After ordination Fr Augustine taught in the high school and college at St Meinrad. One of his courses was German, the language he learned as a child in St Henry. In 1937 he was appointed to St Benedict's Parish in Evansville, Indiana. He remained there until he was named superior of Immaculate Conception Indian Mission at Stephan, South Dakota, a position he held for twenty-five years. He arrived there on March 6, 1946 with instructions to rebuild the physical plant which was outdated and in hazardous living condition for the many students of the mission school. This was no easy task to accomplish. Besides raising funds to replace obsolete buildings and to keep the school in operation, he had to contend with fires and tornadoes which occurred frequently during his administration. He was a successful fund raiser and administrator. The Indian people called him Ticage Waste (Good Builder).

After leaving Stephan in June of 1971, Fr Augustine was the Prior at Blue Cloud for two years. Then he went to St Michael's Mission in North Dakota. From 1974 until 1976 he was at our parish in Devils Lake, North Dakota and for the next three years he was at St Paul's Mission, Marty, South Dakota. In 1979 he returned to Blue Cloud because of poor health.

Fr Augustine had a reputation for being a gracious host. Clergy, community members, benefactors, parishioners, and students always received a cordial welcome from him at the Stephan mission and everywhere else he was stationed. He was a good-natured confrere and a kind Prior. He was a sentimental man who could easily shed tears. He had a sense of humor which was evident even when he was expressing a complaint. People of every age like him. Some of his friends traveled many miles to join confreres and the family as they kept vigil at the hospital in Minneapolis. Fr Augustine, aware that he was dying, asked one of them, a former parishioner who had been a novice at Blue Cloud, to sing at his funeral. He is buried in our cemetery.