Albert H. Wietharn Papers

Biographical sketch: Albert Henry Wietharn was born in Baileyville, Kansas in 1910. He attended Catholic schools throughout his academic career achieving excellent grades. He attended Sacred Heart grammar school, in Baileyville; St. Benedict's Maur Hill High School and St. Benedict's College in Atchison, Kansas. Later, Wietharn journeyed to the American College at Louvain University, Louvain, Belgium in 1933 to study German and to prepare for ordination into the Catholic priesthood. He was ordained in Belgium on July 4, 1937.

Wietharn returned to Kansas, being assigned to a total of eight different parishes in the Archdiocese of Kansas City over a fifty year period. During those fifty eyars, Wietharn gained a reuputation as being a low-key, yet efficient priest. Witharn also advocated reforms for the Catholic Church which were manifested ten years later by the Second Vatican Council.

Wietharn died in 1992 at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center, Topeka, Kansas.

Scope and content: The ALbert H. Wietharn papers contains a wide variety of material (much of it photocopied), beginning with a hand-written baptismal certificate to his funeral sermon, conducted by Father Al Rocker. The collection contains a large amount of newspaper clippings, dated in the 1930s, pertaining to religion in the world and the political climate of Europe at the time. Other papers such as those dealing with his confirmation, education, and ordination are included. Not found in the collection are Wietharn's sermons. The contents are alphabetically arranged; subseries are usually chronologically arranged.

Finding Aids: Finding aid available.