Henry P Rohlman

ROHLMAN, MCMULLEN

Posted By: Debbie Gerischer (email)
Date: 4/10/2009 at 18:51:18

A Narrative History
of
The People of Iowa
with
SPECIAL TREATMENT OF THEIR CHIEF ENTERPRISES IN
EDUCATION, RELIGION, VALOR, INDUSTRY,
BUSINESS, ETC.
by
EDGAR RUBEY HARLAN, LL. B., A. M.
Curator of the
Historical, Memorial and Art Department of Iowa
Volume IV
THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Inc.
Chicago and New York
1931

RT. REV. HENRY P. ROHLMAN, bishop of the Davenport Diocese, was brought to
Iowa when two years of age, and in some measure, at least, the value of his
services has been due to his long and intimate knowledge of the people of the
Mississippi River Valley.

Bishop Rohlman was born in Germany, March 17, 1876, and was but two years of
age when his parents came to America and settled in Carroll County, Iowa.
He was educated in the high school department of St. Lawrence College, at
Mount Calvary, Wisconsin, attended Columbia College at Dubuque, graduating in
1898, and pursued his theological course in the Grand Seminary at Montreal,
Canada. He was ordained to the priesthood December 21, 1901, at Montreal, and at
once returned to Iowa and became assistant to St. Mary's Church in Dubuque.
His labors in Dubuque made him one of the best loved priests of that
community. After four years he was sent to the Catholic University of America at
Washington, pursuing special sociological studies with a view to entering the
missionary field. Then followed the years of his work in the Apostolate, an
organization fostered by the Most Rev. James J. Keane, archbishop of Dubuque,
for conducting missions in the churches of his diocese.

Father Rohlman in 1911 was appointed pastor of St. Mary's Church at
Waterloo, remaining there six years. In 1917 he was selected by Archbishop Keane as
chairman of the Columbia College endowment drive and was head of the
committee which raised more than a million dollars for that Iowa educational
institution. He continued for some time as business manager of the college and in
1923 was chosen to organize a new parish in the City of Dubuque. As a result
of his great zeal and energy the parish of the Church of Nativity came to be
one of the most important in that city within three years after its
organization. Then came still greater honors when, on July 25, 1927, he was
consecrated the fourth bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Davenport. He was consecrated
on the forty-sixth anniversary of the consecration of Bishop John McMullen,
who was the first bishop of Davenport. The consecrator in the impressive
service was Archbishop Keane, of Dubuque, and there were many churchmen and
laymen from Dubuque who joined in the tributes to the former priest who had
labored so long and unselfishly in that Iowa city.