Visionary priest, Father Alexander Berghold - for a century unremembered but not forgotten

Because he was here . . .

Father Alexander Berghold was a central figure in the building, development and history of the New Ulm area and the Diocese of New Ulm in the late 1880's to 1900's. To honor his tireless and lasting contributions, the dream of an Alexander Berghold memorial, under the direction of Bishop John C. Nienstedt will soon be a reality.

Among his many talents and accomplishments:

• Served 20 mission stations, many of which became parishes within the footprints of the current New Ulm diocese;
• Founded and was first pastor of Holy Trinity parish for two decades;
• Founded St. Michael's Academy, the first school, the forerunner of New Ulm Area Catholic Schools;
• Successfully petitioned the founder of the Sisters of Christian Charity to send teaching nuns for the school;
• Founded St. Alexander Hospital and Home for the Aged, the forerunner of today's New Ulm Medical Center and Oak Hills Living Center;
• Successfully petitioned the Sisters of Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ to staff the hospital and home for the aged.

a missionary. . .

Alexander Berghold was born on October 14, 1838 in Dirnreith, near Graz, Austria. He was a theology student in Graz when recruited by Father Francis Pierz, an earlier Minnesota missionary. Arriving in America on May 1, 1864, he was ordained in St.Paul on October 26, 1864. He peti-tioned Bishop Thomas Langdon Grace for an assignment to New Ulm. After a brief pastorate in Belle Plaine, he arrived in New Ulm on December 26, 1868 to a city where the sentiment toward Catholicism had been restrained.

a builder. . .

Because Father Berghold’s mission of founding the parish of Holy Trinity is well known, let us consider his wider achievements. Always the promoter, perpetrator and practitioner, Berghold served 20 missions from Holy Trinity parish. Among them: Swan Lake in Nicollet County; Sleepy Eye until 1878; Leavenworth, Birch Coulee until 1874; Sacred Heart, Franklin until 1871; Fort Ridgely until 1872; Fairfax, Redwood Falls until 1874; Springfield until 1878; Wabasso until 1874; Lamberton; Walnut Grove; Marshall; Lake Benton and Kranzburg in South Dakota until 1878; as well as St. George in West Newton Township; Home Township; Beaver Falls; and Ghent. As with any pioneer pastor on the frontier, Berghold steadily had to beg for funds. Thus he traveled the Eastern states but also appealed successfully to the Vienna-based Leopoldinen Stiftung (Imperial Austrian Foundation for the Propagation of the Faith). Following a devastating tornado, he founded the area’s first and only hospital, the St. Alexander Hospital, in 1883.

an author, poet. . .

The creator of Indianer Rache (Indian’s Revenge) detailing the 1862 Dakota Conflict from a balanced historical perspective, Berghold also authored Land Und leute Reisebilder Und Skizzen (Countries and Their People-Travel Perspectives and Sketches). His poems in the volume Prairie Rosen, are delightful to read. In Führer Für Einwanderer Nach Minnesota, Nordamerika, a 39 page booklet, he gives advice and assistance for the European, German speaking immigrant to the midwest.

a civic leader. . .

Father Berghold was highly regarded in civic circles of the city and community as well. He was able to bridge the gap between the Christian community and the free-thinking Turners. Following the tornado of 1881, Father Berghold was placed in charge of the disaster funds for the city of New Ulm.

After two decades of service, Berghold left New Ulm December 7, 1890 for a brief visit to the Benedictine Monastery of Mount Angel in Marion County, Oregon. In 1895 he was pastor of Maria Hilf in West New York. By 1899 he was back in Minnesota as pastor of St. Nicholas parish in New Market where he remained until 1906. Although Berghold did not erect the Way of the Cross in New Ulm its inspiration did come from Berghold, who now personally and physically helped build a Way of the Cross in New Market.

In retirement back in his beloved Steiermark, Berghold lived meagerly in his own home with little financial support, most of which seems to have come from Mass stipends for the parish church in Muenster, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Though never offered a pension from either New Ulm or the Diocese of St. Paul, in 1917 Archbishop John Ireland invited the aged priest to attend the golden jubilee of New Ulm’s Holy Trinity parish, all expenses paid. By this time he was in failing health living in a log home he built for himself in Mooskirchen (about 20 kilometers southwest of Graz torn down in 1955). For a time he lived here in the parish house and assisted with liturgical duties under the title Geistlicher Rat (senior pastor).

According to the parish chronicle of Mooskirchen, Berghold had become "pessimistic to the highest degree" about waging World War I. As it was coming to an end in 1918, the weakened Father Berghold was summoned to the county seat at Voitsberg (west of Graz) to testify concerning the society security (Versicherung) available for priests who had served as missionaries abroad but returned to Austria in their declining years.

Just before he was to offer his deposition on November 20, 1918, Father Berghold collapsed in a hallway and died before a doctor could assist him.

Truly Father Berghold "crossed boundaries" - a theme which thrusts across the frontiers of time from the instant of his death to the moment of ours.

Momentous in scope, the "boundary crossings" which Berghold enacted by his life hold many challenges for the people. With him and his legacy, people must leap across parish lines, across ethnic frontiers, across language barriers, across political divides, across oceans in geography and mountains in the mind, across the ledgers of New Ulm faiths, across the cleavage from earth to heaven, across the expanse of continents, and into the unifying bonds of eternity.