Brother Wayne Till, SVD (1933-2019)

TILL, MANDERSCHEID

Posted By: Ken Wright (email)
Date: 2/15/2019 at 13:10:22

BELLEVUE, Iowa — Brother Wayne Till, SVD, 85, formerly of Bellevue, Iowa, missionary of the Society of the Divine Word and beloved member of the Divine Word College community in Epworth, Iowa, died Friday, Feb. 8, at Techny, Ill.

Visitation will be at 11 a.m., Saturday, Feb. 16, at Divine Word College, followed by a Mass of Christian Burial at 11:45 a.m., with Father James Bergin, SVD, presiding. Burial will be at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Techny.

“Brother Wayne worked wonderfully as part of the team in the Divine Word College Development Office,” said Father Michael Hutchins, SVD, who was college president when Bro. Wayne arrived at the school in 1998. “He had a gift for connecting with people.”

Born on Nov. 19, 1933, in Bellevue, Iowa, Bro. Wayne was the second of Agnes (nee Manderscheid) and William Till’s three sons. After graduating from St. Joseph High School in Bellevue in 1951, Bro. Wayne entered formation with the Society of the Divine Word.

While in formation at Techny, he worked as an assistant to horticulturalist Brother Charles Reckamp, SVD. Under Bro. Charles’ care, Techny Mission Gardens developed a wide variety of day lilies as well as hybrid irises and landscape plants.

In 1960, Bro. Wayne professed perpetual vows and was assigned to Kellyville, a community outside of Sydney, Australia. His work on the congregation’s dairy farm provided fresh milk to the nearby seminary. Recognizing his talent for farming, his superiors later made him responsible for the cattle herd at St. Vincent’s Seminary in Marburg, Australia.

After ten years in Australia, Bro. Wayne was assigned as a mechanic in Wewak, Papua New Guinea. To prepare for the job, he worked at an Australian service station for three weeks, took a course through Johnson Outboard Motors and learned about hydraulics at the David Brown Tractor Company. After his mechanical preparation, he studied Pidgin, the common language of Papua New Guinea.

Then he got to work repairing motorcycles, outboard boat motors, lawnmowers and the occasional chainsaw. During this time, he also served as bursar for Holy Spirit Seminary in Port Moresby.

Having fulfilled 28 years of missionary service in Papua New Guinea, Bro. Wayne returned to the United States in 1998 and joined the staff of the Divine Word College Development Office.

He moved to Techny in late 2018.

Bro. Wayne was preceded in death by his parents and his brothers, Lorin and Orlyn Till.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations for the care of retired missionaries may be sent to The Rector, Divine Word Residence, 1901 Waukegan Road, P.O. Box 6000, Techny, IL 60082-6000.