- ST.
NORBERT ABBEY
- DE
PERE, WISCONSIN, U.S.A.
- Rev.
Blaise J. Peters, O. Praem.
- b. Thursday, July 20,
1911 – d. Tuesday, Feb. 21, 1995
Our brother
Blaise Peters was born in Allouez in 1910 and graduated from St.
Norbert
High School
. After his freshman year at the
college, he joined the Order in 1933 and was solemnly professed in 1938.
As
a frat, Blaise was assigned to Southeast Catholic in 1936 and taught there until
1942. After being educated in business and accounting at LaSalle, Villanova,
Catholic University and the University of Wisconsin, from where he received an
M.A. in 1942, he began teaching at Central Catholic.
He joined the college teaching faculty in 1949 and also became a retreat
master.
In 1953, Blaise
was appointed pastor of
St. Louis
in Dykesville and in 1955, St. Joseph
in DePere.
In 1959 Blaise
began the planning of the re-location of St. Joe’s from the college campus,
purchasing 40 acres of land in the Town of
Lawrence
and having it annexed to the city of DePere
. In 1962 he directed the
construction of the school and convent of “The New St. Joe’s.” But Bishop
Bona would not allow the building of a church because Blaise refused to pay the
annual diocesan assessment required of parishes to subsidize students in
Catholic schools! Blaise
was a tough, demanding, opinionated man, who was difficult to persuade from his
point of view. But things
changed in his later life.
After
a theological renewal program in the ‘70’s and the completion of a CPE
program, Blaise became the chaplain and director of pastoral care at St. Joseph
Hospital in Eureka, California, where he remained until his death on Tuesday, February 21,
1995 at the age of 84.
