Indian museum founder Rev. Schoenberg dies

Funeral Mass for the Rev. Wilfred Schoenberg, S.J., 88, will be today at 10 a.m. at St. Aloysius Roman Catholic Church. Hennessey-Smith Funeral Home is in charge of the arrangements.

The Rev. Schoenberg, who was born in Uniontown, Washington, died Monday.

He attended St. Aloysius Grade School and in 1933 graduated from Gonzaga Prep.

After entering the Jesuit Society, he took his first studies at the Jesuit Novitiate in Sheridan, Oregon, from 1941 to 1943, and Mount Saint Michael from 1943 to 1946; regency at Gonzaga Prep from 1946 to 1948; theology at Alma College from 1948 to 1952; and special studies at National Archives, American University.

The Rev. Schoenberg received a bachelor's degree in 1945 and a master's degree in 1946 from Gonzaga University; a certificate as an accredited archivist in 1946 from Archive Administration in Washington, D.C.; and a bachelor of sacred theology degree in 1952 from Alma College.

He was a teacher at Seattle Prep from 1952 to 1953; served tertianship at Manressa Hall in Port Townsend, Washington; was assistant dean of students, teacher of religion and sociology and provincial archivist at Gonzaga Prep from 1957 to 1966; founder, archivist and director of the Indian Museum at Gonzaga University from 1966 to 1974; and director of the Museum of Native American Cultures at Gonzaga University from 1974 to 1980.

After a sabbatical at Gonzaga University, he served as writer there from 1981 to 1988; at the provincial office and residence in Portland from 1988 to 2002 and at Regis Community in Spokane from 2002 to 2003.

Throughout his teaching years, the Rev. Schoenberg wrote many pamphlets, publications, lectures, articles and reviews.

—From The Spokesman-Review; Friday, August 8, 2003∼Dean of Northwest Catholic history dead at 88

SPOKANE — The dean of Northwest Catholic history is dead at age 88.

Jesuit Father Wilfred Schoenberg died August 4 at his religious community's care center here after a lengthy illness.

Hundreds of Jesuits and other friends and admirers gathered August 8 for a funeral at St. Aloysius Church at the campus of Gonzaga University.

Father Schoenberg's books about the region's Catholic life and institutions are the standards in their field.

Upon receiving the highest honor from Gonzaga in 2001, the priest told the Sentinel, "God has used a little old guy. I don't want the credit for any of it."

He authored substantial histories of the Northwest Jesuits, the Sisters of St. Mary of Oregon, St. Mary's Home for Boys and the Catholic Sentinel. But Father Schoenberg was perhaps best known for his 1987 epic overview, A History of the Catholic Church in the Pacific Northwest. That tome won the Washington Governor's Book Award.

His list of works fills 14 pages.

The priest, who lived in Portland during the 1990s, did substantial work in preserving Native American culture and heritage. He established a Native American museum on the Gonzaga campus that was supported by patrons from around the nation. The collection is still revered.

Father Schoenberg was known fondly as "Schonie" to his many friends.

Born in the Eastern Washington German conclave of Uniontown, he was the son of the local grocer. The family moved to Spokane in 1917.

There, the family house was just blocks from St. Aloysius Parish and Gonzaga University. Young Wilfred was an altar server who met aging Jesuit missionary legends in the flesh. He served Mass for the great Father Joseph Cataldo, a scholar and missionary to tribes such as the Spokanes and Nez Perce.

The Great Depression hit when Wilfred was a teen, so he landed a job to help support the family. By 1939, however, he was free to follow his heroes. He went to the Jesuit novitiate in Sheridan, where the novice master had to borrow money just to keep food in the cupboard.

He was ordained in 1951 in San Francisco.

That began a career that included teaching high-school students in a stairwell during the post-war education boom. He always spent weekends in some archive or another and became regarded as one of the foremost archivists in the region. The state of Washington even tried to hire him to run its collections.

On research runs to Alaska, the priest made his way by bush plane and canoe.

The Native American museum on the Gonzaga campus kept going by prayer and tenacity. One day, Father Schoenberg prayed for aid in paying off a $50,000 debt. Within a week, a complete stranger promised $100,000 and paid half, only to die before he could deliver the other half.

"It's been a crazy kind of life," the priest once said. "These were God's ways of looking after me."

In his research, Father Schoenberg unearthed fine details, such as the menu of the 1927 enthronement banquet of Bishop Charles White of Spokane. On the list was "Vatican potatoes."

The priest also discovered that Bishop White's biretta that day was just about three sizes too big.

In his story telling, he was known for having a good eye for detail and refusing to be sentimental.

"I can remember Father Keep," he said of one of his Jesuit boyhood heroes. "He was a loud Irishman from Butte. He would stand there during the novena and say something about the evils of women smoking like, 'And the Blessed Virgin Mary mother of God — can you imagine her standing with the baby Jesus in one arm and a cigarette in the other hand?'''

For much of his career, Father Schoenberg worked in Spokane, either at Gonzaga Preparatory School as a teacher or administrator, or at Gonzaga University, where he was the province archivist and director of the Museum of Native American Cultures.

—From the Catholic Sentinel; Thursday, August 14, 2003