Diemert, one of the seven members of a fishing club for the Mount’s lake, was the Mount’s chaplain, a teacher of philosophy and pastor of nearby St. Alphonsus Parish. COURTESY OF ARCHIVES

The club was structured like any other club of its day. The lake club’s constitution included articles for membership, finance, duties of officers, meetings, etc. It laid out guidelines for the election of president and secretary-treasurer. The core agreements of the club’s members were $10 a year to stock the lake with fish, membership was limited to the original seven members, no fishing for the first year, and fishing was limited to the members and their immediate family. Each man signed the constitution, and the dream of a private fishing club and private lake was realized. There is no telling the amount of stories that could be told about those days on the lake. How many beautiful sunrises and sunsets must have been observed by those jolly fishermen on that holy ground.

Little else is known about the club. With some additional digging, there may be a bit more that can be gathered about the venture. However, this is a story that I thought many would find interesting. It never ceases to amaze me how much history there is out there to rediscover. Time and time again, our documents remind us that everything, even a little lake, can have a big history to tell.

Edward Wilson is the director of the Diocese of Owensboro’s Archives and the Archives of the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph. Comments and questions may be sent to [email protected].

Originally printed in the August 2026 issue of The Western Kentucky Catholic.