By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
After Trappist monks traveled in 1947 from Kentucky to start a new abbey in rural Huntsville, Utah, the state already filled with Latter-day Saints eventually embraced and adopted the Catholic monastery. Only one native Utahn, however, spent his entire adult life at the monastery as a monk.
His name was John Joseph Peczuh, Jr., born on October 4, 1929 in Kenilworth, Utah (near Price) to John Peczuh and Mary Perla. Like many others in Carbon County, the Peczuhs were a family of immigrants. John’s mother and maternal grandparents were born in Croatia. His paternal ancestors came from Hungary.
John’s father worked as a coal miner. John, the oldest of seven siblings, attended Carbon County schools, and took classes at Carbon College (now known as the College of Eastern Utah). He also served in the U.S. Army during the some of the most difficult years of the Korean War.
The Peczuh family belonged to the local Notre Dame de Lourdes Catholic Parish. One of Notre Dame’s pastors in the 1950s, Father John LaBranche, also was my pastor two decades later in Ogden. Father Francis Pellegrino—Brother John’s schoolmate and friend—served the same Price church as well as the nearby St. Anthony of Padua parish in Helper, Utah.
John was skilled at and earned a certificate in carpentry. He probably could have made a good living plying that trade for the many industries in his home county, but his heart took him in a different direction. He was attracted to the monastery in Northern Utah, and not just for spiritual reasons.
His youngest sister Emily says, “He wanted to be a farmer, not a viable occupation in Carbon County at the time.” Thus, John entered the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity in May 1955. He took simple vows in 1958 and lived the rest of his life there as an oblate.
In addition to helping with the farm work, Brother John was assigned to the laundry, a job he did for many decades. He diligently collected all the monk robes each week, washed them, and then returned them to his fellow Trappists. He also maintained and repaired the monastery’s large commercial grade laundry machines.
As a result, in addition to calling him “JP,” his Trappist brothers often referred to him as “John, the laundry monk.” Brother John also delivered monastery bread and eggs to customers throughout Northern Utah, and drove his fellow Trappists to doctor visits, the airport, or on errands. In the early 1970’s, he even went to Mexico to help establish a branch monastery.
Unlike some monk family members who lived much further away, every year the extended Peczuh family visited Huntsville to see Brother John. Although they all lived in the same state, for a long time it still was a grueling four hour drive from Price to Huntsville before more modern roads and highways were built.
Brother John was always so happy to see his Utah family. His sister Emily’s grandchildren have fond memories of visits to “Uncle Johnnie’s House,” which, of course, was the monastery guest house. Emily remembers her brother as “big and strong” and an avid reader, “Every chance he had, he would scour used book stores.” He collected other things too.
Emily says Brother John “fostered his dream of farming by starting a garden patch/junk yard behind the Monastery. I understand it was full of large rocks, multiple garden sheds, 5 gallon buckets of maple tree starts” and on and on. She salvaged some items from his collection after he died and says that even now “on hot days, my garage smells like the monastery—a combination of whole wheat bread, honey and wool habits.”
Volunteer monastery librarian Don Morrissey says Brother John probably was ahead of his time when it came to recycling: “JP used to take all the old newspapers to save to recycle. When he had a load of scrap metal or wood or paper he would take the farm dump truck to get money. He would buy tomato seeds or other vegetable seeds to plant in his garden in his forest. “
These thrifty habits likely originated during Brother John’s youth, a time marked by the Great Depression, World War II, and the Korean War. He likely saw–and perhaps even knew–deprivation long before he ever took his Trappist vow of poverty. Due to declining health, he was not quite able to clear and give away his large collection before he died, and left behind multiple truckloads of materials as a “gift” for new property owner Bill White.
Despite his tendency to collect things, Brother John also saw the less tangible monastic big picture. Don Morrissey recalls how some of the monks worked “morning, afternoon and evening, praying silently as they worked.” Brother John always encouraged Don, however, to make time to “be more contemplative” even in the face of a heavy workload.
Brother John Peczuh lived to be 87 years old and had been a Trappist monk for almost 60 years when he passed away five years ago in December 2016. The only native Utah monk now rests with three dozen of his religious brothers in the quaint abbey cemetery on the old monastery land.
I think he would be happy to know that just steps away, the work of tilling, planting, and cultivating Brother John’s beloved farmland goes on.
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. His book Monastery Mornings (found here), about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, was published by Paraclete Press (more information here) in August 2021.
