Wolfgang Hess

Wolfgang Hess was born into a family of moderate wealth in Vienna, growing up with two brothers and three sisters on the family estate near the outskirts of town. Nominal Catholics, the Hess family were well-respected and in control of their affairs; however, of the estate, Wolfgang was the only one to show serious devotion to the faith from a young age and onward. Teachers and friends of the family had noted Wolfgang to be an uncharacteristically stern and intense child, with little humor and often quiet in his studies and play.

His attendance to the University of Vienna was interrupted in his third year by the outbreak of the Great War. Initially unconcerned with the prospects of a war and intent on remaining in school to study law and theology, he nonetheless followed the recommendations of close friends and mentors in the church to perform a duty that served "both God and State." At the age of twenty, Wolfgang secured a minor commission into the medical corp of the Austrian Common Army, where he served as an orderly. His serious attitude to faith gave him an unofficial position as a chaplain in the hospital wards near the front, and as the war dragged on, he eventually found himself as an assistant surgeon on top of his other duties.

Like many young men who left the war, Wolfgang found himself jaded and with many haunting memories. The collapse of the Empire and unrest across Austrian lands, especially at university, drove him to quickly finish his last year of work and take on the mantle as a priest of the Holy Roman faith. He was shaken and uncertain of what was to come, but one thing remained firm - his unshakable belief in the superiority of the Catholic faith and god.

Wolfgang emigrated to Massachusetts in late 1919 to escape the European turmoil and uncertainty following the war.