Michael Aloysius Anstett (1875 - 1948)

Born 20 Aug 1875 in Lancaster, Erie County, New York, USA

Ancestors

Died 23 Sep 1948 at age 73 in Buffalo, Erie, New York, United States

Biography

With several score parishioners looking on, the Rev. Michael A. Anstett, 73-year-old pastor of St. Louis Church, collapsed and died just as he was concluding the 8:30 mass in the church today.

Apparently stricken with a heart attack, Father Anstett died within a few moments, still clad in the vestments of the mass, as some of the members of the congregation knelt around his body on the high altar, reciting the Rosary.

Women wept openly while Father Anstett's first assistant, the Rev. Howard J. Schwartz, who had been summoned from the nearby rectory, anointed the kindly, gray-haired priest and administered the church's last rites.

Parish Predated the Diocese

By a quirk of fate, Father Anstett had almost completed the mass—a requiem in memory of one of his parishioners. He was wearing black mourning vestments, and approaching the end of the mass, he had just uttered the words "requiescat in pace" (may he rest in peace) when he collapsed.

Father Anstett, as pastor of St. Louis Church, at Main and Edward Sts., in the downtown area, was in charge of the oldest parish in the diocese. The parish was founded in 1829, or 18 years before the Buffalo Diocese was officially established.

The Most Rev. John F. O'Hara, CSC, bishop of the Buffalo Diocese, will pontificate at the funeral mass at 10 o'clock Tuesday morning. A list of officers of the mass and other details of the funeral will be announced later by Father Schwartz, who has been designated by Bishop O'Hara as temporary administrator of the parish.

Ordained in 1906

A native of Lancaster, Father Anstett was born Aug. 20, 1875. He studied at Canisius High School and College and prepared for the priesthood at Innsbruck, Austria. He was ordained March 31, 1906, by the late Most Rev. Charles H. Colton.

Father Anstett served from May 1909 to June 1911 as an assistant pastor of St. Louis Church, little dreaming that some 33 years later he would return to the parish as pastor and successor to his lifelong friend, the late Rt. Rev. Henry B. Laudenbach.

An indefatigable worker, intensely interested in the spiritual welfare of his parishioners, Father Anstett won many friends for the church.

After leaving St. Louis Church in 1911, he was named pastor of Our Lady of Good Counsel Church, Darien Center. While there he freed the parish of debt within five years. He built a new rectory and parochial school. His record at Darien Center won him promotion to the pastorate of St. Bernard's Church in Buffalo March 16, 1916. At St. Bernard's, he erected a new convent and also freed that parish of debt.

Wins Wide Recognition

Again he was promoted, becoming pastor of St. Agnes Church July 10, 1926. It was at St. Agnes, however, that Father Anstett achieved diocesan-wide recognition, which resulted in his appointment as pastor of St. Louis Church after Msgr. Laudenbach's death in February 1944.

While at St. Agnes, Father Anstett made a personal house-to-house canvass of the parish, calling on Catholics and non-Catholics alike, becoming acquainted with everyone who lived in the area. He reorganized the social life of the parish and, within a few years, liquidated the parish mortgage.

When the late Most Rev. John A. Duffy named him to St. Louis Church, Father Anstett commented: "I'm extremely glad to return to St. Louis parish. I've always had a warm spot in my heart for the parish, where I served as a young priest."

Father Anstett is survived by two brothers, Bernard of West Falls, and Frank, who lives in Hamburg, and a sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Nuwer of East Aurora.

source: Buffalo Evening News, September 23, 1948

Sources

• 1880 New York state census, Lancaster, Erie, New York
• 1900 Census, Lancaster Township (south part excl. Lancaster vill.) Depew village, Erie, New York, United States