Appelhans, Stephen Anthony

Stephen Anthony Appelhans, son of Mr. & Mrs. John Appelhans, was born 27 December 1905 in Pfeifer, Kansas. He grew up in Spearville, Kansas. At the age of 14 he entered the Seminary of the Society of the Divine Word in Chicago. On 5 May 1932, he was ordained into the priesthood in the Seminary Chapel and was assigned to New Guinea as a missionary. Due to his work among the natives of New Guinea, he was designated by Pope Pius XII on 8 July 1948 as the Vicar Apostolic of Eastern New Guinea. He was ordained as Titular Bishop of Catula on 30 November 1948. Bishop Appelhans was killed when the plane in which he was riding crashed at sea on 16 July 1951 near Lae, New Guinea.
The family's Volga German ancestral home is the colony of Rothammel.