The Rev. George Weibel was a priest first, but his spare time was spent planting trees and flowers and even literally helping to build two churches.
Weibel, known for his calm, his ready smile and ever-present pipe, died Nov. 1 at his Heather Gardens home. He was 86.
“If he ever got perturbed, he never showed it,” said the Rev. Jerry Rohr, who gave the eulogy at Weibel’s funeral Mass last week.
Weibel “took everything in stride,” Rohr said in an interview. “He taught me patience — but not until this year,” he said, laughing.
In addition to starting two parishes for the Denver Catholic Archdiocese — St. Francis Cabrini in Littleton and Nativity of Our Lord in Broomfield — he served Holy Family, St. Vincent de Paul, Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Rose of Lima.
Long after retirement, he was still saying Masses and performing weddings and baptisms, often for children of former parishioners.
He had made a room of his apartment into a small chapel, where he said Mass for Heather Gardens residents six days a week, said a nephew, Joe Weibel of Broomfield.
An outdoorsman, George Weibel planted trees and flowers and generally “puttered” wherever he lived, Rohr said.
“He’d get out with a rake or a snowplow too,” said Eileen Loomis of Denver, who was pastoral assistant at Our Lady of Lourdes.
Weibel would take his nieces and nephews and kids from parishes to Evergreen for ice skating or Glenwood Springs for swimming, his nephew said.
The pipe was a fixture, so much so that he had a permanent indentation in his front teeth, Rohr said.
Though some of his pipes were patched with duct tape, he always refused a new one, complaining that it would have to be broken in, Joe Weibel said.
“He was a perfect gentleman, with a wonderful dry wit,” said the Rev. Edward Madden, a priest friend in Boulder.
“Everything seemed to delight him,” Rohr said.
George Weibel was born on a farm near Stratton on March 2, 1922, the youngest of 10 children and the last to die.
He went to St. Charles Catholic grade school in Stratton and finished high school, college and seminary at Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio.
After serving at St. Vincent de Paul in Denver, he was sent to Broomfield to build a new parish. “They had their first Mass in a bank basement,” his nephew said.
During construction, Weibel “ran the tractor, ran cement and helped dig the basement,” Joe Weibel said. “He wasn’t a good carpenter, but he was a great organizer.”
He later served at Holy Family in Denver, St. Mary’s in Littleton, started St. Francis Cabrini Church in Littleton and served at Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Rose of Lima in Denver.
For several years, he suffered from a neurological disorder that caused a tremor in his hands, his nephew said, and as it worsened, he preferred eating at home.
As he got older, he seemed ready to die, Madden said. “People would tell him that it’s better to be over the hill than under the hill.”
But near the end, Weibel told friends, “I think I’d rather be under the hill now.”
Until the end, “he always put everything in the hands of God,” his nephew said.
In addition to his nephew, Weibel is survived by 27 other nephews and nieces and scores of great-nieces and great-nephews.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
