Education:
Ordained:
Theresa Breker
St. Francis Seminary, Milwaukee, WI
St. John's Seminary, Collegeville, MN
May 1, 1893
| Parents:
Education: Ordained: |
Henry Welp Theresa Breker St. Francis Seminary, Milwaukee, WI St. John's Seminary, Collegeville, MN May 1, 1893 |
|
| Children: | Frances Elizabeth | Nov. 16, 1895 | † 1984 |
| Notes: |
In THE PEOPLE OF ST. PATRICK by Vincent A. Yzermans, (1990)
Father Francis is lauded as "the only priest who served two different
terms as pastor of St. Patrick's. He was born in Chicago on
May 16, 1858, and made his studies for the priesthood first at
St. Francis Seminary, Milwaukee, and later at St. John's Seminary,
Collegeville, MN. The future Bishop of St. Cloud, Otto Zardetti,
was his professor of theology in Milwaukee. Welp's attraction for
his former seminary teacher prompted him to join the local Church
of St. Cloud. He was the tenth priest Bishop Zardetti ordained for
the local church. On the other hand, the bishop surely had great
confidence in the young priest for he appointed Father Welp to be
pastor of St. Patrick's less than three months after his ordination on
April 30, 1893. After his one year in St. Patrick's Father Welp served
in the parish in McCauleyville (a parish which no longer exists located
near Breckenridge), Rice, Padua, Fergus Falls, Elizabeth, Melrose
and Alexandria.
"He returned to serve as pastor of St. Patrick's from December 1919 to January 1924. After leaving St. Patrick's he was named pastor of St. Andrew's parish, Greenwald. He remained there for eleven years during which time a new rectory was built. He retired in July, 1935, at age 77, and lived in St. Otto's Home, Little Falls, until his death ten years later on August 27, 1945." Welp died on August 27, 1945 of cardiac failure at St. Gabriel's Hospital in Little Falls, MN at the age of 87. He was buried three days later at the Religious Cemetary in Little Falls. Connie Balder Mickolajak talks about Father Francis Welp: "This man took advantage of Anna Delaney [Balder] when she was just 16 years old. She was sent to a church-run home for unwed mothers, St. Vincent's Infant Asylum, in Chicago. Great-grandmother Elizabeth Crowley went and retrieved grandma [Anna] and the child, Frances and brought them back to her home. Elizabeth raised the child, and she married Ben Albright and raised her children on a farm near the church. "When he [Father Welp] returned to St. Patrick's he even he saw both his daughter and his grandchildren in church. Ruth, Frances' daughter, told me with tears in her eyes and a quiver in her voice, that both she and her brother, Ralph, received their First Communion from him. She found out the truth upon her mother's death in 1984. One can only wonder why the church would send him back to the same parish. Obviously, they must have known that Anna had moved to North Dakota, but the child and her grandmother were still in the parish. Now some possible reasons for Frances' and Ben's move to another parish in Sauk Rapids is clear, and also the name grandma chose for the child (Frances) seems clear." |
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