Weber, Anselm
WEBER, ANSELM
Missionary; b. New Salem, MI, Nov. 10, 1862; d. Rochester, MN, March 7, 1921. He was the son of Peter and Anna (Pfeiffer) Weber. He entered the Franciscan novitiate at Oldenburg, IN (1882), and later studied at St. Francis College, Cincinnati, Ohio, where he was ordained in 1889. He taught at the college until his health failed in 1898. He then embarked upon his missionary career in St. Michael's, AZ. At the outset Weber recognized that linguistic inadequacies represented the most serious hindrance to the Christianization of the Navahos. For 12 years he worked to help correct these deficiencies, and in 1912 his two-volume English-Navaho and Navaho-English Dictionary was published. During the time he was working on his dictionary, Weber traveled widely on mission assignments and established day schools at Chin Lee, AZ, and at Lukachukai on the Arizona–New Mexico border. From 1913 to his death Weber devoted himself to the editorship of the Franciscan Missions of the Southwest, an annual magazine.
Bibliography: r. l. wilkin, Anselm Weber, O.F.M. (Milwaukee 1955).
[j. l. morrison]