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- Joseph J. Himmel SJ (born Joseph J. Himmelheber; January 16, 1855 – November 3, 1924) was an American Catholic priest and Jesuit. For much of his early life, he was a missionary throughout the northeast United States and retreat master. Later in life, he was president of Gonzaga College and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Born in Annapolis, Maryland, to German-immigrant parents, Himmel was educated at private schools in Maryland, before entering the Redemptorist Order, of which his father had been especially fond. Early in his training, he was involved in some incident of mischief, and was expelled from the Redemptorist school he was attending, prompting him to immediately pursue admittance to the Society of Jesus, despite having no prior familiarity with the order. Upon being accepted, he began his formation in Frederick, Maryland, eventually being sent to Woodstock College. There, he began experiencing his first illnesses, which would plague him through life. During his studies, he also taught intermittently at Georgetown University and the College of the Holy Cross. Following his ordination in 1885, Himmel became a missionary in New England and Philadelphia. Over the course of his twenty years of missionary work, he was successful in soliciting donations for the Jesuits' work. Eventually becoming superior of the Jesuit home missions, he was simultaneously named superior of the Jesuit retreat center on Keyser Island, a position be held discontinuously for seventeen years. In 1907, he was named president of Gonzaga College, holding the position for only a year, before being appointed president of Georgetown University in 1908. Due to his poor health, his term came to an end in 1912. He spent the remainder of his life at Keyser Island, as superior of the Jesuit novitiate of St. Andrew-on-Hudson in Poughkeepsie, New York, and as a recluse at Georgetown, due to his illness. (en)
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