Fr. Peter Beckman (1911-1996)

Father Peter Beckman is among those monks born and raised at St. John’s Parish, Burlington, Iowa, which was under the care of the monks of Atchison for 100 years.  The community had taken it over from the Jesuits in 1890 and put it in the hands of the Diocese of Davenport in 1990.

Paul Beckman was born Dec. 11, 1911, in Burlington.  He attended St. John’s High School there for two years and finished at St. Benedict’s High School, Atchison.  He entered the community and made first vows as Frater Peter, July 11, 1931.  He finished theological studies at the Abbey and was ordained in 1936.  He had begun graduate studies at Louvain, Belgium, but the outbreak of World War II interrupted those studies.  He finished his work at the Catholic University of America and received a doctorate in history in 1943.  From 1943-46 he served in the United States Army as a chaplain in the Pacific Theater of operations. 

Father Peter taught history for 25 years at St. Benedict’s College and one year, 1971-72 at the newly formed Benedictine College.  He began parish work at his home parish, St. John’s, in 1972-73, was at Effingham and Purcell 1973-78.  While Father Peter served Effingham and Purcell he was the “easy” rider of a motorcycle until Abbot Brendan asked for the keys.  For less than a year he was at Frankfort and Blue Springs. 

He was associate pastor at Sts. Peter and Paul, Seneca, Kan., 1979-84, then returning to the Abbey where he died in his sleep at he Atchison Hospital March 27, 1996. 

Father Peter was a man of many interests that included ham radio, watercolor, and photography.  His watercolors are on the walls of the Abbey Guesthouse.  He often partnered with his fellow historian, Father Victor Gellhaus, in making local trips with Dennis Mc Carthy to water color local rural scenes.

He will be remembered by his confreres as the author of the centennial history of our community, Kansas Monks.  It is real history, candidly done that brings to life many of the earlier and the later monks, many genuine characters, who made St. Benedict’s Abbey.  He paints a particularly good picture of Abbot Innocent Wolf, of the early pioneer monastic circuit riders, the financial problems and the attempt to change St. Benedict’s College from a glorified high school to a modern college.  This book has been read aloud in the monastic refectory at least three times, the latest being during the Abbey’s Sesquicentennial.  He wrote his doctoral dissertation on The Catholic Church on the Kansas Frontier.