Alfred Boeddeker
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Alfred Boeddeker, O.F.M. (August 7, 1903 - 1993?) was an American Franciscan friar who is best known for having founded humanitarian programs to aid the poor and marginalised in the San Francisco Bay Area. These programs, named by Father Boeddeker for St. Anthony of Padua, include:
- St. Anthony Dining Room (1950)
- St. Anthony Free Medical Clinic (1956)
- St. Anthony Farm, 315 acres outside of Petaluma in Sonoma County, California.
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[edit] Biography
Father Boeddeker, born in San Francisco, California, joined the Franciscans in 1921 and was ordained a priest in 1927. He studied theology at the Santa Barbara Seminary, pastored the St. Rafael Church in Goleta, California, and from 1930 to 1933 studied in Rome, Italy. After his return from Rome, he taught for fifteen years at the Franciscan School of Theology at the Mission Santa Barbara.
Boeddeker was once selected to start a Catholic university in Hankow, China. In preparation for this assignment, he enrolled in a graduate program at the University of California, Berkeley to study Mandarin, Japanese and Russian languages and Chinese history and politics. The Hankow plans were cancelled, however, after the Communist takeover of mainland China in 1949.
Father Boeddeker was then appointed pastor of St. Boniface Church in the Tenderloin, where he remained for the rest of his long life. Not far from this church, two of Boeddeker's sayings are prominently displayed on the walls of St. Anthony's Dining Room on Jones Street:
- “The great activity of our life is to love.”
- “I see God as one act—just loving, like the sun always shining.”
At least one book has been written about Father Boeddeker: The Man Behind the Miracle: the Story of Alfred Boeddeker, O.F.M., by Madeline Hartmann. Fort Bragg: Lost Coast Press (2000). ISBN 1-882-89740-4.
[edit] References
- "St. Anthony Dining Room: The Loaf Keeps on Multiplying" in American Catholic, October 2005.
- "Saint Anthony’s celebrates founder’s centenary" in Catholic San Francisco, August 15, 2003.
- History of the Franciscan School of Theology.
- St. Anthony's Clinic, as described by the UCSF School of Medicine.
- St. Anthony Farm, St. Anthony Foundation.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- History of Boeddeker Park, Neighborhood Parks Council.
- Photograph of Father Alfred Boeddeker at the dedication and groundbreaking ceremony for Boeddeker Park, named in his honour.
- Boeddeker Park, analysis and commentary, Project for Public Spaces.
- History of St. Boniface Church in San Francisco's Tenderloin.
- Services provided by The St. Anthony Foundation.
- Historical photographs of Father Boeddeker in the collection of the San Francisco Public Library.
