Priest once assigned to four area congregations

Parishioners of Holy Family lost a former pastor on January 26—but also the parishioners of St. Joseph’s and Sacred Heart over in Boyd and Edson, along with those at St. Mary Czestochowa’s at the intersection of Elm and Copenhaver, called Junction.

Announced by the Diocese of LaCrosse on its website recently was the news that Father Father Robert W. Nelson, born June 18, 1951 in Marshfield to Robert G. And Joanne Nelson and ordained a priest on May 19, 1977 by Bishop Frederick W. Freking in Hewitt, died at his home in the town of Sigel, Wood County on January 26.

He was 70 years old. Father Nelson's first assignment as a priest was to Blessed Sacrament parish in LaCrosse, also being a chaplain for the La-Crosse Sierra Club and Catholic Junior. Serving at Aquinas High School in LaCrosse and Columbus High School in Marshfield along with various other parish assignments throughout the diocese, Father Nelson was appointed pastor at Holy Family in 1994, succeeding Father Jeremiah Cashman after Cashman was reassigned to Holy Cross at Cornell in August 1994.

Then serving Holy Family with an initial assignment of six years, Nelson remained until January of 2010, when he was reappointed to St. Joachim at Pittsville, Wisconsin. In 2017, he was granted Senior Priest status, helping out as he could at Masses.

Before he left Stanley, Father Nelson was assigned to the combined parishes of Sacred Heart in Edson and St. Joseph’s in Boyd, as well as St. Mary Czestochowa, prior to the Junction parish becoming a “chapel of convenience” and attached to Thorp.

While at Stanley, “Father Bob” as he preferred to be known also suggested that the name Our Lady of Victory be given to the local hospital, and this suggestion was accepted.

Preceded in death by his parents, Father is survived by two sisters Sandra and Debra, along with one brother Gary and nieces and nephews.

Speaking at his final mass for the Stanley-Boyd area on 2010, Father Nelson left these words, recorded by the now Father Daniel Williams, then a Stanley-Boyd high school student and local CLERGY PASSING

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reporter: “Pray well, and if you pray well, you will live well, and if you live well, you will die well, and if you die well, all will be well,” Father Nelson said in farewell to his people back in January of

2010.