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One Decision - Many Blessings
Have you read the book by Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven? Like Eddie, the main character of the book, we don’t know how our words and actions affect the lives of others until we arrive in heaven. I can, however, tell you how our lives, as Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Cross, were blessed by Rev. Henry Van Den Wymelenberg.
During the Protestant Reformation, the Crosier community of priests and brothers suffered hard times. But in 1841, a revival of the community began with the appointment of Fr. Henry Van Den Wymelenberg as superior. With faith and energy, he reestablished houses in Belgium and the Netherlands. Then between 1850 and 1851, Master General Van Den Wymelenberg sent four members of the community, including young Fr. Edward Daems, to Little Chute, WI to establish a Crosier foundation in the United States.
Fr. Edward Daems |
The missionaries faced challenges unknown in Europe as they served the immigrants in northeast Wisconsin - poverty, disease, and great distances between settlements. In 1852, rather than living in one community house, one Crosier priest was serving in Little Chute, one in Manitowoc Rapids, and Fr. Daems was in Bay Settlement. This was not what the Master General had envisioned.
Efforts to establish a foundation were renewed in 1856 when Fr. Van Den Wymelenberg sent three additional Crosiers with Fr. Daems to Bay Settlement. On October 9, 1857, the Church of the Exultation of the Holy Cross was dedicated in Bay Settlement. In addition to Holy Cross Church, this parish had fourteen additional small churches and a chapel.
Details are unclear, but we know that by the fall of 1859, Fr. Daems was the only Crosier priest left to serve the people of this vast parish. (Note: The Crosiers would not return to the United States until 1910. At that time, a Crosier foundation would be established Butler, MN.)
Fr. Daems continued his loving and generous service in Bay Settlement and the Door Peninsula until his death in 1879. In 1868, he asked four women to assist him with the religious education of the children. These women, Christine Rousseau, Mary Van Lanen, Pauline La Plant, and Pius Doyle, became the first members of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Cross.
About the time of Fr. Daems’ death, John Van Den Wymelenberg, Fr. Henry Van Den Wymelenberg’s cousin, came to the United States. After working for a time in New York, he moved to Wrightstown where he married, worked as a cabinet maker, ran a general store, and raised his family. John’s son Arnold worked with his father in the store and later would work and then own a hardware store in Green Bay, Van’s Hardware. Arnold’s sister Anna worked as a housekeeper for diocesan priest, Rev. John De Wild for 52 years.
Arnold knew of his family’s connection with the Crosiers. One time while traveling through Illinois, he became acquainted with the priests and brothers. In friendship, Arnold established a fund to support the priests and brothers. His sister Anna developed her own friendship with the Crosiers. This friendship is visible in the their current chapel in Onamia, MN where you can see the stained glass window dedicated to Master General Henry Van Den Wymelenberg and donated by Anna Van Den Wymelenberg and Fr. De Wild.
Ruth (Van Den Wymelenberg) Merkey,
Sister Ann Cravillion, and
Gerald Van Den Wymelenberg |
The distant connection of the Sisters with the Van Den Wymelenberg family became much more personal when Sister Ann Cravillion cared for a patient, Bill Merkey, at St. Mary’s Hospital in Green Bay. Bill’s wife Ruth turned out to be Arnold Van Den Wymelenberg’s daughter. Bill passed away, but the friendship of Sister Ann and Ruth and the Sisters with the Arnold Van Den Wymelenberg family has continued to grow. The friendship included Ruth’s brothers John and his wife Janet (both deceased) and Gerald and his wife Marie (now deceased) and her sister Marcy Albertson and her husband Ovid (both deceased) right into the next generation of Van Den Wymelenbergs.
Master General Henry Van Den Wymelenberg could not have foreseen the blessing his decision to send young Fr. Edward Francis Daems to Bay Settlement, WI would be for the people of Holy Cross Parish, for the Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Cross, and for his cousin John’s family.
Special thanks to Ruth Merkey and the Crosier Fathers and Brothers for their help with this article
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