Priests and Preachers

Priests and Preachers

In former times, if a wealthy peasant had more than a son who could take over his farm after his death, they sent the second eldest one to a higher level school to study theology and to become a priest. Thus, they always had direct theological assistance and a bonus for their afterlife – they thought.

Likely, this also happened to Johann Baptist Hutsteiner learned and studied at the royal lyceum in Passau since 1839 and got his ordination in Passau on 13.8.1852.

First he had been cooperator (preacher) in the cathedral of Passau, St. Stephan, until 1858. From 1859 to 1870 he acted as cooperator in the parish Fürstenzell. There, he was reported heavily carrying  water buckets during a fire which burnt a house in Pilzweg (Fürstenzell) in April 1870.

On 2nd of November 1870 he became expositus in Haardorf (Osterhofen).

In January 1874 he was appointed pastor in Gottsdorf, a neighbouring village to his home town Wegscheid, where he acted until his death in November 1889.

By the way: his sister Anna Hutsteiner, who never unmarried, died as a virgin in Haardorf in 1872. Likely she was his parish housekeeper, also quite a common behaviour, that unmarried sisters of priests moved with him.

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