Ooo, remember the book report you were assigned to do about Fr. Pierz, back in 6th grade? If ONLY you'd found this book, with this 'short biographical sketch', huh?
Ok, it isn't THAT long, and Fr Francis Pierz sounds like a kind, gentle man.
These eight pages are from a book called "The Life and Labors of Right Reverend Fredric Baraga, First Bishop of Marquette, Michigan". Evidently, Baraga and Pierz were from the same area of Austria and were friends.
It's cool too that the county Fr Pierz came from, Carniola, in English translates to "Krain", which happens to be the name of a township in Stearns county, Mn. Either it was named in Fr Pierz' honor, or maybe the settlers were mostly from there.
BTW, our buddy Heinz emailed to explain where Carniola is: I wasn't sure I understood, so heres the CARNIOLA entry from Wikipedia:
Carniola (Slovene: Kranjska; German: Krain; Italian: Corniolo) was a historical region that comprised parts of what is now Slovenia. As part of Austria-Hungary, the region was a crown land officially known as the Duchy of Carniola (Vojvodina Kranjska, Herzogtum Krain) until 1918.
THANKS, Heinz!
THANKS, Heinz!
When Larry found this book on Google Books, he was pretty sure he remembered that Bishop Baraga was somehow connected to Fr Pierz, and he was right.
Go get your bowl of popcorn and then click each page to biggify...ok?
I read the whole article. He was ok. It did not mention that he advertised in Germany for Catholics to come to Minnesota because the land was too good to waste on non-Catholics.
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