Page:Czecho-Slovak Student Life, Volume 18.djvu/370

one year to a special study of theology and the Hebraic and Arabic languages, shortly after matriculating at the Prague University (Department of Theology). He occupied his spare moments in studying French and English.

John Klein, father of Alois J. Klein, and his family moved to America in 1881 and left the promising student behind to complete his training. It was while studying in Prague that he determined to give his life to missionary work in America, and in 1888, with the consent of Bishop Thomas Bonacum of Lincoln, Neb., he set out for Klagenfurt, Carinthia, where he finished his studies and where he was ordained to the priesthood on June 15, 1889.

Then the young priest set sail for the United States, arriving on Oct. 31, 1889, and reported for duty in Nebraska and was appointed rector of St. Wenceslaus Church at Wahoo. Here he was instrumental in erecting an elegant Church.

From this point the accomplishments of Father Klein in the Nebraska religious field read like a veritable fairy tale. On December 10, 1891, he was transfered to St. Ludmila’s parish at Crete, where he restored confidence and extricated the congregation from embarrassing financial and other difficulties.

On September 5, 1893, he arrived at Brainard as its first resident pastor and established a rectory. Weston formed, until 1901, a part of this ecclesiastical precinct. Father Klein was instrumental in enlarging the church building (1891), adding five lots to the church site, increasing the parish membership from 32 families to 140 families, completing the organization of the congregation and founding three sodalities.

During the “Bohemian Ethnological Exhibition” in Prague (1895), Father Klein paid a visit to the land of his birth. Upon his return he organized branches of the “Catholic Workman” at Brainard, Weston, Dwight, Touhy and Loma. Dwight was then a promising mission of his church and there Father Klein held services in the public school-house until a church was erected in 1899. In 1901, while in charge of St. Anthony’s Church at Bruno, he built a new parsonage.

Turning his attention to Dwight, he furnished and improved the church structure, founded a number of benevolent societies, added one acre of land to the cemetery, enlarged the church site, purchased a rectory and erected a large hall for the use of the organizations connected with the church. In 1909, he founded a mission in Bee where he built a church in 1910. In the fall of that year, the Dwight and Bee missions became independent pastorates and a priest from Moravia took charge.

From the branch of the “Catholic Workman” organized in Loma in 1902, the present congregation sprang and a church for its use was built in 1911. Though Father Klein has done exceptionally valuable pioneer work in so many mission movements during the crucial times of the nineties and subsequently, still his main work is the Holy Trinity Church in Brainard where he endeavors to embody his ideals and where he pours forth the dreams and ardor of his youth. When he assumed charge in 1889, the church was a mere unplastered shell which twenty-eight members of the congregation laboriously built in 1888, and maintained during the years of the drought.

As a first step he organized the people into various societies, the chief one being the beautifully uniformed “Knights of St. George”. For their use a hall was built in 1902 and it was so constructed that is was converted into a parish library soon after. Then he turned his attention to the church building.

A vigorous campaign for funds was instituted which after long and persevering efforts, hampered by reluctance and even opposition, ended successfully in 1906. As a consequence a stately brick and stone edifice, an ornament to the town, whose main steeple rises 109 feet above the street