By A.M. Kelley
Superior Catholic Herald

Levra first wanted to enter seminary in 1954

SUPERIOR -- Ron Levra wanted to enter the seminary and his parents helped him complete the application. The year was 1954 and he was only 14 years old.

Fast-forward 52 years. He's making make progress on his goal. On June 25 Bishop Raphael M. Fliss ordained Levra to the transitional diaconate, putting him only one short year away from his long deferred dream of becoming a diocesan priest.

Why did it take so long? Maybe it didn't, according to the optimistic deacon. Maybe it happened right on time.

To overcome the first barrier in 1954, a calling was not enough. There were plenty of priests at the time, Levra said, and the seminary cost plenty of money. He lived with his parents and younger sister, Joanne, in the small town of Iron Belt, 10 miles west of Hurley. His father, William, was a miner and he and his wife, Dorothy, could not afford to fund their son's education.

"I was very disappointed," he said.

The Levras struggled along with other mining families to make ends meets and were members of Iron Belt's St. Mary Magdalene Parish, which closed in 1986 and was leveled by the wrecking ball.

"I cried when I heard that they tore it down," Levra said.

The town could not even afford to keep its high school open and Levra's 1958 senior class was the first from Iron Belt to graduate from Hurley High School.

After graduation Levra left home for a job with American Motors in Kenosha, Wis. Then after a 2-year stint in the military, he worked for the Wisconsin State Patrol, then in law enforcement for the city of Park Falls and finally for 18 years for Napa Auto Parts in Park Falls and retired in 1999.

His many important steps to ordination include: Marriage to Karen Doerring in 1964, raising three children, becoming a grandfather and being widowed.

His wife died in 1987 but Levra found that the time still wasn't right to knock on a seminary's door. His third child was in school and lived at home, and his mother was ill and needed care.

When she died in 2003, he and his Park Falls pastor, Fr. Jim Jackson, talked about the seminary and that talk led to Fr. Andrew Ricci, the diocesan director of vocations.

"(The desire to become a priest) never left my mind," Levra said. "When my wife died it came back to me. I can't even say it was a dream. I was called."

The call's pull was as strong as it ever had been and at age 64 he found himself a student at Sacred Heart School of Theology in Hales Corner, Wis.

Besides his studies, last year he worked as a chaplain two days a week at St. Francis nursing home in Milwaukee.

"It was a beautiful experience," he said, and an essential part of his seminary experience. "Most people think there's nothing but books and books and books in becoming a priest."

His decision to enter the seminary was a total surprise to his children. None of them had ever heard of men, widowed with children and grandchildren, becoming priests.

"It kind of shocked us all," said his eldest child, Colleen Phillips. "I didn't even know there was such a program."

Phillips is 40 years old, lives in Omaha, Neb., and is married to Brian, an Air Force air traffic controller stationed in Iraq. The couple has three daughters, Alison, Alicia and Ashley.

"It was really a big surprise," she said in a telephone interview with the Catholic Herald. "But this is a profession that he's chosen. My dad has done what is right for him."

His sons Daniel Levra, 38, who has kept the family house in Butternut and works for St. Croix of Park Falls, Ltd., a manufacturer of rods and reels, and son Dale Levra, 34, who works in construction and operates a crane in Omaha, Neb., feel the same way.

"Honestly it was a surprise. I never thought he was that religious," Dale Levra said. "But more power to him. He seems happier now than he's been in long time."

As for Alison, Alicia and Ashley, Levra says that he's always going to be "grandpa first" to his grandchildren.

Levra's hobbies are fishing and cooking; his specialty is a chicken spaetzel dumpling soup. He makes it the way his German mother taught him.

This summer he's at St. Mary's Medical Center, Duluth, Minn., as a chaplain-in-training for families who have loved ones with critical brain injuries. This fall he'll return to the seminary for more study and on-the-job practical preaching assignments. If all goes as planned, he will be ordained a priest a year from now and all his interests will converge as he goes into business making chicken soup for the soul.

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© Superior Catholic Herald, 2006