Rev. Augustine P. Heimann is the beloved priest and rector of St. Martin’s Catholic Church at Plqua, Kansas. He is a veteran in the service of the church in Kansas. He came to the state more than a quarter of a century ago, soon after his ordination as a priest, and for years had devoted himself to the constructive as well as the spiritual administration of several important parishes in different counties.
Father Heimann was born in Lafayette, Indiana, February 15, 1866. His father, August Heimann, was born in Silesia, Prussia, in 1834. When eighteen years of age he came to America, locating at Lafayette, Indiana, and spent many years in the railroad service. He finally retired and came to Kansas to live with his son, Father Helmann, and died at Odin in this state in 1910. August Heimann married Louiss Miller. She was born in 1836, at Dunningen in Wuertemberg, Germany, and her parents came to this country in 1850, locating in Covington, Indiana. August Heimann and wife had the following family: Albert, who died at the age of four years; Mary, who died when three years old; Augustine P.; and Emma, who became a member of the Sisterhood of the Precious Blood and died in 1912.
Father Heimann was educated in the parochial schools of Lafayette, Indiana. He was early destined for the priesthood, and for five years pursued the classical course in St. Lawrence College at Mount Calvary in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin. This was followed by three years of study of philosophy and theology at St. Francis Seminary near Milwaukee, and he took his last course in theology at Mount St. Mary’s in Cincinnati. He was ordained at Cincinnati June 29, 1889.
He was at once sent out to Kansas, and his first service was at Colby in Thomas County. There he put in three years of strenuous missionary work, having charge of twenty-three missions in six different counties. In 1892 he became pastor of the Catholic Church at Beloit, Kansas, remaining one year, then was rector of the church at Herndon, and for fourteen years had the administration of the church at Odin. Following that was several months at Garden City, and one year at Kinsley, and in 1912 he became rector of St. Martin’s Church of Piqua.
St. Martin’s Parish was established in 1886. Its founder was Father Buechler. It is a large parish, extending north of Piqua six miles, south the same distance, and easterly it includes the Owl Creek and Yates Center Missions, under Father Heimann, and to the west it extends four miles. The parish had seventy families at Piqua, thirty families at Owl Creek and twenty families at Yates Center.
Recently fifteen acres of land were donated to the parish by Herman Wille whose place adjoins Piqua on the southwest. An extensive program of building on the new site-had been undertaken, including a new rectory, a new school, a new Sisters’ residence, parish hall and church. All these buildings will be successively undertaken; the rectory will be finished in May of 1917. During Father Heimann’s career in the priesthood and under his direction twelve coolesiastical buildings were erected, exclusive of those proposed at Piqua.
Father Heimann is a member of the Knights of Columbus, the Catholic Mutual Benefit Association, the Catholic Federation and the “Central-Verein.”