​He always puts others first

BY TONI CASHNELLI

​PHOTOS BY TONI CASHNELLIOutside St. Clement: Frank Jasper, right, doing his best to make Louie Lamping smile.Br. Louie Lamping doesn’t know that he’s remarkable. But everyone else does.

“He’s an outstanding friar,” says Frank Jasper, Louie’s guardian at St. Clement and a friend for 50 years.

“He’s a hero of mine, a man to be revered,” says Fred Link, who marvels at Louie’s selflessness, his simplicity, and his capacity for hard work.

“He’s an amazing man, a very holy man,” Vince Delorenzo says of Louie, who never draws attention to himself. “I think he loves being a Franciscan.”

Just as amazing are the obstacles Louie has had to overcome. His family, poor even by Depression-era standards, survived on welfare for five years in the 1930s. Despite two operations, the cleft lip and cleft palate he was born with affected his ability to form words, leaving him with a lasting speech impediment. The ear infections he had as an infant led to a gradual loss of hearing so severe that, even with hearing aids, he is effectively deaf.

That hasn’t held him back. Since entering the Order in 1952, Louie has assumed many of the thankless but essential roles that keep things going. He almost singlehandedly ran the 160-acre farm at St. Leonard College. He juggled so many jobs at Bishop Luers High School they dubbed it “Brother Louie High School.”  In recent years at St. Clement Friary he managed the books, mowed the lawn, raked leaves, shoveled snow, stocked the refrigerator and handled Mass stipends and recycling. He did it all quietly, happy to be useful, glad to stay in the background.

​Louie’s official baby picture; right, on the move in St. Bernard“He’s a very simple guy,” Frank says of Louie, a model of friar frugality. Almost everything he wears or uses comes from a thrift shop or a dollar store. “You open his closet and there’s maybe three pairs of pants and three shirts. There’s nothing, really. He doesn’t have a credit card.” Last month when Frank handed out spending money, Louie told him, ‘I don’t need any. I still have $2 left over from last month.’”

Communication

At 90, Louie is as wiry as he was when he wrangled 1,200-pound steers at St. Leonard. Famous for long-distance walking, he still puts in at least a couple of hours a day on the sidewalks of St. Bernard. But his once-prodigious workload has all but evaporated – and “retirement” is a concept he can’t quite handle.

These days, he is seldom seen at provincial meetings or funerals. “I don’t hear anything,” is how he explains it. He will obligingly discuss his long and productive life, but communication takes time and patience on both sides. “I have nothing going on,” he says. “I’m retired, you know?”

​Louie’s province portrait from 1998Think about trying to talk when your mouth feels frozen in cold weather, and you understand how hard it is for Louie to enunciate. Speech therapy after his second surgery in 1971 had limited success. For this interview, subject and reporter sit side-by-side in front of a computer at St. Clement Friary, where Louie has lived since 1987. As questions typed on the keyboard flash onto the screen, he responds, sometimes verbally, sometimes with a note. Guardian Frank stops by occasionally to fill in the gaps.

It soon becomes clear that Louie’s life of service began with his family, and continued with the friars.

Christened Wilbert, he was one of five children of Bernard and Rose Lamping. “I was born Jan. 31, 1929, in a farmhouse near Greensburg, Indiana”, with a facial disorder that left a lasting impact. “I had a hair lip [an opening in the upper lip that can extend to the nose] and a cleft palate [an opening in the roof of the mouth].”

​Louie, right, at lunchtime with Fred Link, Michael Charron and John FlajoleWhen Wilbert posed for his baby picture, the healing from cleft lip surgery at Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati was almost complete. But it would be years before surgery was done to close the cleft palate. By then, the damage to his speaking ability had been done.

Louie’s family was so poor, “Where my mom and dad lived, they never had running water,” he says. “They had my brother carry water in for laundry and cooking.” When his dad fell ill in the midst of the Depression and was unable to work, Louie did whatever needed doing around the farm. Welfare kept them afloat for five years.

As a student in Napoleon, Ind., Louie coached classmates in bookkeeping, winning first honors in a high school contest. It was a skill that stuck. “I never wanted to go to college. A dairy farmer was looking for help; I went there right after high school.” After three years of backbreaking work, “I went to St. Mary’s in Greensburg for a Sorrowful Mother Novena. There, I got the idea of being a Franciscan.”

He wrote to the Wise Man columnist at St. Anthony Messenger for advice. “It was nice of him to write back,” Louie says. “He told me I’d have a better chance of being a brother than a priest” after Louie explained, “I couldn’t speak well.” When he applied to the friars, “They saw something in me. For some reason I’m here. I always said my Guardian Angel helped me.”

Joining the friars was “quite a change in lifestyle. Besides being in a big building, I was with a lot of people.” He says they treated him well. “I didn’t have any problems. I always seem to be able to get along with people.” He was successfully trained as a tailor, mechanic, relief cook and bookbinder, working on provincial chronicles. It was as a Candidate that his hearing began to fail.

Down on the farm

​ Louie with a calf at St. Leonard; he was one of the first five residents at the friary.In 1958, he was one of the first five friars assigned to the newly constructed St. Leonard College in Centerville, Ohio. Provincial Minister Vincent Kroger wanted to build a dairy farm for the community. Farm kid Louie knew better. “No way, not a good idea,” he told Vincent. “You need somebody milking cows twice a day,” a Herculean task. So they settled on growing crops and raising cattle for food, with Louie in charge.

The workload was staggering. He managed a herd of 98 Herefords – even assisting at birthings – and planted, cultivated and harvested 70 acres of crops. “Those cattle had to have water in the wintertime,” says Louie, who shivers at the memory of hauling hot water to the barn in freezing weather.

“The farm was self-sustaining,” says Frank, then a student at the college. “Louie didn’t put any funds into it. It produced all the beef we used at the whole school, and the sale of calves and steers when they came along would cover the cost of any equipment he would need.”

It was Frank who stepped in to manage the farm when Louie finally had surgery to correct his cleft palate and was sidelined for six months. “Louie taught me how to be a farmer. He was 17 years older than I was, and none of us could keep up with him. He was one tough, tough guy.”

All those years, Louie continued to help the family back home. “His mom and dad lived in a two-room house,” according to Frank. “He would take his vacation and spend the whole two weeks splitting enough wood to get his parents through the winter.”

​Top, with the Herefords at St. Leonard; above, Louie in 1978Louie thrived on the bustle of his next assignment at Bishop Luers High School in Fort Wayne, Ind.  From 1971-’83 he ran the bookstore,  handled finances and offset printing, drove buses, and did landscape work on the sprawling campus. Where did he learn landscaping? “I just did it,” he says.

Greatly admired by students,“He was a wisdom figure,” says Fred, who was principal at the time. Besides the “official” jobs, “The Dad’s Club depended on him to make Bingo happen.”

Slowing down

Asked to name his favorite assignment, Louie points to St. Clement on his personnel form. Starting in 1987, “I spent 23 years here working on the books,” writing all the entries in longhand. When it was time for a computer, “I retired. I don’t like computers. I don’t even know how to use a microwave.”

Vince, who was guardian for 10 of those years, says, “Louie was a delight to live with, so giving and grateful, always concerned about others. He would say, ‘Thank you’ for the smallest thing you did.”

When Louie retired from bookkeeping, they threw him a party and had $100 bills printed bearing his likeness. Vince told him, “You did what was yours to do. Now relax and enjoy life.” For a man whose life revolves around service, that hasn’t been easy. A bit slower and less steady on his feet, he still does a few odd jobs around St. Clement, “recycling things, picking up trash, but mostly walking around,” Frank says. “He misses having something significant to do, something important.”

Louie will admit, “The days are long.”  To fill the time he watches closed-captioned TV, especially EWTN and sports, but mostly, “I just walk,” usually after morning Mass or lunch, always for hours.  In his heyday – which wasn’t that long ago – Louie could walk all the way from St. Bernard to Over-the-Rhine. He still believes his Guardian Angel is keeping him safe.

His vitality is due partly to his diet – he eats a lot of cottage cheese and never drinks alcohol – and good genes. His mom lived to be 90; his dad died one month shy of his 99th birthday.  But mostly, it’s the walking. “I don’t do any other exercise.”

Deafness and the challenge of speaking are accepted facts of life. Asked if he misses hearing the music at Mass, the discussions at meetings, the talk at the dinner table, Louie responds, “I don’t worry about it; I kind of live with it. There’s nothing new about it.”

He doesn’t say much about what it means to be a friar.

He doesn’t have to.

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Did you know?

• Br. Louie Lamping’s solemn profession was Aug. 16, 1959 --- 60 years ago.
• He was one of the five original friar residents of St. Leonard Friary in Centerville, Ohio. The others were: Friedbert Adams; Justin Hangbers; Francis Williams; and Raymond Rommelfanger.
• Louie’s parents, Rose and Bernard, were married for 65 years. One of his two sisters was an
• Oldenburg Franciscan, Sr. Rose Bernard, OSF. Rose and brothers Anthony and Norbert are deceased. Louie’s remaining sister, Pauline Lamping Schoettmer, lives in Greensburg, Ind.
• Louie was diagnosed with leukemia in 2011. “Six months of chemotherapy cleared it,” he says.
• His stamina is legendary. In 2013, “When I was here [at St. Clement] for my STiP year,” says Michael Charron, “he used to walk 10 miles a day.”

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• ​Bill Farris, Jim Bok, Stephen Dupuis, Saleem Amir and Colin KingWhen the original presenter couldn’t be there, Vicar Bill Farris gallantly stepped in to lead a friars’ retreat at the Westender Inn, which happens to be 325 feet from the Caribbean Sea in beautiful Jamaica. A tough assignment, indeed. “The retreat is off to a good start,” Bill wrote last week from Negril. “The setting is very nice and the friars are appreciating the time away and having someone different with them on the island.” Among the topics they discussed were use of the Personal Ongoing Formation Plan as a tool for revitalization.
• The Archdiocese of Cincinnati chose a familiar friendly face to grace a couple dozen local billboards for this year’s Retirement Fund for Religious campaign. Look for this smiling image of Jim Van Vurst on a heavily traveled highway or major intersection near you. Donations will be accepted at parishes Dec. 7 and 8.
• ​FRANCISCAN MONASTERY PHOTOWho said the Nationals didn’t have a prayer?They figured it wouldn’t hurt. So when the Washington Nationals made it to the World Series, friars at the Monastery of the Holy Land in Washington, D.C., posted a public prayer on behalf of their home team on Facebook. After the Nationals stunned the Houston Astros, winning game seven 6-2 and clinching their first World Series title, you had to wonder….did it actually help?
• Parochial Administrator Tom Speier will concelebrate the Third Annual Celebration and Mass commemorating November as Black Catholic History Month at Holy Name Church in Cincinnati. The observance, which features gospel music and liturgical dancing, is at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 16, at 2422 Auburn Ave. The event will honor the founders and organizers of the Inner City Tennis Project, which aims to increase the participation of inner-city youth in the sport. Black Catholic History Month, initiated in 1990, celebrates the ways black Catholics have shaped and energized the Church.
• Greg Friedman will accompany two groups on pilgrimages to the Holy Land next year, April 1-13 and May 4-15, 2020. “Plenty of room on either pilgrimage,” Greg says. Find out more about the journeys that will feature Greg and fellow spiritual leader Charlie Smiech at: holylandpilgrimages

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​A heartland pilgrimage

Part 4: Day 2

Pennsylvania pilgrimage

Tuesday Morning, Aug. 13, 2019

St. Michael Cemetery, Summit Hill, Pa.

​PHOTOS BY LOREN CONNELL, OFMBill Reisteter’s stone is to the right of the provincial stone.Following an older necrology, I began looking for Robert Valent’s grave in St. Michael Church Yard.  First, St. Michael Parish was in neighboring Lansford, not Summit Hill.  Second, it no longer exists, having merged with several other Lansford parishes to become St. Katherine Drexel Parish.  The new parish, however, worships in the old St. Michael Church, and that is where I went to find our brother’s grave.  I was heartened to see one grave stone in the church yard.  Alas, it was for a pastor who served nearly a hundred years ago.

Frustrated, I went looking for the offices of St. Joseph, the merged parish in Summit Hill.  The receptionist there directed me to St. Michael Cemetery, not Church Yard, outside of town.  There I find Robert’s grave, marked by a block of gray granite, along with the graves of several other priests around a large stone crucifix.  I am sad.  Why is he buried here in this setting?  I could understand his being buried in a family plot, like Florian, but with a bunch of other priests?  This is not a family plot.  Why is he not with his brothers?  Simply put, this is where he wanted to be buried.  It must have been a special place to him.  I have to honor that.

Tuesday Afternoon, Aug. 13, 2019
Holy Saviour Cemetery, Bethlehem, Pa.

​Robert Valent’s stone behind the cross at St. Michael CemeteryThe friars have had a plot at Holy Saviour for many years, but it wasn’t until Bill Reisteter died in 2013 that we actually buried anyone here.  This is the most recent cemetery in which we began to bury our deceased brothers.  A large gray stone similar to ones in Christ Our Redeemer and Holy Sepulcher announces the Province of St. John the Baptist.  Bill’s smaller stone, flat with the ground, lies to the right and front of the provincial stone.  An American flag, donated by a veterans’ organization, and some plastic flowers decorate his grave.

I met Bill a few times, but I did not really know him.  He led his brothers in the Custody/Vice Province of the Most Holy Savior for a number of years, first as custos and then as minister.  His life prompts me to reflect on the rich diversity of our brotherhood.

Part 4: Day 3

Wednesday Afternoon,
Aug. 14, 2019
Mt. St. Macrina Cemetery, Uniontown, Pa.

​The entrance to Mt. St. Macrina Cemetery in UniontownMt. St. Macrina is the motherhouse of the Ruthenian Sisters of St. Basil.  The campus is large and includes a cemetery toward the back of the property.  Two friars are buried here, Archbishop Basil Schott of Assumption Province and Marion Herrick of the Vice Province of the Most Holy Savior.  Along with a quite a few of other Ruthenian bishops, Basil is buried in front of a large Latin-style crucifix.  (Conspicuously absent from that episcopal assemblage is the former eparch Nicholas T. Elko.)

Marion is buried in a section with a number of other priests.  His grave is marked by a raised block of gray granite.  Lichens cover much of the right side of the block; they do not intrude on the face of the stone.  Someone has left an American flag and flowers.  I had forgotten that he was a veteran.  I spend a few moments reflecting on how well our brother was loved in the Uniontown community, and I commend him to our God.

I don’t know what I expected here; but it wasn’t all the conventional Roman artifacts, from angels to crucifixes to pietas, that dot the landscape of this Byzantine campus.  I am sad that a rich tradition seems to have been compromised. . . and compromised for stuff that isn’t even good art!

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A Spartan welcome

Open House draws record turnout   |   Oct. 27, 2019