1949.
Great grandson of Franz Xavier Boeding (1796 - 1878)
Arnold Aloysius Boeding was born on a farm near St. Lucas, Fayette County, Iowa on October 7, 1898 at 8:30 p.m., as recorded in the family bible. Arnold was the seventh child and fifth son in a family of eleven children born to Edward Otto Boeding, a Westphalian emigrant, and Elizabeth Lohman Boeding, a native of West Point, Iowa. He was baptized the day after his birth by his uncle, the Reverend Francis Xavier Boeding, then pastor of St. Luke's Catholic Church in St. Lucas. Sponsors for the baptism were his uncle Rev. Arnold A. Boeding and aunt Clara Lohman (later Mrs. Barney Vonderhaar).
In 1905, Arnold was enrolled in St. Luke's Catholic School, conducted by the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in St. Lucas. When he was nine, the family moved to Seneca, Nemaha County, Kansas where he completed the grammar school grades at St. Peter and Paul Catholic School, conducted by the Benedictine Sisters. Arnold's father, Edward, died unexpectedly in 1910 but through the courageous efforts of his mother, the family stay together and prosper through the years.
Arnold's decision to become a priest came early. From his earliest years he wanted to be a priest. He wrote: "The idea of the priesthood as a vocation crystallized when I was in the fifth grade in Sts. Peter and Paul school in Seneca. One day the sister (teacher) sent me to the rectory to deliver a message to the pastor, Rev. Lawrence Theis, OSB. He was seated at his desk. I stood at the desk opposite him. As I turned to leave he asked if I had thought of what vocation I would choose in life. I answered I had always hoped to be a priest. He rose, leaned over the desk, grasped me by both shoulders and said slowly; 'Arnold, don't you ever give that up.' At that moment, the priesthood became a firm purpose in my life."
Arnold's preparation for the priesthood began in the fall of 1911 when he entered high school at Loras Academy in Dubuque, Iowa. He continued his education at Loras College, graduating from there in 1919. After an extra year of philosophy at Kenrick Seminary in Webster Groves (St. Louis), Missouri, he began his theology training at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota (1920 - 1924).
During his third year of Theology, Arnold became ill. After it was over the doctor's verdict was: Go to a warmer climate or tuberculosis of the throat was the alternative. Through the influence of a priest-friend from the Diocese of San Antonio, Arnold applied to the Texas diocese for admission. He arrived in San Antonio in June 1924 to be examined personally by the Bishop. He was naturally found to be a fit candidate for orders, and following private retreats for the orders of subdeacon, deacon and priest, he was ordained to the priesthood at San Fernando Cathedral, San Antonio, by Bishop Arthur J. Drossaerts on July 25, 1924. After ordination, Father Arnold celebrated his first High Mass at Sts. Peter and Paul's Catholic Church in his old home town of Seneca, Kansas.
Father Arnold's first assignment in the San Antonio diocese was at St. John's in San Antonio, an assignment of short duration. His first permanent assignment was as an assistant at St. Michael's Church, Weimar; then to St. Philip's in El Campo, followed by a posting at St. Mary's in Fredricksburg and the returning to San Antonio at St. Leo's.
The Diocese of Amarillo was established in the late 1920's and Father Arnold volunteered for service there. He was appointed pastor of St. Boniface Church in Olfen on January 27, 1927 and continued in that capacity until November 1932. He also held an interim appointment as chancellor of the new diocese (1927-28) and rector of the Cathedral - two assignments of short duration. In 1929, he also assumed responsibility for St. Joseph's in Rowena, a few miles west of Olfen. During his stay here, Father Arnold established many friendships that he would renew some forty years later.
After leaving Olfen, Father Arnold served as chaplain of St. John's Hospital in San Angelo (1932 - 34). From 1934 to 1936, he taught at Prince Memorial in Amarillo. His next appointment was as administrator of St. Mary's Parish in Groom, and two years later he became its pastor. Father Arnold held that position until April 1942, just after the United States began its involvement in the Second World War. He made severl trips back to Kansas in the years prior to World War II. At times he would pick up hitchhikers along the way in order to help him drive, and help keep himself awake, while driving over a lot of very rough roads on the six or seven hundred mile journey. The obituaries of two of his brothers show that he made this trip to conduct their funerals.
Father Arnold had submitted an application to become a United States Army chaplain sometime prior to 1942. Initially it was turned down because he exceeded the age limit. Immediately before the United States entered the war, the age limit was raised to 45 (he was 43 at the time) and so he qualified. He was the first priest of the Diocese of Amarillo to be accepted as United States Army chaplain during World War II.
Father Arnold served in the United States Army from 1942 until shortly after the end of World War II. His first assignment placed him at the Fort Leavenworth Disciplnary Barracks for 23 months as Chaplain. He found this assignment most rewarding, in his words: "Never in my priesthood, has the blessing of God on my work been so evident as it was in this appointment. Here I baptized twenty-three converts; and when I left for my next assignment, forty-seven were under instruction for baptism. Also, during this time, for the first time in the history of the Disciplinary Barracks, the sacrament of Confirmation was administered in the chapel (inside the walls)."
First Lieutenant Boeding spent the first twenty-three months of his service as chaplain at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the prison for all of the U.S. armed forces. Later promoted to the rank of Captain, Father Arnold was moved to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, to serve with the 134th General Hospital; in mid-1944, he was deployed with that unit to overseas duty in New Guinea. He spent eight months there before returning to the United States with an assignment as Post Chaplain at Fort Riley, Kansas.
When the war ended, at the suggestion of Bishop FitzSimon of Amarillo Father Arnold went directly to the Veterans' Administration Chaplain Service. Here he served as an assistance chaplain in the Denver Regional Office, and as chaplain at the VA mental hospitals in Knoxville, Iowa and Perry Point, Maryland. His last assignment with the VA was in Washington, D.C. as assistant to the Director of Chaplain Service for supervision, for seven and one half years. While working at the VA, Father arnold was able to make a Jubilee visit to Rome in 1950.
Father Arnold retired from the Veterans Administration in 1956 but this was not the end of his ministry. He returned to the Diocese of Amarillo and was appointed pastor of St. Joseph's Church, Rowena, a position he held from January 1957 to October 1958. In November 1958 he became Chaplain at the McKnight State Tuberculosis Hospital in Carlsbad where he remained for four years. While he was on this assignment, the Diocese of San Angelo was created and he became one of its original members. From August 1962 to June 1963, he was pastor of St. John's Parish in Hermleigh, and from June 1963 to June 1964 he was pastor of Holy Family Parish in Sweetwater. In June 1964 he retired - for the first time. However, the following year he was needed in the Diocese and so served for four months as pastor of St. Mary's Parish, Odessa. Later that year he became rector of Sacred Heart Cathedral in San Angelo, a position he held until March 1967. That month, Father Arnold retired - for the second time. However, he continued to stay active, serving as Vicar General during the episcopate of Bishop Thomas Tschoepe and caring for Calvary Cemetery. He also served on the board of diocesan consultors. On May 5, 1973 he moved to St. Francis Village near Fort Worth, a residence for retired persons. Here he would celebrate his Golden Jubilee as a priest.
Many letters that Father Arnold received and kept after his second retirement were from relatives in Iowa, indicating that this might have been the time that he began his research into the Boeding family history. He made several trips back to Iowa and Kansas, tracking down information on the generations that preceded his and gathering information on those that followed. Many of his more distant relatives in and around the Lee County, Iowa area remember his visits during the 1970's. He also began translating the hundred or so letters his mother had kept, most of them written in old German script, that dated back to 1882.
On July 31, 1978, Father Arnold returned to the Diocese of San Angelo where he resides at the rectory of St. Joseph's Parish, Rowena. Here, he served as an assistant for the two churches in the Rowena area, St. Joseph's in town and St. Boniface's in the rural area in what used to be the town of Olfen. He continued his family history research, making a trip to Germany in 1979 and occasional trips back to the Midwest. In December of 1980, Father Arnold published the first of four pamphlets he had put together on the subject of the Boeding family history. This volume contained summaries of some of the letters his parents had exchanged around the turn of the century, old family photos and pictures of some of the significant documents of the familys' past. In the next four years, he would publish three more similar booklets and a 21 page family tree with more than 500 names of the descendants of his great grandfather, Franz Xavier Boeding (1796 - 1878).
Father Arnold was always happy to entertain visitors at the churches in the Rowena area, parishes he had served during may different time periods throughout his career. St. Boniface was perhaps his favorite, he spent many hours and a lot of his own money helping to refurbish the church in the years after the Second Vatican Council. He purchased the altar and had his parents' names carved in the stone. If it seemed like there was a lot of room in the pews, it was because Father Arnold made sure that there were several inches more between them than you would expect in most other Catholic churches. The beautiful stained glass and the wooden railings and pews make this church a wonderful reminder of the caring people who built and maintained it over the years.
As 1988 approached, Father Arnold's health began to deteriorate. He moved to a retirement home for priests in San Antonio. He became bed ridden in 1989 and died in August of that year.
Father Arnold's funeral was held at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Rowena, Texas. In attendance were 47 priests mostly from the Diocese of San Angelo(two of them bishops),some of the Sisters from the Diocese, a large part of the local Catholic population and a few relatives. The area around the altar was very crowded, for all the con-celebrants, and the church itself was quite full. Stephen Boeding, Father Arnold's grand nephew, his wife Nancy and their young son Stephen presented the gifts at the Requiem Mass. The Mass was a wonderful example of old Catholic traditions and a fitting tribute to a man so dedicated to his relgion and the community. Father Arnold was buried in a small cemetery located in a rural area between Olfen and Rowena, communities that he had served for so many years.
A memorial Mass was said for Father Arnold in Seneca, Kansas in September, 1989. It was attended by a number of his relatives. "Shorty", the only surviving brother, was presented with Father Arnold's chalice.
A summary of Father Arnold's assignments as a priest:
St. Michael's
Weimar, Texas
1924 - 1926
St. Philip's
El Campo, Texas
1926
St. Mary's
Fredericksburg, Texas
living at Olfen
1927
Sacred Heart Cathedral
Amarillo, Texas
1928
St. Joseph's
Rowena, Texas
1929 - 1932
St. John's Hospital
San Angelo, Texas
1933 - 1934
Price Memorial College
Amarillo, Texas
1935 - 1936
St. Mary's
Groom, Texas
1937 - 1943
U.S. Army Chaplain
various locations
1943 - 1946
V.A. Chaplain Service
various locations
1947 - 1956
McKnight State Tuberculosis Hospital
Carlsbad, Texas
1958 - 1962
St. Joseph's
Rowena, Texas
1962 - 1965
Retirement Village
San Antonio, Texas
1965 - 1972
St. Francis Retirement Village
Fort Worth, Texas
1973 - 1978
St. Joseph's
Rowena, Texas
1978 - 1987
Retirement Village
San Antonio, Texas
1987 - 1989