Our brother
Stanislaus "Stan" Joppe was born in
Green Bay
in 1929. He attended St. Willy’s
elementary school, Central Catholic, and after a year at the college was vested
into the Order in 1948. He was
solemnly professed in 1953.
Stan
taught at St. Norbert High from 1952 to 1956, when he was appointed to Premontre
to teach Social Sciences and to act as freshman athletic director.
He earned an M.S.T. in Sociology in 1968 from Illinois Institute of
Technology and a Masters in Education and Administration from Loyola, Chicago in
1969. Credits were also accrued at
Marquette
, Villanova and
Notre Dame
University
.
Stan
continued teaching at Premontre from 1958 to 1968.
He was a member of the juniorate formation team from 1968 until 1969 and
part-time teacher at the college. During
the summer of 1970, Stan functioned as the director of
Camp
Tivoli
.
Following
a crisis at Premontre with the sudden departure from the Order of its Principal,
Stan was appointed Principal to deal with the aftermath of
the departure of his predecessor. He continued in that position
from 1970 until 1973, dealing with turmoil, dissension and low morale among both
faculty and students.
Then, from 1973 until 1979, he
served as prior of the abbey.
Stan
was associate director of formation and superior at Holy Spirit House of Studies
in Chicago, from ’79 to ’81. From
then until 1985, he was pastor of St. Boniface in DePere, and that fall returned
to the role of principal at Premontre, again in response to a crisis in which
the previous principal was forced to resign. He served as Principal for two years
before moving to
Albuquerque
and becoming pastor of
St. Augustine
Parish at the Isleta Pueblo.
Stan
was an avid fisherman who was as conscientious about his fishing as he was in
every ministry he undertook. To
those who called him friend, he was regarded as true and loyal, one who did not
hesitate to go the extra mile.
Suffering
from multiple physical problems, Stan retired to the abbey in 1986, and after a
long, lingering illness succumbed on
Monday, May 24, 1999 at the age of 69.
