OKGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any
format for profit or presentation by any other organization or
persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must
obtain the written consent of OKGenWeb State Coordinator.

Presentation here does not extend any permissions to the public. This
material can not be included in any compilation, publication,
collection, or other reproduction for profit without permission. Files
may be printed or copied for personal use only.
=====================================================================

BISHOP THEOPHILE MEERSCHAERT
Vol. 5, p. 1847

Born August 24, 1847, in the Village of Russignies, about an hour's
walk from the City of Renaix, in the Belgian Province of East
Flanders. His father was of that sturdy stock which has played so
great a part in the history of Northern Europe; the stock which was
first to declare its independence of feudalism to build up the great
manufacturing and commercial cities of the middle ages - Ghent,
Bruges, Lille, Audenarde and Ypres - cities of the guilds, the
Christian prototypes of our modern trade unions; cities which sent
forth their armies of tradesmen and mechanics, who, under the walls
of Courtrai, in 1302, humbled the pride of Philip the Fair and his
courtiers in the battle of the Golden Spurs. His mother was of that
other race of Belgium, Walloon, whose ancestors Caesar, in the
introduction to his History of the Gallic Wars, declares, "Of all
these, the bravest are the Belgians."

He was the eighth of ten children; a family of only average size in
that country even now. His earliest instruction was received in the
public school of his native village, as at that time the public
schools of Belgium were all Catholic. In 1859, at the age of twelve
years, his vocation to the priesthood must have been already marked,
for he entered the then recently founded Diocesan College of Renaix.
Here the child studied each day from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., making the
journey of three miles to and from home on foot. His first great
sorrow came during the first college year, on May 28, 1860, when his
mother died after an illness of only a few hours. His eldest sister,
Victorine, who had intended to enter the convent, at once took her
mother's place in the care of the growing family, remaining for their
sake in, but not of the world, a humble heroine of simple devotion to
duty. She, whom the Bishop loves to call his second mother, died
December 23, 1914, on the forty-second anniversary of his ordination
to the priesthood.

When the College of Renaix, which was then far from its present rank
as it now includes, besides a complete classical course, a famous
school of weaving and other manual training, could take him no
further in his studies, the young Theophile entered the diocesan
College of Audenarde in October 1864, whence he was graduated in
August 1868. While there, he devoted his leisure to the Society of
St. Vincent de Paul, and found in its work a suitable outlet for his
zeal and charity toward the sick and poor. He was successively
secretary and president of the local conference, and obtained from
the first the rare privilege of being allowed to visit the sick at
the hospital, which he did each week for four years.

The time was now at hand to begin his immediate training for the
priesthood; and as he was resolved to be a missionary in America,
young Mr. Meerschaert entered the American College at Louvain in
October 1868. Here he had as professors the famous Dupont and
Monsignor Cartuyvels, long the beloved vice-rector of Louvain
University. On June 10, 1870, he received minor orders; took the
irrevocable step to subdeaconship, December 17, 1870; was ordained
deacon June 3, 1871, and priest, December 23, 1871; remaining,
however, as a student in the American college until July, 1872.

It may not come amiss to notice here an incident of his seminary
days that will serve to shed some light upon his later life. A
neighbor in his village, who lived alone, had died. Victorine, his
sister, invited the young seminarian to come with her and prepare the
body for burial. The man had been dead nearly twenty-four hours when
they arrived. It was summer, and although he took hold bravely
enough, the flesh was weaker than the spirit. As she saw him about to
faint, Victorine cried out, "Shame on you: Is that the kind of man
who wants to be a missionary?" The lesson was never forgotten and
served to buoy him up through many a sickening ordeal in after years.

Now came the second great trial, the parting from home and friends.
To those who go abroad for a visit or for recreation, there is little
in this; yet even then there is frequently a reluctance at the last
moment that causes emotion. For those who leave home for a longer
period to study in preparing for life work, the trial is greater; yet
even here there is great hope of return to live at home; and the
knowledge that one's life is not being torn up by the roots to be
transplanted in an alien soil. But when we definitely leave behind
all that is dear, and know that if we ever do return it will be only
as a visitor; when we go forth to face what difficulties we know not,
and to give ourselves for strangers who may not appreciate or welcome
our sacrifice; to labor among people whose language, whose customs,
whose very outlook upon life is foreign and perhaps repugnant to our
own; and when we know that after all we need not go; that friends
without number would gladly bid us stay; ah then, there is something
to give up!

The Belgian loves his home and native land. This is abundantly shown
by the fact that although it is the most densely populated land upon
the face of the glove, and conditions of life are correspondingly
hard, yet the number of its emigrants is negligible. If our young
missionary, then, shed a few tears at parting, can we find it in our
hearts to blame him? Especially since through it all like so many of
his brave countrymen, his purpose never faltered, nor took one
backward look on what it left behind. On September 26, 1872, Father
Meerschaert left Russignies. He arrived in New York October 13th. His
first sea voyage was a long one, but was thoroughly enjoyed by the
young missionary, who was from the first an excellent sailor. He did
not tarry long to enjoy what to him must have been a new world full
of wonders, but proceeded as rapidly as circumstances and the then
slow and arduous means of transportation would permit, to report for
duty to Bishop Elder of Natchez, Mississippi, afterwards Archbishop
of Cincinnati.

The young priest was blessed in his bishop. A man whose combined
learning and true holiness with greatness of mind and soul and the
simplicity of an apostle, Bishop Elder was in deed as in word a
pattern to his flock. His angelic pity for the poor and suffering,
and his heroism during the repeated visitations of his war-scarred
diocese by the yellow fever, made him loved by both priests and
people.

On November 16, 1872, Father Meerschaert, after a few weeks at the
bishop's house, was sent to his first charge. No doubt he felt quite
flattered to think he was at once to be a pastor. This feeling,
however, promptly subsided after his first visit to his missions. His
parish consisted of the missions of Jordan River, Pearl River and
Wolf River, in Hancock and Harrison counties, along the seacoast.
Although invited to make his headquarters with a neighboring pastor
in a well established parish, he reserved this privilege for one week
in three months, and lived the rest of the time as best he could in
his own poor missions.

The first visit was not very encouraging. It was sixty miles through
the pinewoods and swamps to his destination, and the trip was made in
a little cart. Six or seven miles out, while fording a stream, his
valise fell out into the water. To add to his discomfort a northern
came up and it began to sleet and freeze. Father Meerschaert was
afraid that his aged driver would be ill, so, although he himself was
wet through the rescue of the precious valise, he wrapped the old man
in his cassock. They walked and drove alternately for twenty-five
miles, and at 3 o'clock in the afternoon arrived at the residence of
a Catholic family, a one-room house, where they sat down to a dinner
of rice and cabbage. It is safe to say that was the best rice and
cabbage the young priest had ever tasted. The aged driver was ill,
and there was not much room to spare, so Father Meerschaert walked
three miles to the home of a relative of his host to spend the night.
There he found a family of ten, again in a one-room house. The
evening meal was sweet potatoes, served alone. The missionary had not
yet learned to like them, so he concluded to wait for the second
course. But there was no second course! His bed was in the corncrib
upon a husk tick with one quilt for covering. Old sacks were hung
before the cracks in the corncrib to keep out the wind. On this bed
he lay down, fully dressed and tried to pray himself to sleep, while
the wind howled through the pines, and the latter kept up a continual
crashing as they rid themselves of their accumulated burden of
encrusted sleet. The next morning he set up a portable altar between
the beds in the house, and thus celebrated his first Holy Mass as
pastor in his new missions. As his feet were badly swollen from the
previous day's trip, he decided to return on horseback. The saddle
was not well girded and when he attempted to mount, it promptly
turned under the horse. Finally he got it securely fastened and rode
off. Being yet but an inexperienced horseman he got his horse into a
hole at the Wolf River ford, and was plunged into the icy water to
the hips. Before he could dry his clothes or obtain food he had to
ride through the cold three miles further to a farmhouse.

It will readily be seen from these incidents, that his people were
desperately poor. They were people of some education and refinement
but had lost all their wealth in the Civil war, then comparatively
recent. For the most part Catholics, they were sadly in need of
instruction. Many full grown and even old persons among them had
never made their first Confession or Communion, and knew next to
nothing of their religion. Added to this was a certain spirit of
hostility toward the church, and this spirit it was the task of the
young missionary to eradicate.

During the first winter he called his people to a week's encampment
at a central point. Here each day was begun with Mass, followed by a
solid forenoon's instruction on the catechism, the prayers, the
ceremonies of the church, etc. At noon a recess for lunch, and all
afternoon was again devoted to study and instruction. Confession
began Thursday, and Sunday morning nearly a hundred, ranging from
sixteen to seventy years, made their first Holy Communion. All
received confirmation at the hands of Bishop Elder at Bay St. Louis,
February 2, 1873.

Father Meerschaert was changed to Ocean Springs in August 1874, and
had been in his new parish not quite a year when yellow fever broke
out. The first cases occurred in the latter part of June, but the
epidemic reached its greatest virulence in September and October.
From the first outbreak the young pastor was in the thick of the
danger. He did not confine himself to spiritual ministrations, but
busied himself with nursing the sick, Catholics and non-Catholics
alike, sitting up with them every alternate night, as a rule, and by
word and example heartening the people to care for their own
afflicted ones, instead of fleeing in panic to a place of safety, and
leaving husbands, wives or children to die without consolation, as
was so often the case in other communities. Finally, on the last
Friday in October, after having spent the whole night by the bedside
of a dying German, he was called by a Protestant old lady, one of
those who thought Catholics so bad that they would not even sell
vegetables to the priest, but who said in calling him: "Mr. Priest,
my neighbor is sick and wants you. She is a Catholic and I know you
will do her good." It was three miles in the country and the
transportation was apostolic; that is, on foot. After he had given
the sacraments to the dying girl, "Mr. Priest," said the old lady,
"you are sick, too?" "No," replied Father Meerschaert, "Only a bad
cold." "But you look bad; perhaps you are afraid?" "Well, hardly,
after nursing the sick for eight weeks." "Well, if you take the
fever, send for me; I will come and nurse you." The following day,
Saturday, she came after Mr. Priest to come and bury the dead girl,
and on Sunday, during Mass the premonitory symptoms appeared. After
Mass came the chill; and a non-Catholic, whose daughter was being
instructed for first communion, put the priest to bed. On Tuesday he
suffered a relapse, and for a week his life was despaired of, as he
had even the black vomit, considered a sure sign of death. The next
day, though still unable to sit up, he was brought six miles into the
country in a spring wagon, supported by a man on each side, to give
the last sacraments to the little girl he had been instructing for
first holy communion, the daughter of the man who had put him to bed.
He was brought back home, arriving at half past one in the morning.
The girl died the same morning at nine.

In 1878, while on his first visit to Europe, he learned that the
yellow fever had again broken out in Mississippi, and hurried back to
his flock. This epidemic was worse than the preceding one and out of
twenty-six priests, six died with the fever, and thirteen sisters.
During this second epidemic, Father Meerschaert had to attend, not
only his parishioners, but those of Biloxi, and Pascagoula as well,
as the pastors of both these places were down with fever.

In June, 1879, Father LEDUC, then pastor of Bay St. Louis, was sent
away on sick leave, and Father Meerschaert was sent to replace him
until his return. In November 1880, he was appointed to Natchez,
where he remained until his appointment as Vicar Apostolic of the
Indian Territory. In Natchez he continued the same course which had
so endeared him to the people in his former parishes. No one, whether
Protestant, Catholic, Jew or atheist ever fell ill, without being
visited by Father Meerschaert and no one who was not glad to call him
friend. After the coming of Bishop JANSSENS, afterwards Archbishop of
New Orleans, in May 1881, Father Meerschaert became acting vicar
general, and after the death of Father GRIGNON in April, 1887, he
received the title. Bishop Janssens was promoted to New Orleans
August 6, 1888, and Father Meerschaert was designated Administrator
of the Diocese of Natchez until the coming of the new bishop. Bishop
HESLIN arrived in Natchez June 23, 1889, and appointed Father
Meerschaert again vicar general.

On April 20, 1891, Archbishop Janssens received a cablegram that
Father Meerschaert was selected as Vicar Apostolic of the Indian
Territory. The news reached Natchez the same night at 3:30, but as
Father Meerschaert was out visiting the sick; he did not receive it
until 6 o'clock in the morning. The announcement was made in
Consistory on May 7, 1891, and on June 11th, the bulls appointing him
Bishop of Sidyma and Vicar Apostolic of the Indian Territory were
issued. The new bishop-elect made his retreat preparatory to
consecration at Jefferson College in New Orleans, from August 27th to
September 3d. His consecration took place in the cathedral at
Natchez, September 8, 1891. The consecrator was his dear friend,
Archbishop Janssens, assisted by Bishops FITZGERALD of Little Rock,
and Heslin of Natchez.

The consecration of the new bishop was, most appropriately the
grandest church function witnessed in Natchez up to that time, or
even since. Prelates, priests and people vied with one another to do
honor to the man, who, after many years of arduous labor among the
people of Mississippi, was now called by the voice of the Supreme
Pastor to a greater but no less trying field. Among the testimonials
of regard received by Bishop Meerschaert on this occasion were, a
purse of $700, full pontifical robes, crozier, mitres, pectoral cross
and chain, chalices, etc. On the evening of his consecration he was
tendered a public reception by the citizens of Natchez, and ion the
following evening, by the colored people. While they could not but
rejoice at the honor bestowed upon one so dear to them, still their
hearts were saddened at the thought that these honors signalized
their separation from one whom they all, irrespective of religion,
had grown accustomed to call "Father."

Our Bishop's first Holy Mass in his new vicariate was celebrated in
the convent at Purcell in the early morning of September 19, 1891. He
arrived at Guthrie; the place designated by the Congregation of the
Propaganda as his residence, the same day, and was met at the station
by Governor STEELE, numerous officials of Oklahoma Territory, and
other prominent citizens.

Let us now glance briefly at the conditions existing in the new
vicariate, comprising what is now the State of Oklahoma, but at that
time know as Oklahoma and Indian Territory. Truly a beautiful land,
but still slumbering in the ignorance of childhood regarding the
bounteous material resources hidden within its breast, and having as
yet no idea of the greatness a few short years would bring. Vast
reaches of its area were as yet forbidden to the settler. The only
inhabited portion of Oklahoma territory comprised the counties of
Logan, Kingfisher, Oklahoma, and Canadian, with a part of Lincoln,
Pottowatomie, and Cleveland. The population of this territory was
less than 6,000 souls. The Indian Territory with its five civilized
tribes and some smaller tribal governments, together with a
comparatively small number of whites and negroes, numbered less than
200,000. Of railroads, there were only what were now known as the
main lines of the M. K. & T., the Santa Fe, and the north and south
line of the Rock Island, the latter terminating at El Reno. In the
Indian Territory there were no laws but the tribal governments, and
this portion of the future state was largely a refuge to the lawless
of other states. There were but sixteen priests, all told; and nearly
half of them were but more than fully occupied with the labors and
trials incident to the solid foundation and upbuilding of College and
Indian School at Sacred Heart. The number of secular priests was
three. The total number of baptisms the first year was 347, of
marriages, 52, and of burials, 78; while the total Catholic
population, white, Indian and colored, was 7,994, and the total
number of children in the Catholic College and schools was 766.

One of our bishop's first cares was to visit the confirm in every
part of his vicariate. Though he was then, as he has been ever since,
received with honor, loyalty, and the affection which those who know
him best understand as well, yet the physical labor of traversing so
great an area largely by wagon, fording streams, braving storms, and
enduring the hardships inseparable from travel in a new, wild
country, was always great. He had now, however, to concern himself
more and more with the spiritual burdens and financial
responsibilities of his position. He has traveled a great deal, both
in and out of the state; and has always made good use of his travels,
especially his trips to Europe, to obtain young and zealous priests
and has employed the donations of the charitably disposed to assist
those laboring in the poorer missions, as well as to provide for the
education of those who desire to devote their lives to missionary
work, and who would otherwise be prevented by lack of means. He has
always made his house a home for priests, and many a weary
missionary, coming to see the bishop after months of discouragement
and almost hopeless, has received refreshment, both material and
spiritual, and after a short rest has departed with courage renewed
for his field of labor.

On August 23, 1905, the vicariate was erected in the Diocese of
Oklahoma with the Episcopal See at Oklahoma City. Since that time, as
before, its growth has been steady, even during the reaction which
followed the early boom days. By way of comparison with the
statistics given for the first year of our bishop's presence here we
see that in 1915 there were in the diocese 71 secular and 34 regular
priests, 64 churches, with residence priests, 84 missions with
churches, 127 stations, and 4 chapels. Besides these there are 12
Brothers of the Sacred Heart in Muskogee, and in the diocese 320
members of religious sisterhoods. There are 15 ecclesiastical
students, 3 colleges for boys, Sacred Heart, Muskogee, and the
Catholic University in Shawnee; 238 college students, two academies
for young ladies, with 190 boarders, 2 hospitals, St. Anthony's in
Oklahoma City and St. Mary's Infirmary in McAlester; St. Joseph's
Orphanage at Oklahoma City, with 70 orphans; 39 schools for white, 8
for Indian, and 2 for colored children with a total of 4,972 pupils
and a total of 5,152 young people under Catholic care. There were
during the year 1,620 baptisms, of whom 201 were converts; 387
marriages and 365 burials, and the Catholic population was 40,633.

It must not, however, be imagined that everything has been easy
sailing in the diocese during all these years. The bishop has had his
trials, and they have been both many and heavy. The one thing that
has sustained him when everything looked darkest has been his spirit
of prayer. He has always enjoyed to a very high degree the love and
loyalty of both his priests and his people, and forsooth the hope and
prayer of all is -- "May he be still our bishop and our Father for
many years to come."

Typed for OKGenWeb by Kathy Bridges, 27 July 1999.

SOURCE: Thoburn, Joseph B., A Standard History of Oklahoma, An
Authentic Narrative of its Development, 5 v. (Chicago, New York: The
American Historical Society, 1916).