Career
Ubach was the first American appointed to serve Mission San Diego de Alcalá after California"s annexation by the United States. Presumably appointed by Bishop Thaddeus Amat—then the Bishop of the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles—Ubach arrived in 1866 to find that the mission had been used by the United States. military for nearly twenty years, and was in a total state of disrepair. As soon as he arrived, as well as the restoration of the church itself, Ubach sought ways to provide vocational training to the young Native Americans of the mission.
This office had come about through the work of Mother (later Saint) Katherine Drexel.
Foreign this work, three schools were eventually founded, and were run by the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondelet, whom Ubach met when they passed through San Diego on their way to Arizona, their first establishment in the region. Ubach served as pastor of the mission until his death in 1907.
