Henry Schmitz

ebook History of Watertown, Wisconsin

Father Henry Schmitz

1898 - 1975

Watertown Daily Times, 04 16 1975

Father Henry Schmitz, chaplain at St. Joseph’s Home for the Aged, passed away Tuesday evening at the Watertown Memorial Hospital. He was 77.

Funeral services will be held Friday at St. Henry’s Catholic Church with Bishop Cletus O’Donnell of the Madison Diocese officiating. Interment will follow in St. Mary’s Cemetery, Menomonee Falls.

Friends and relatives may call to pay their respects in the chapel of St. Joseph’s Home from 4 to 9 p.m. Thursday and at the church Friday from 9:30 a.m. until the time of the service.

The Schmutzler Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

Father Schmitz was born in Menomonee Falls Dec. 23, 1898, son of the later Mr. and Mrs. Henry Schmitz. He attended St. Francis Seminary, Milwaukee, and concluded his studies in theology at St. Mary’s Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio.

He was ordained to the priesthood at a ceremony held April 13, 1925, in St. James Cathedral, Rockford, Ill. His first mass was said in his home parish St. Mary’s Church, Menomonee Falls.

After his ordination he was assigned to St. James in Rockford for a year. Before coming to Watertown, Father Schmitz served as assistant pastor of St. Joseph’s Church, Aurora, Ill., was pastor of St. Patrick’s Church, Maytown, Ill., served as chaplain at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Elgin, Ill., spent five years in North Dakota in the missions and as a high school teacher in Langdon, N.D. He also had a parish in Frederic.

Father Schmitz celebrated his golden anniversary in the priesthood in a concelebrated mass Sunday at the home. Concelebrants were his grand nephew, Father Michele Antoine of Ashland, Mont., and Father Raymond Dunn, pastor of St. Henry’s Church. A Dinner for the immediate family followed.

A reception in honor of the 50th anniversary of Father Schmitz was held at the home Sunday from 3 to 5 p.m. A second concelebrated mass had been scheduled for Tuesday.