Early Catholic families in the area traveled to Houston to attend mass, though visiting priests occasionally held services in local homes. In 1913, a wooden church, St. Patrick's, was built at Fifth and Orchard Streets in Missouri City on land bought by founding priest Father George Montreuil through parishioner donations. The 1915 hurricane heavily damaged the church, but after repairs it served as a chapel for visiting priests until Bishop Christopher E. Byrne visited the mission church in 1928 and ordered it closed, sending local Catholics back to Houston for mass. In 1932, after the number of parishioners increased, donated land and a former dance hall and theatre building in Stafford became a new church named Holy Family. Because most parishioners were of Italian descent, the bishop assigned Father Nunzio La Rocca, an Italian immigrant fluent in Italian and Spanish, as pastor. During World War Two, the Oblate Fathers of Immaculate Conception parish in Houston ministered to the congregation, and as the Spanish-speaking population grew, they sought help in religious instruction from the Nuns of the Missionary Catechists of Divine Providence. In 1948, land was donated for a new brick church in Stafford. Holy Family became a parish in 1969, and after rapid growth required a larger facility, it returned to its original site in Missouri City, where a new church was dedicated on December 30, 1979, the Feast of the Holy Family. Father Robert Hall, CSB, pastor from 1967-1980, guided the parish through the construction, started a parish library, and expanded religious education and social service programs. In 2007, Holy Family came under the direction of the Oblates of the Sacred Heart, and it remains active in cultural and charitable work as one of the most culturally diverse parishes in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston.