The church up the hill also continues to be a big part of the life of Ray and Frannie, despite some recent health problems for Ray.  It was back in the days of Father Sam that their sons, "the Schmieg boys," took up mowing the church yard with push mowers -- the kind with long wooden handles and rotating blades on the end.  It was 1958.
Said Ray, "When we finally brought a tractor up there in 1965, Father Sam said he didn't want to see it in his yard again.  It made tracks in the grass.  Then one day it was 95 degrees, and he said, 'Okay, let's drive it.'  It was too hot to push the push mowers."
The task of mowing and maintaining the large church yard and cemetery continues to this day for the Schmiegs.  In the 1980's, Ray and Frannie began the job as a duo, each with their own riding lawn-mowers.  Blooming plants and flowers in the picturesque St. Victoria Cemetery along Highway 5 are real, not plastic.  Along with the carpet of grass, flowers are watered and pruned and tended by Ray and Frannie Schmieg for almost 30 years now.
Shoveling snow at St. Victoria was another task that was finally relegated to others, but Ray recalls that in 1965, after and during the big snow that led to the 1965 spring floods, "Steve and Bob and Wayne and I and Father Sam and Len Schneider shoveled five nights a week almost all winter long."
Frannie recalls that there were more flood waters in the area on April 13th, 1969, when she was about to deliver Tracy, their 13th child.  "They wanted me to take a boat to the hospital in Shakopee," she states even today in disbelief.  "We couldn't get through by car.  But then my doctor said he would come to the Waconia hospital so I didn't have to go anywhere by boat." 
It could be noted for those outside these local boundaries, that the Minnesota River, which is prone to flooding, lies between Victoria and Shakopee, but there are no rivers between Victoria and Waconia.
Be near me, Lord Jesus,
I ask you to stay
Close by me forever
and love me, I pray.
Baby Tracy was brought home safely in a few days, to thrive, along with a dozen other siblings, at the loving hands of Mother Frannie and to sleep in the crib built by the skillful hands of Father Ray.
Bless all the dear children
in Your tender care,
And fit us for heaven
to live with You there.
Yes, indeed, the carpenter man who made the manger at St. Victoria, for the sweet head of the little Lord Jesus, also made a crib for his own children.  "It went through all of our kids and grandkids," said Ray.  "It had wheels and casters ..."
Away in a manger,
no crib for His bed,
The little Lord Jesus
lay down His sweet head.