- ST.
NORBERT ABBEY
- DE
PERE, WISCONSIN, U.S.A.
- R.D.
John A. Boelhower, O. Praem.
- b. Tuesday, June 13, 1905 – d.
Thursday, Dec. 26, 1985
Our brother John Boelhower was born in
Amsterdam,
Holland
in 1905, and with his family immigrated to Armour,
South Dakota
in 1908. Moving many times in his youth, the family finally ended up in
Kimberly, Wisconsin, from where he came to
St.
Norbert High and college. He joined
the Order in 1935 and was solemnly professed in 1940.
Having been assigned to Southeast Catholic in 1938, he returned there
after ordination in 1942 and became procurator and teacher of English in 1949.
Parish
ministry began for “Doc,” as he was fondly called, in 1952, when he was an
assistant at St. John’s in Essexville, and then continued when he became
pastor of St. Thomas, in Sunburst, Montana.
Doc retired to the abbey in 1971.
Incapacitated by bone cancer in his later years, he suffered with the
patience of a saint, never complaining of the excruciating pain he endured.
He died on
Thursday,
December 26, 1985 at the age of 80.
