The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-09-27
"THE SAINT OF OREGON"
Father Croquet Spent Forty Years
Among the Indians.

Among the Indians.
A career which exemplifies in all its
phases the wonderful workings of Di-
vine guidance was brought to a close
at Braine rAlleud, Belgium, last
month, when Mgr. Adrian ]. Croquet
passed to his reward at the age of S4
His death is chronicled in a late issue
Of the Catholic Sentinel Of Portland,
the state which had the honor of
claiming him as it's saint.
When Father Croquet retired to Bel
gium in 1898 it was after a career of
forty years spent among western In
dians. In his work among the alb
Grigines, he had canoed along the coast
of Puget sound and administered to
the Indians up every river and bay
in Washington and Oregon. Anyone
who has sojourned along this coast
during a winter knows what a spirit
1t takes to face the incessant rain and
wind that come in from the Pacific
and can gain some idea of the vicissi-
tudes encountered.
How great his devotion to the red
skinned parishioners of the Grand.
Ronde reservation was they and his
colleagues of the western mission know
best" writes Father Van der Heyden.
"In that devotion he never faltered,
for, not more than six weeks ago his
nephew, Mgr. Mercier, the distin-
guished professor at the Louvain uni
versity and president of Pope Leo's
College Of Thomistic Philosophy, told
me that whenever a visitor would ask
his uncle about the western missions
and artlessly refer to the Indians as
savages. quick as a flash would come
the indignant reply: The Oregon In
iians are not savages; they are civil
lied as much as anyone around here.
Many stories are told of his goodness
and asceticism in the place which felt
for so long the benediction of his pres
ence and where his name was the syn
Onym for sanctity An incident is relat-
ed in the Catholic Columbian of two
brother priests who. desiring to know
something of Father Croquet's private
life. made their way to his window at
a late hour of the night, and by the
light of a candle discovered him kneel-
ing upon the bare ground without fire
or comforts of any kind in the large
room; and Notwithstanding it was the
dead of winter, his bed was a bundle
of straw on the ground and his pillow
a rock. Entering, they demanded that
Father Croquet start a fire and give
them something to eat. With much
good will he made every endeavor to
make his guests comfortable and in
vited them to sit upon the straw bed
or the log by the fire, which he pro-
ceeded to build with wood gathered
and hewn by himself He pleaded with
them to allow him to go over and get
food from the agene for them, but they
insisted that he open up his own cup
board and share hiC food with them
as became a brother. He produced
flour ground by his own hands by
means Of the primeval grist mill COM
posed of two stones hewn for the pur-
pose. Besides this he had only rice
and some few potatoes.
He was so very humble that it was
only by a strategy such as this that |
his virtues became known. The In |
dams were the sole object of his So |
hcitude; he lived among them as one
of themselves, sharing their joys and /
their sorrows, not much better clad, !
and, of his own free choice, not much |
better sustained. Whatever he had
above the most ordinary food and /
clothing was at their service, and, on /
more than one occasion, those friends |
who provided clothing and other arti- |
cles for him were chagrined to learn |
that most Of their presents found their |
way to his Indian children.