Rev. Joseph F. Lubeley, pastor of the Holy Trinity church at Fourteenth and Mallinckrodt streets in St. Louis, was born in Lockhaven, Pennsylvania, September 15, 1873, a son of Joseph and Elizabeth (Selter) Lubeley, both of whom were natives of Germany, where they were reared and married. Immediately after that important event in their lives they sailed for the United States, taking up their abode at Lockhaven, Pennsylvania, where the father taught school and also served as organist in the church. In 1877 he came to St. Louis and was made teacher and organist in St. Liborius parish, with which he was connected to the time of his death in 1895. His widow survives and resides with a daughter on a farm in St. Charles county, Missouri.
Joseph F. Lubeley of this review attended the St. Liborius school and afterward was a student in St. Francis College at Quincy, Illinois, there pursuing his college work and course in philosophy, remaining as a student in that institution for six years. He was then sent to Innsbruck, where he attended the Jesuit University for four years, and in 1895, not having reached the canonical age, he taught at St. Francis seminary in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for a year. On the 4th of July, 1896, he was ordained to the priesthood in St. Anthony’s church of St. Louis by Archbishop J. J. Kain. He then served as assistant to Father Hoffman of St. Henry’s church, where he continued his labors until December 1, 1900, at which time he was appointed pastor of sacred Heart church at Troy, Missouri, over which he presided until September 1, 1903, when he was made pastor of St. Joseph’s church at Salisbury, Missouri, where he continued until June, 1908. At that date he became pastor of Holy Trinity church of St. Louis, one of the oldest parishes of the city. Here he has since continued his labors and his zeal and consecration have been productive of splendid results.
Father Lubeley is a member of the Knights of Columbus, in which he has attained the fourth degree, and he also belongs to the Catholic Knights of America, to the Western Catholic Union and numerous other church and civic societies, all of which tend to the moral advancement or social betterment of the community.