This is a photograph of [from left to right] Frs. J. E. Walsh, D. McShane, A. Gauthier and B. Meyer. They are wearing coats and hats, the location is unknown. Born in Maryland, Fr. Walsh graduated from Mt. St. Mary's College at age 19 and worked two years as a timekeeper in a steel mill. He entered the first class of Maryknoll in 1912 and in 1915 became the second priest ordained in the Society. Three years later. 1918, he was assigned to Kwong Tung (present Guangdong), China. Pope Pius XI named Fr. Walsh as the first Bishop of the Vicariate of Kongmoon. He was consecrated a Bishop in 1927 at Shepherd of the Church on Sancian Island the death place of St. Francis Xavier. In 1936, Bishop Walsh was elected second Superior General following the death of Bishop James A. Walsh, the founder of Maryknoll. In 1948 he as asked to return to China to head the Catholic Central Bureau in Shanghai. In 1951 the government closed the bureau. He was arrested in 1959 and sentenced to 20 years in prison. In 1970 he was released after spending nearly 12 years in prison. -- Rev. McShane was born in Indiana. He joined Maryknoll in 1912 as a deacon, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1914, the first ordained for Maryknoll. He was assigned to Tungchen in 1919 and to Loting the following year. There he set up an orphanage for abandoned children. In 1927 he contracted smallpox from a dying infant, which brought about his own death. He was buried in front of the Loting parish rectory. -- Born in Iowa, Fr. Meyer was studying for the diocesan priesthood when he heard about Maryknoll and wrote to Fr. James Anthony Walsh in 1914. As a deacon at Maryknoll he became procurator of the Seminary and member of the first Maryknoll governing council. In 1918 he became one of the pioneer departure group to open Maryknoll's first mission in Kongmoon, South China. He spent many years in China but was finally forced to leave by the Communists in 1950.
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