The following story first appeared in the Summer 2004 Glenmary Challenge.
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Glenmary Loses Pioneer Priest
Southwest missions: the love of this scholarly pastor's life
By Father Jim Kelly

COWBOY COUNTRY: Father John as pastor in Atlanta, Texas, in 1983.

With the death of Father John J. Marquardt, 84, on April 18, Glenmary lost a “pioneer priest.” Not only was he one of our home mission society’s first priests, he also exemplified the pioneering spirit of Glenmary in carrying the Catholic Church across new frontiers. He was the first Glenmarian to open mission territory in Oklahoma in 1953.

Father John, ordained in 1944 as a priest for the Archdiocese of Chicago, decided to join Glenmary after hearing Father Bishop speak at Mundelein Seminary about his new society (founded in 1939). Father John was the first of seven talented men who came to Glenmary in those early years with the encouragement of Cardinal Samuel Stritch, the Archbishop of Chicago. Cardinal Stritch, originally from Nashville, Tenn., said he owed a debt to the South. His release of some of his most promising priests to Glenmary was his payment.

Father Bishop immediately recognized the talents of his new priest and sent him for studies in moral theology and canon law to prepare to teach in the seminary Glenmary planned to open. But Father John’s service to Glenmary wasn’t limited to seminary teaching and administration.

As the academic schedule permitted, he did street preaching in mission areas and substituted for mission pastors. A place he most loved to go during those years was Hunter’s Valley, a remote mountain area in Scott County, Va. Father John called this mission area “Christmas Valley.”

But in 1953 he discovered the real love of his life when he opened Glenmary’s first missions in Oklahoma (Buffalo and Shattuck). In a story in a 1954 Glenmary Challenge, he said: “This is the kind of country that I have always yearned for, talked about, sung about, hoped to live in.”

When he returned to the seminary in 1955 to his old job as rector, his wardrobe included a cowboy hat and oversized western belt buckles. Besides seminary classes, he also offered lectures for the laity. He was known as a loyal defender of the Church’s teaching.

Then, from 1966 until retirement to headquarters in 2003, he was back in the missions as a pastor. He served in West Union, Ohio; West Point, Miss.; Vidalia, Ga.; Atlanta, Texas; and Antlers, Okla.

And he always insisted on giving credit to the Glenmary Lay Missioners who worked so closely with him during his years in Mississippi and Texas. He served as spiritual director to this talented and holy group of women. Structured as a secular institute, they helped with liturgy, religious education and evangelization in whatever missions they served while supporting themselves with secular jobs so as not to be a burden on a struggling mission parish.

Early in his priesthood when he returned from Rome with his doctorate, Father John was assigned to teach a three-month course, a “novitiate,” to three newly ordained priests: William Smith, Joseph O’Donnell and me. Our 55th anniversary of that “novitiate” would have been this summer. Instead of our usual annual celebration, we gathered at his funeral, three novices around the body of their novice master, for our last roundup.