Background
Martin Marty was the son of Jacob Alois Marty, a shoemaker and church sexton, and of Elizabeth (Reichlin) Marty. He was born January 12, 1834 and baptized as Aloysius at Schwyz in Switzerland.
Martin Marty was the son of Jacob Alois Marty, a shoemaker and church sexton, and of Elizabeth (Reichlin) Marty. He was born January 12, 1834 and baptized as Aloysius at Schwyz in Switzerland.
He attended a local preparatory college until the Jesuit fathers were banished in an anti-clerical campaign. In 1848 he transferred to the Benedictine college of Einsiedeln, where he translated into German a French edition of the "Annals of the Propagation of the Faith, " thus acquiring a youthful zeal for missionary labors.
In 1854 he pronounced his monastic vows as Brother Martin, O. S. B. , and on September 14, 1856, was ordained priest together with a life-long friend, Frowin Conrad, later abbot at Conception, Mo. He continued at Einsiedeln as a teacher and wrote an essay on the manner of teaching in monastic institutions a thousand years ago, which won commendation from the University of Berlin. In 1860 he volunteered for American service and joined the monastery at St. Meinrad, Ind. , which had been established by a colony of monks from Einsiedeln in 1854. In 1866 he became prior, and, when St. Meinrad's monastery was made an abbey by Pope Pius IX four years later, he was chosen its first mitred abbot. In answer to appeals for Indian missionaries, about 1873 he led a group of Benedictines to the Standing Rock agency of the Sioux. His activities extended over the Dakotas, where he soon acquired a wide acquaintance with the natives and pioneers who trusted him as a counsellor. He became proficient enough in the Siouan tongues to translate hymns and prayers. In recognition of his influence with the Indians, he was appointed a member of the Indian commission established by the plenary council at Baltimore. In 1879 when the territory of Dakota was created into a vicariate, as titular bishopof Tiberias, he was named vicar apostolic with headquarters at Yankton. Consecrated by Bishop Francis Silas Chatard on February 1, 1880, he became an ideal frontier bishop, traversing the vast region in a wagon or on horseback, fighting the cause of temperance in wigwam and camp, and often rolling himself up in furs to spend the night on the snow-covered prairie. Not unmerited was his title of "Angel of the West. " In 1884 he was an active participant in the council of Baltimore and thereafter he went to Europe in the interest of his vicariate. As the region grew he saw his priests increase from twelve to ninety, his churches from twenty to about 130, and the Catholic population from 14, 000 to about 80, 000. When the vicariate was divided he was selected as first bishop of Sioux Falls. He found time to write a life of the first bishop of Milwaukee, Dr. Johann Martin Henni (1888), and in 1890 he published his revision of Katolik Wocekiye, the ritual in the Siouan language composed by Father Augustin Ravoux. In 1895 he was transferred to the quiet diocese of St. Cloud, Minn. , where he died among his Benedictine brethren of the St. John's University.
Marty had built, or at least fostered, a score of schools, ten industrial institutes for boys and girls, and three academies. He introduced the Jesuits into the diocese and several communities of nuns, who managed academies and hospitals at Fargo, Grand Forks, Yankton, and Deadwood, as well as Indian schools at the various agencies. While at Sioux Falls for only five years, his success was marked especially in the creation of mission schools.