For Immediate Release
August 17, 2005

First Glenmary Brother 'Never Knew a Stranger'
Brother Vincent Wilmes dead at 89

CINCINNATI--Brother Vincent Wilmes, a Glenmary Home Missioner for 64 years and the first Glenmary brother, died Aug. 15, 2005, in Cincinnati. Born Dec. 14, 1915, in Gilmore, Mo., Brother Vincent, 89, died peacefully at Mercy Franciscan Terrace, a Cincinnati retirement center.

Brother Vincent entered Glenmary in 1940, just one year after its founding in Cincinnati by Father William Howard Bishop. A Missouri farmer, Brother Vincent was advised by the pastor of his home parish, St. Joseph in Josephville, Mo., to write to Father Bishop. When Father Bishop said "come," he came.

"Wherever Brother Vincent served, he never knew a stranger," says Glenmary president Father Dan Dorsey. "And he had a special love for the poorest of the poor and the most downtrodden." Up until just weeks before his death, he maintained an active correspondence with many of the folks whose lives he had touched.

During his 64 years of home mission ministry, he served in missions in Statesboro, Ga.; Benettsville, S.C.; Otway, Ohio; Norton, Appalachia and St. Paul, Va.; McConnellsburg, Penn; and Coalgate and Hugo, Okla. His final years in the mission field (1983-93) were spent as a senior member in Olive Hill, Ky., where he devoted himself to Bethany House, an outreach center begun by Glenmary and now a not-for-profit that continues to serve Elliot County in Eastern Kentucky.

Since 1993 Brother Vincent has lived at the Glenmary Residence in Cincinnati, working in the mailroom at Glenmary's National Headquarters. He devoted his spare time to making crosses from natural materials scavenged from the Glenmary property. These crosses were sent to Glenmary mission areas where they often became the only religious symbol in the humble abodes of migrant workers and their families.

As Brother Vincent said of his cross-making in Glenmary Challenge (Winter 2000): "People's gifts and talents are like things that fall from a tree and are lost unless they contact the cross." Brother Vincent's life was spent trying to make those connections for all the down-and-outers he befriended as a missioner, says fellow Glenmarian Father John Rausch.

Brother Vincent is survived by a sister, Dorothy Bugni (of Butte, Mont., and Tuba City, Calif.) and nieces and nephews.

Visitation will take place from 5-7 p.m. Thursday evening, Aug. 18, in Our Lady of the Fields Chapel at the Glenmary Residence, 4119 Glenmary Trace, Fairfield, Ohio. A prayer service will be held at 7 p.m.

Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated Friday, Aug. 19, at 10 a.m. at St. Matthias Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Burial will follow immediately at Gate of Heaven Cemetery.

Memorials are requested to Glenmary Home Missioners, P.O. Box 465618, Cincinnati, OH 45246.

Glenmary Home Missioners is a Catholic society of priests and brothers who, along with coworkers, staff over 50 missions and ministries in 14 dioceses throughout Appalachia, the South and Southwest. Through service, word and sacrament, Glenmarians strive to bring spiritual development and social justice to the neglected rural areas of the United States.

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For a tribute from Father Steve Pawelk

For a story about Brother Vince from Glenmary Challenge