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Carmelites of the “Texas Commissariat”
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A few issues back (volume 41, number 4, October/November 2002) there was an article in the Carmelite Review about the secession of a group of Carmelites from the priory in Scipio, Kansas, to western Texas. When I was a lad growing up in eastern Kansas, my uncle, Herman Lickteig, was part of all that. Here is his story.
My father, Frank Lickteig, came from a large family. When I use the word ‘large,’ I am not referring only to the number of persons—he had ten brothers and sisters—but also that each one of them was a large person. Maybe not all were tall, but they were all broad and solidly built. I believe that this is the best way to describe my Uncle Herman.
My parents saw to it that we children knew our uncles and aunts, so it was common on Sunday afternoons that we would visit one or another of those relatives. They were all interesting, but Herman was the most interesting. Uncle Herman had a way of leaning back in his rocking chair with his eyes closed to tell a story as if it had happened only yesterday. To this day I marvel that my father never attempted to correct in any way anything that Uncle Herman had to say.
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Father Bernard Lickteig, O.Carm., nephew of “Uncle Herman”
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Uncle Herman’s early history was all entwined with the Carmelites. The early Carmelites in Scipio felt that they had an ideal place for a seminary so they built their monastery accordingly. My grandfather had many sons so he did not object when his third oldest, Herman, wanted to join the Carmelites at Scipio.
Neither my grandfather nor Uncle Herman realized that life was not peaceful in the Carmelite monastery. Sometime in the early days of the 1880’s, Father Anastasius Peters, O.Carm., arrived in Scipio. He was not very happy about his assignment, and when his brother, Father Boniface Peters, O.Carm., also came to Scipio, they began planning their “escape.” It was a simple plan. They would get farm implements, some horses and cows and take them to the train station a half-mile away. There they would make arrangements with the railroad to take them, the animals, and all the Scipio Carmelites who wanted to ‘escape’ to Texas before anyone knew what was happening.
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Uncle Herman Lickteig on his wedding day
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For reasons never told to me, Uncle Herman, who was a postulant at the time, was not included in the plot. He admitted that he helped the Peters brothers and the other planners to take materials to the train depot, but he asked no questions. So, by his own words, he was surprised as could be when he awakened on August 6, 1882, to find only himself and the prior in the house. The prior asked him, “Where is everyone?” and Uncle Herman could honestly answer that he did not know.
Then came a day when my grandfather went to visit his son in the monastery in Scipio. After a brief visit my grandfather said, “You have been here several months and, as of yet, I have not heard that you have read a single book or attended a single class on any subject. All you have done is work on the farm here instead of studying for the priesthood. Well, I, too, have a farm and I think you should work for me rather than on this disorganized farm of the Carmelites. Come home.”
Uncle Herman gave some good thought to his father’s words and a few days later left Scipio thus ending the Lickteig family’s involvement with the “Texas Commissariat.” Since then, quite a few members of the Lickteig family have joined the Carmelites— maybe a little less disorganized these days. As for Uncle Herman, he eventually married. His grandson, perhaps hearing of the chaos of those early days, decided against becoming a Carmelite and instead became a Jesuit.
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