By Margaret Gaughan

Maryknoll Brother Conrad Fleisch has double reason to celebrate this year

As the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers mark their centennial this year, one venerable member is marking his own century milestone. Brother Conrad Fleisch turns 100 years old on May 13, right before his mission Society celebrates the 100th anniversary of its birth on June 29. The missioner, who walks unassisted and reads The New York Times every day, points out that he will be the first Society member to reach 100. "It's good to be number one in something," he quips.

Of course, he's joking. Being number one has never been Fleisch's goal. He has always been a team player.

The youngest of the three sons and three daughters of Charles Fleisch and Eleanor Wyngert, the future missioner was born in Topeka, Kansas, as Fathers James A. Walsh and Thomas F. Price were preparing to head for Rome to get approval for their new mission Society. It would be several years before Fleisch, who was baptized George, would join Maryknoll and take the religious name of Conrad. He had other paths to travel first.

After graduating from his parish grade school, Holy Name, and Topeka Catholic High School (now called Hayden High School), he worked delivering groceries for a local merchant. Then the enterprising young man and his friend Frank Butler decided to open their own business. "It started out as a grocery store," Fleisch recalls. Kansas, he explains, was still a dry state after Prohibition, but after Congress declared 3.2 percent beer non-intoxicating, Kansas OK'd its sale and Fleisch and his partner turned the store into a tavern. "We served beer and sandwiches and even had a dance floor," Fleisch says. "It was a real neighborhood place known as The Dutch Goose." The name derived from the nicknames of its owners. "They called me 'Dutch' because of my German background, and Frank was a good athlete so they called him 'Goose' after Goose Goslin, a popular baseball player of the time," says Fleisch, who left the business the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to serve with the U.S. Navy in World War II.

"I was a torpedo man," Fleisch says and matter-of-factly talks of serving in the Atlantic Theatre on a small carrier that tracked down German submarines and later aboard a destroyer escort in the Pacific. They were perilous missions, he admits, but says, "I never thought about getting killed."

After the war, he worked for a year in California overhauling diesel engines on the Santa Fe Railroad. That's when his religious vocation began to take shape.

"Being away from home and all the people you know makes you think of what you want to do," Fleisch says. "I remembered the place called Maryknoll from the magazine my mother used to get." He pictured the coupon that read, "Our address is easy: Maryknoll, New York." He wrote for information and joined the mission Society in 1947. "I was almost 36 years old," he says. "Most older men became Brothers rather than priests. Many guys in our class were ex-servicemen."

For the next 30 years, excluding two years at a Minneapolis trade school learning electrical skills and four years on mission promotion, Fleisch was in charge of building maintenance at Maryknoll institutions throughout the United States, including the Maryknoll Society center in New York. "In the early days my staff was mostly Brothers," Fleisch says. "But more and more laypeople were hired over the years." Reflecting on his ministry and his role as supervisor, Fleisch says, "We didn't think of somebody being the boss. We all got together and got the job done."

"Conrad always did well in whatever assignment he received," says Brother Adrian Mazuchowski, who was a year behind Fleisch in the Maryknoll novitiate and credits his older Brother for leading his way. "Each member of Conrad's class was assigned to be a 'guardian angel' to a member of my class," Mazuchowski recalls. "Conrad was my guardian angel. He was so kind in getting me acclimated to Maryknoll. I want to thank him for the good example he gave me."

Though most Maryknoll priests and Brothers serve overseas, Fleisch says he always felt he was just as much a missioner serving in the States. "In any organization, every person is important," he explains. "I was contributing to the organization by doing what I do best."

What gives every missioner the staying power, he says, is not so much the job as prayer—individually and communally. Quoting Father Patrick Peyton, the famous "Rosary Priest," Fleisch expresses his own belief: "The family that prays together stays together."

Being part of a supportive community has been invaluable to him. "The best gift I have received is great help all along the way," he says.

Colleagues like classmate Brother Peter Agnone attest to the gifts Fleisch has brought to them. Agnone says, "The first word that comes to mind when I think of Conrad is 'cool.' By that I mean laid-back and easygoing. I never saw him get irritated." Now as the two live together in retirement at Mission St. Teresa's in New York, Agnone finds his classmate "still cool."

That quality is never more obvious than when Fleisch answers those who ask him how he accounts for his longevity. "I just keep breathing," he says. And in his gentle, humble presence, one can also feel the breath of the Spirit.

For more information about the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers visit www.maryknollsociety.org