Source of Support

Wimmer Wednesday. Farming was the Abbey’s main source of support in 1852 and for many years. Boniface Wimmer wrote:

I have used the money which I have received from the Mission Society, from his Majesty King Ludwig, and from other benefactors, to buy sufficient land to support a few hundred people, if it be properly cultivated. When we arrived here, the church farm was in such a condition that the people from the area used to pick their supply of black berries on it.1 Now these two pieces of property supply the monastery with most of its means of subsistence, and I hope to make them yield even far more with our continuing industriousness. They are our main source of support, and as long as the current laws remain in effect, they can never be lost to the monastery.

—From Boniface Wimmer: Abbot of Saint Vincent in Pennsylvania