Peace

On August 5^th, 2005, the Feast of Our Lady of the Snow, the patronal feast of Blue Cloud Abbey, our confrere, Brother Rene Wilson, OSB, died at St. William’s Home in Milbank, South Dakota.  A few short weeks before his death, he had had surgery to remove a tumor from his brain.  Back at the abbey, he suffered seizures and injured himself in a fall.  This necessitated his going to the nursing home. Brother Rene was born in Maryville, Missouri on December 28, 1937.   He became a Catholic at the age of eleven.  Following his graduation from high school in St. Joseph, Missouri, Brother Rene attended Conception Seminary for two years and then went back home to St. Joseph where he worked in a drug store while attending St. Joseph Junior College.  Friends from Nebraska told him about Blue Cloud Abbey.  He visited here in 1959 and entered our community that same year.   He professed vows on February 10, 1961. During the construction era at Blue Cloud Abbey, Brother Rene worked on the crew.  He also learned barbering while a junior monk.  One day when he was cutting Abbot Gilbert’s hair, Brother Rene was informed that he was going to be sent to nursing school.  “Are you afraid of blood?” Abbot Gilbert asked.  In 1966, Brother Rene graduated from the Alexian Brothers School of Nursing in Chicago. He was our infirmarian as well as wearing many other hats in the community.  During his monastic lifetime, he had been treasurer, procurator, maintenance director, baker, house prefect, vestiarius, and cook.  Brother Rene could do many things, and he did them well. He grew flowers, cared for the aviary, played the organ, and quilted in his free time.  One of his quilts won two first prizes at a local show.  The past few years he hosted a get-together at the abbey for other quilters.  Genealogy was something else to which he dedicated a lot of his time, having claimed that he could trace his back to Charlemagne.  Brother Rene had undergone gastric bypass surgery this past spring, and was making a good recovery from it.  The appearance of the brain tumor and the prognosis came as a terrible shock to all of us.  Our confrere, these past few weeks, was indeed “hastening” toward his heavenly home.  We ask the members of our monastic congregation and all other Benedictines to remember Brother Rene in their prayers for the deceased.  His funeral and burial were at Blue Cloud Abbey on August 9th.  May he rest in peace. Abbot Thomas Hillenbrand, OSB & the Monks of Blue Cloud Abbey, Marvin, South Dakota

Last Picture	Mother	Nurse	Cook
	Antique Clocks		Museum Visit
	Quilter
Tailor	Mailman	Organist	Birds