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• 1 media/Wendelin Meyer calling card.jpg media/1894 Wendelin cropped 2.jpg 2020-08-27T08:45:58-07:00 First Divine Word Missionary arrives in America 70 Brother Wendelin Meyer SVD stepped off the boat in Hoboken, NJ, which began 125 years of history of the Society of the Divine Word in North America image_header 2020-10-16T17:22:54-07:00 10/15/1895 The idea to send a member of the Society of the Divine Word to America came from Brother Wendelin himself. Previously an elementary school teacher, Joseph Meyer joined the Society in 1887 and took the religious name Brother Wendelin. He was assigned to the printing press at the SVD motherhouse in Steyl, Holland as a Brother who traveled throughout Europe to sell the Society’s publications, increasing its profile and its potential vocations. 
  
  In 1893, after a drought had left many German farmers without income (and consequently the Society with surplus publications), Wendelin saw the need to expand the SVD audience to America. Before his vocation called him, Wendelin had considered immigrating to America himself. Religious life had placed this plan to the wayside, but he knew there were thousands of German-speakers in the United States who would be interested in the Society. He approached the Procurator General, Rev. Nicolaus Blum SVD, with his idea and asked him to bring it to the attention of the Society’s founder, St. Arnold Janssen. Fr. Janssen, a leader known to think carefully before making decisions, considered this idea for two years before granting his approval.
  
  In 1895, Brother Wendelin set sail for the United States, arriving in Hoboken, NJ on October 15. He had arranged to stay with the Sisters of St. Francis, but nothing else was done to announce his arrival in America. He simply arrived with printed circulars introducing himself and the Society. He traded his services as a teacher in a local parochial school for English lessons with the parish priest.
  
  One year later Brother Homobonus SVD (born Joseph Stiller) arrived to assist Wendelin, and the pair began renting a house in Hoboken. In a history written by Rev. Franz Markert SVD, he paraphrases Brother Wendelin’s memoirs: “Brother Homobonus took very good care of the various housekeeping duties. But his culinary efficiency was still in an experimental state. Only after several months he had a half a dozen or so menus that were ‘well done.’ Brother Homobonus himself confesses not without humor that the results of his kitchen work were often not very perfect, and he sympathized with Brother Wendelin who had to be the guinea pig for his culinary experiments.”[1] But the Brothers would not be the only SVDs in North America for long.
  
  On September 27, 1897 SVD Revs. Johann Peil and Joseph Fischer, along with Brother Michael Fecken, arrived in New Jersey from Steyl. Fr. Peil was to serve as the first superior of the American mission. Unlike Fr. Janssen, Peil was known for being a man of quick, decisive action, and he wasted little time moving the SVDs out of Hoboken. Through his work as a traveling Brother, Wendelin had visited Philadelphia and made numerous connections with priests from Pennsylvania, who suggested meeting with Bp. Thomas McGovern of the Diocese of Harrisburg, PA . Due to a shortage of priests in his diocese, the bishop was willing to accept the group. He directed them to the town of Milton, PA where they could rent a house, the priests could work at a local parish, and the Brothers could continue their work traveling and selling SVD publications.
  
  Fr. Janssen gave Fr. Peil permission to accept this offer but made it clear that Milton would not be where the Society settled in North America. Although many Germans resided there, most were staunch Protestants. Fr. Janssen instructed them to instead look westward for a town to settle in; St. Louis, Cleveland, Chicago, and Iowa were all possibilities. The time in Milton would only be a brief chapter before they found their permanent base of operations elsewhere.
  
  On a trip to Chicago, Brother Wendelin heard from a diocesan priest about a 360-acre farm for sale north of the city, in the town of Shermerville, owned by a German Catholic orphanage. In the summer of 1898, Fr. Peil traveled across the East Coast and Midwest inspecting possible locations for the SVD’s first foundation in North America, but was most interested in the Shermerville property. After a year of negotiation between Peil, Chicago Archbishop Patrick Feehan, and Fr. Janssen, they agreed that the Society of the Divine Word would open a trade school for orphans in Shermerville, while assisting with local parish work and continuing their work selling SVD publications. On June 26, 1899, the purchase was finalized and the Society’s official work in North America began.
  
  
  [1] Rev. Franz Markert SVD, The Society of the Divine Word in North America Part One: 1895-1898. Manuscript. pg 24, Personnel files collection on Reverend Franz Markert, SVD.
  
  To learn more about the beginnings of the SVDs in North America, read Communities of the Word, Prelude: Milton, Pennsylvania by Rev. Thomas Krosnicki SVD.