About the Bishop Baraga Association Founder- Joseph Gregorich
About Our Founder
Joseph Gregorich (1889-1984) was a mechanical engineer by profession and a historian by avocation. Mr. Gregorich’s mother was born in one of the parishes in Slovenia in which Fr. Baraga had been a parish priest, and she inspired her son with a love of Baraga. Joseph Gregorich dedicated fifty years of his life to the collection (usually by microfilm), cataloging, and translation of materials relating to the life and activities of Father and later Bishop Baraga. This collection was the basis of the “Positio,” the document describing Baraga’s life of heroic virtue, which was presented to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in the Vatican.
^Joseph Gregorich in the original Bishop Baraga Association in Illinois.
^Pictured above, Joseph Gregorich, wife Mary and daughter Pauline Gregorich Scharres.
The collection of historical data on Bishop Baraga that Joseph Gregorich amassed totaled 600 rolls of microfilm and 200 feet of shelved, printed material. Most of this historical material came from the United States, Austria, and Slovenia (which was part of communist Yugoslavia at the time of Mr. Gregorich’s collection activities). Lesser amounts were collected in Switzerland, France, and Italy. Mr. Gregorich translated all the documents in the Slovene, German, and French languages into English. Joseph Gregorich was also the primary translator of the diary Bishop Baraga kept while he was bishop. To insure the confidentiality of his diary, the saintly bishop wrote it in seven languages – German, French, Slovene, Italian, Latin, English, and Chippewa. Mr. Gregorich translated the first five languages. Rev. Paul Prud’homme, S.J., translated the Chippewa entries.
