Fr. Henry Lemke (1796-1882)

Peter Lemke was born at Rehna, Germany, on July 27, 1796.  Serving as a Lutheran pastor, he made his profession of faith in the Catholic Church in April 1824, and was ordained in April 1826.  In 1834, Father Peter set out for American to serve as a missionary.  Experiencing the need for Germany missionaries in American, he encouraged Father Boniface Wimmer, of St. Michael’s Abbey, Metten, Germany, to obtain permission to found St. Vincent Archabbey.  Father Peter joined St. Vincent, taking the name of Henry, but struggled in his relationship with the soon-to-be Abbot Boniface.

Shortly after St. Vincent was raised to the status of an Abbey, while Abbot Boniface was in Germany, Father Henry headed west to the Territory of Kansas in December 1855.  When Abbot Boniface returned to St. Vincent to find Father Henry gone, he wrote to him, saying, “O Henry, Henry, what folly has taken possession of you!”  Feeling a tinge of regret, Father Henry rationalized his absence with the need for missionaries on the frontier.  In February 1856, he approached Bishop John Baptiste Miege, of the Kansas Territory, to petition Abbot Boniface to allow him to stay in Kansas, and to even ask for additional monks.  Those reinforcements came in 1857, thus officially founding St. Benedict’s Priory.

The book Kansas Monks says the following, “Father Henry was a restless and cantankerous man… Nevertheless, God managed to make use of him.  He accepted real hardship in his zeal for souls… [He] urged the usefulness of Benedictines in the American missions as early as 1835, encouraged Father Wimmer to come, and was a pioneer in the technique of encouraging Catholic settlers to form colonies.  He is indelibly a part of the early history of St. Vincent, of the beginning of St. Benedict’s, and of the founding of St. Elizabeth Convent in New Jersey.”

Father Henry Lemke passed away November 29, 1882.