Father Frances Xavier Pierz

Father Frances Xavier Pierz is listed in the biography of the Schaffer family.

From his Wikipedia page:

• He was born in 1785 in the Kingdom of Austria, now Slovenia.

• As a priest, he left for the US in 1835. He reported to the Diocese of Detroit, and worked in the missions around Lake Superior.

• In 1852 he was assigned to the northern part of the Minnesota Territories. 

• In 1856 he was joined by a group of Benedictine Priests from Pennsylvania, and in 1857 they were joined by a group of Benedictine Nuns.

• In 1873, having retired two years before, Father Pierz sailed back to Slovenia at the age of 88. He died in January 1880.

He served both the native people and the immigrants in the Lake Superior and Minnesota areas.

Another bit about Father Pierz, from St James Catholic Church, Jacobs Prairie MN

 

...When the first permanent settlements of Minnesota began in earnest in the early 1850’s, German Catholic immigrants were in the forefront. They followed the waterways of the upper midwest out into tile rich, wooded farm lands of the Sank valley. Among their early blessings, the first Holy Masses and spiritual care of the venerable Indian missionary, Father Francis Xavier Pierz, stand forth. He not only cared, as he could, for those who had arrived, but he even invited more to come. Moreover, he took steps to encourage Bishop Joseph Cretin to bring addition priests into the region to supply stable spiritual care. Sons of St. Benedict, from the new and vigorous American branch of the Church’s oldest religious order, answered this call...

...St. James Parish was among their first parish efforts, and has been served by Benedictines from St. John’s continually since that time...