Where we Work
What we Do
John Frangenberg was born on September 15, 1930 in Pochahontas, Arkansas, son of John and Dorothea Berger Frangenberg. In the summer of 1945 the family moved to Wichita, Kansas where Brother lived for the next nine years. He entered Maryknoll from St. Joseph's Parish in Wichita in September 1954 and took his first oath on June 29, 1956.
Brother John's first assignment was to the college of Glen Ellyn where he worked in the Physical Plant Department for one year. In 1957 he was assigned to Minneapolis for two years for special studies in electricity, welding and auto mechanics. When he completed his studies in 1959, he moved to the Center for a few months before starting his new assignment at the minor seminary in Chesterfield, Missouri, which was being built at that time. Brother John spent the next fourteen years at Chesterfield taking care of the heating plant and building maintenance. He was the last Maryknoller to leave Chesterfield after the property was sold to Logan College of Chiropractic in 1972.
In July 1972, Brother John moved to the new novitiate in Hingham, Massachusetts where he worked in the physical plant. In November 1975, he moved to the Center at Maryknoll, New York to take charge of the Physical Plant Department, replacing Brother Matthew who had been assigned to Samoa. Brother John stayed at the Center as Director of the Physical Plant Department for the next eleven years until 1986, when in Brother's own words he "Escaped" to the missions.
Assigned to Tanzania he went to the "Baraki Sisters Farm" in Musoma, Tanzania to work with Father Arthur Wille who was helping the Immaculate Heart Sisters of Africa to develop the farm as a training place for their postulant candidates and also as a means of support for the community. Brother John has now been at Baraki for the past fourteen years and plans, God willing, to continue as long as his health permits. Bro. John also served on the Tanzania Regional Council for six years.
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& Brothers Africa Region