austraLasia #2976
Hans was born in Holland, but the family moved to New Zealand when he was still a boy, and subsequently to Australia, where Hans joined the Salesians and made his first profession in 1957. If I can be allowed a personal memory, Hans was someone I knew very closely and had worked with over many years, and he kept in touch until it was impossible for him to do so any further - when I arrived in Oakleigh as a young lad, at what was then called the Archbishop Mannix Missionary College, Hans was one of the first Salesian I recall clearly (Peter Swain was the first): he taught me leather work, and my breviary still has the cover he helped me to make! It probably says more for the quality of the material and the guidance I received, than my craftsmanship, but it is a clue to what would become Hans' great gift - he could make, build and teach others to do so, and he did this until he was unable to do so any more.
Theological studies were done at Castellmare di Stabbia, in Italy, but Hans had already begun the 'agricultural' side of his career, as a practical trainee at Sunbury. He returned there after ordination and ran the agricultural aspect of that college for many years subsequently, until the mid 1980s in fact when he moved to Samoa to tackle the first of many great building and educational enterprises - the outstanding Don Bosco Technical Centre at Alafua in Samoa, the pride of that nation, he built up brick by brick. Not only that; it stood the test of two of the most devastating cyclones Samoa has ever known: Olf in 1990 and Val in December 1991. This latter destroyed almost every large building in the country - but not those built by Hans Dopheide! In fact Samoa and Tokelau subsequently adopted a building code on the basis of Hans' efforts - and with some personal guidance from him.
A little less than ten years later, after a brief spell in Australia at St Jospeh's Ferntree Gully, Hans applied for the fledgling mission to be set up in Pakistan at Lahore and Quetta. In ACG 397, the Rector Major named him amongst others as a 'founder' in our Region. And that he was. Fr Miguel Ruiz, who has succeeded Hans at the Don Bosco College at Lahore, which again Hans built up brick by brick, says in a brief note: "Hans was indeed a great Salesian, and I was lucky to spend with him his last 3 years (in Pakistan)". Miguel then attached a number of photos of youngsters at the school celebrating in preparation for Christmas and comments that they are the "last living monument to Hans".
We are grateful for the life of this good Salesian. Christmas, we know, intertwines birth and hint of death, and this particular event completes the cycle - to birth again, into eternal life.
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Please pray, too, for another fine Salesian whom the doctors say has little time left amongst us: Fr Dan O'Sullivan of the Australia-Pacific Province, originally from Cork, Ireland. Dan turned 93 last July.
The Lord called Fr Hans Dopheide to Himself on Christmas Day
MELBOURNE: 26 December 2011 -- Salesians and many past pupils and friends of Fr Hans Dopheide, in Australia, New Zealand, Samoa, Pakistan, amongst other places, give thanks to God for the life and witness of Fr Hans Dopheide, a Salesian with a great missionary heart and action. They will give thanks to God for his Mercy in calling Himself to Him on Christmas night, after Hans' long struggle with dementia which had robbed him of the ability to look back on what he had achieved, or even to communicate with people. But that takes nothing at all away from the greatness of this man, which his own province of Australia-Pacific will recall in a particular way as he is laid to rest in the Salesian cemetery at Sunbury (Melbourne).Hans was born in Holland, but the family moved to New Zealand when he was still a boy, and subsequently to Australia, where Hans joined the Salesians and made his first profession in 1957. If I can be allowed a personal memory, Hans was someone I knew very closely and had worked with over many years, and he kept in touch until it was impossible for him to do so any further - when I arrived in Oakleigh as a young lad, at what was then called the Archbishop Mannix Missionary College, Hans was one of the first Salesian I recall clearly (Peter Swain was the first): he taught me leather work, and my breviary still has the cover he helped me to make! It probably says more for the quality of the material and the guidance I received, than my craftsmanship, but it is a clue to what would become Hans' great gift - he could make, build and teach others to do so, and he did this until he was unable to do so any more.
Theological studies were done at Castellmare di Stabbia, in Italy, but Hans had already begun the 'agricultural' side of his career, as a practical trainee at Sunbury. He returned there after ordination and ran the agricultural aspect of that college for many years subsequently, until the mid 1980s in fact when he moved to Samoa to tackle the first of many great building and educational enterprises - the outstanding Don Bosco Technical Centre at Alafua in Samoa, the pride of that nation, he built up brick by brick. Not only that; it stood the test of two of the most devastating cyclones Samoa has ever known: Olf in 1990 and Val in December 1991. This latter destroyed almost every large building in the country - but not those built by Hans Dopheide! In fact Samoa and Tokelau subsequently adopted a building code on the basis of Hans' efforts - and with some personal guidance from him.
A little less than ten years later, after a brief spell in Australia at St Jospeh's Ferntree Gully, Hans applied for the fledgling mission to be set up in Pakistan at Lahore and Quetta. In ACG 397, the Rector Major named him amongst others as a 'founder' in our Region. And that he was. Fr Miguel Ruiz, who has succeeded Hans at the Don Bosco College at Lahore, which again Hans built up brick by brick, says in a brief note: "Hans was indeed a great Salesian, and I was lucky to spend with him his last 3 years (in Pakistan)". Miguel then attached a number of photos of youngsters at the school celebrating in preparation for Christmas and comments that they are the "last living monument to Hans".
We are grateful for the life of this good Salesian. Christmas, we know, intertwines birth and hint of death, and this particular event completes the cycle - to birth again, into eternal life.
--------
Please pray, too, for another fine Salesian whom the doctors say has little time left amongst us: Fr Dan O'Sullivan of the Australia-Pacific Province, originally from Cork, Ireland. Dan turned 93 last July.
