Rev. N. J. Bies

BIES, GAUCHE

Posted By: Anne Hermann (email)
Date: 1/2/2010 at 12:48:04

J. W. Ellis, History of Jackson County, Iowa, 1910

REV. N. J. BIES.

For more than a quarter of a century Father N. J. Bies has ministered to the spiritual needs of the Catholic parish of Bellevue and in this capacity has not only made a place for himself in the hearts of the community but has proved himself a man of great business ability and a strong factor in the moral progress of his locality. He was born in the grand duchy of Luxemburg, May 20, 1852, his parents being Francis and Susannah (Gauche) Bies, the former also a native of Luxemburg, the latter of Belgium. They crossed the Atlantic and came to Jackson county, Iowa, in 1853, locating on a farm near St. Donatus, where Francis Bies carried on agricultural pursuits successfully throughout the remainder of his active life. Later he retired to the village of St. Donatus and there his death occurred July 27, 1907, when he was eighty-five years of age. His widow still lives and yet resides in St. Donatus. In their family were ten children, four sons and six daughters. Four of the latter are Sisters in the Catholic church, and two are married and live in Jackson county. Two of the sons are engaged in farming in this county and one is deceased.
Father Bies, who was but nine months of age when his parents came to Jackson county, Iowa, spent his youth upon a farm in this section of the state and after leaving the public school entered St. Joseph's College, Dubuque, taking a literary course. He was graduated in the spring of 1879 and in the fall of that year he went to Louvain, Belgium, to spend three years in the university of that place. Being ordained a priest of the Catholic church in the spring of 1882, he returned to America and on the 11th of June of that year was appointed to the pastorate of St. Joseph's church at Bellevue, which has remained his charge to the present. During that time the congregation has steadily increased in number until now there are twelve hundred in the church and mission and the parochial duties require the services of an assistant, Father Wagoner. Father Bies has also built up the school, which has an enrollment of one hundred and eighty pupils, and the standard of its scholarship and efficiency has been raised so that it compares favorably with the more progressive public schools in this locality, its flourishing condition, like that of the parish, being an indication of the zeal, ability and progressiveness of the reverend pastor.
Father Bies is a man of high intellectual attainments, having added to his broad culture through five trips to foreign countries. He has traversed the greater part of Europe, has visited the Orient and the Philippines and in 1900 wrote accounts of his travels to papers in Dubuque and Bellevue. Yet while his learning is solid, it is not obtrusive, and he has always preferred to be the priest rather than the savant, and hence is widely known as a man of unbounded charity, whose spirit of pure and deep devotion is an inspiration to those both within and without his fold.

Rev. Bies Gravestone
 

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