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by Daniel Jolls (Author), Michael Jolls (Author)
Father William Netstraeter (1843 - 1924) was born and raised in Westphalia, Germany before emigrating to the United States to complete his studies for the priesthood. At the age of 30, he agreed to be pastor of the distraught St. Joseph's Parish, located in a rural German community in Chicagoland's forest northern territory known as Grosse Pointe. In less than a decade, Fr. Netstraeter turned around the parish's financial troubles and began major expansions. At the same time, he made significant strides in local government and developed a real-estate business that grew the community. As the 1900s progressed, Fr. Netstraeter orchestrated a variety of institutions that would surpass his lifetime, and that have become landmarks of Chicago's North Shore. His achievements would contribute posthumously for over a century, most notably, a legal dispute involving Nazi Germany.
In 2019, months before the Archdiocese of Chicago attempted to dissolve St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Wilmette, the parish archives were carefully studied to preserve the legacy of Fr. Netstraeter before the files be lost to history. Rev. William Netstraeter: A Life in Three Parts indirectly, but successfully, preserved the archives in the format of a story spanning an entire century, from the 1840s to the 1940s.
