Abbot Martin Veth (1874-1944)

There is an entire chapter on Abbot Martin in Kansas Monks, by Fahter Peter Beckman, OSB.What is written there one could hardly improve.  Abbot Martin was thoroughly formed, particularly by his studies in Rome and German background, in the European Monastic tradition.  This seems to be symbolized by the very design of the Abbey building, Tudor Gothic, to match the St. Benedict Hall.  The Abbey perched high on the bluffs of the Missouri River was, perhaps, inspired by a visit to Ettal!  Abbot Martin leaned heavily on the atmosphere and studies at Sant’Anselmo to form his young and promising monks.  He encouraged their travel to monastic centers in Europe during their vacations.  His spirituality was thoroughly monastic, evidenced by conferences to his own monks and to the Sisters at Mount St. Scholastica.  

The regimen of the Abbey community seems to leave nothing to chance.  Abbot Martin responded to the financial crises of the community in hard times and was wise in his choice of valued members of the community for advice and counsel.  Chief among them were Prior Gerard Heinz, Father Edmund Pusch and Father Bonaventure Schwinn.  He was very cautious with respect to changes in the rather European of St. Benedict’s College but he gradually bent to the persuasion of Father Sylvester Schmitz and the faculty committee to creating what became the modern St. Benedict’s College.  Abbot Cuthbert McDonald was elected in 1942 as coadjutor, and Abbot Martin died of cancer at the Atchison Hospital, December 12, 1944.