- ST.
NORBERT ABBEY
- DE
PERE, WISCONSIN, U.S.A.
- Rev.
Michael L. Kain, O. Praem.
- b. Tuesday,
June 15, 1920 –d. Friday, Jan. 27, 1989
Our brother
Michael Kane was born in
Oconto
,
Wisconsin
in 1920. After graduating from
St.
Norbert High and a year at the college, he joined the Order in 1941 and was
solemnly professed in 1946.
“Uncle
Mike” as he was known by his confreres, had a colorful and varied ministry in
the Church. He was a teacher at St.
Norbert High, Archmere and Central Catholic; he did parish work at Old St.
Joe’s in DePere, St. Joe’s in Madison, St. Francis in Valier and St.
Margaret Mary in Cut Bank, Montana; he was chaplain at Nazareth Hospital in
Philly and chaplain at the Ringling Convent in Baraboo, Wisconsin.
After 5-fold by-pass heart surgery, he continued to minister to the
elderly in nursing homes in
Green Bay.
Frequently
seen cruising around in his big 4-door Lincoln
Continental, with trunk ‘loaded to the gills’ with everything for any
eventuality, Mike endeared himself to everyone he met with the odor of Jean Naté.
He was a gracious, kind and gentle confessor, and a great storyteller of
his many escapades and assignments.
Returning
to the abbey from visiting priest friends in Baraboo on a cold, icy winter day
in 1997, “Uncle Mike” was killed in a fiery car crash at the age of 68.
It was on that same date - January 27th - fifty years earlier in 1947,
that he had been a passenger in the car of Fraters Walter Ziegler and Thomas
Filbrand which crashed killing both Fraters Ziegler and Filbrand.
