Brother Joseph DeLouw

Brother Joseph DeLouw, OSC, age 95 of the Crosier Father of Onamia, MN died Sunday, July 5, 2009 at the Mille Lacs Health System Long Term Care Center in Onammia. Funeral Services will be Thursday, July 9th at the Crosier Priory in Onamia. Reception of the Body and the Office of the Dead at 3:00 PM. Funeral Mass of Resurrection at 6:00 and burial in the Priory Cemetery immediately following the Mass. Brother Joseph DeLouw, OSC was born in the Netherlands on March 9, 1914. Br. Joe joined the Crosier Fathers and Brothers there at age 16. At age 18, he was assigned to the "Missionary Territory" of the United States. Here he served as a "Brother Farmer" at the Crosier Priory in Onamia until 1940, when he was transferred to similar work at the priory in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In 1958, Br. Joseph was one of four Crosiers sent to inaugurate Crosier mission work in what was then Dutch New Guinea, now Papua, Indonesia (Asmat). He served 24 years in this most remote outpost of Christianity, still laboring upon the land and supervising boarding school students. Br. Joe returned to the United States in 1982 to the Crosier priory in Hastings, Nebraska, where he was semi-retired, but still busy in gardening and prayer. In 2000, Br. Joe was transferred to the Onamia Priory. Upon this return to Onamia after 69 years elsewhere around the world, Br. Joe said, "Here I will remain, God willing, pending my permanent transfer to heaven after a contented life spent in the vineyards of the Good Lord." Br. Joe is mourned by his Crosier confreres and by family and friends around the United States and in Holland. He was a joyful, generous, and humble servant of the Lord. Memorials are preferred to the Crosier Fathers and Brothers.