At 95, Julius Greb still works hard and prays even harder

Name: Julius Greb

Age: 95

Parish: St. Anne Church

City: North Little Rock

Family: Three daughters, two sons and “more grandkids and great-grandkids and great-great-grandkids than (he) can count” 

Why you want to know Julius: Greb has worked at the St. Joseph Center in North Little Rock (formerly the St. Joseph Home) as a handyman and groundskeeper since 1956. Born to farmers in northwest Arkansas in 1930, Greb attended St. Anne School in Fort Smith and was drafted into the Army from 1951 to 1953. While stationed in Germany, Greb met and married his late wife, Else. 

Greb retired in 2014 from his paid job, and while he lightened his workload, he just couldn’t stay away. Now, Greb visits the St. Joseph Center several times a week — if not every day — helping survey the grounds and updating maps for the staff. Greb considers the St. Joseph Center his home and wants other Catholics to visit and learn more about the place he’s visited nearly every day for 69 years.  

IN HIS OWN WORDS

What feeds you spiritually? 

I know I’m a better Catholic by being around here (at the St. Joseph Center). Just the building makes me a better Catholic — I know this building has been here for a long time, and is full of Catholic history. … I think Catholics should come up here and check things out in their spare time. 

I pray about two rosaries a day. When I wake up in the morning, I watch the news, then Mass at 7 o’clock on EWTN and then Mass at 11 o’clock. I usually watch those, both Masses. But throughout the day, they have other Masses too from the Vatican with Pope Francis. Sometimes, I go to sleep praying my rosary. I try to make it every Sunday to Mass.

How did you first start working at the St. Joseph Center in 1956? 

I got home from the Army in 1953 and worked for a box factory up in Charleston. The owner of the box factory was Herman Osterman. I knew him since we were kids. His sister (in law) was Sister Charlene (Lindeman, OSB, who oversaw the St. Joseph Center while it was an orphanage). She needed a man down here to operate the dairy farm. I’d been working up at St. Scholastica Monastery (in Fort Smith) for three or four months because the box factory closed. The mother superior at St. Scholastica (who once oversaw St. Joseph Orphanage) asked me if I’d be interested in coming down here and doing the dairy work. She asked me if I would go down there. I said, ‘Well, yeah, I take care of cows and hogs and we had them when I was growing up.’”

What are some of the duties you still have here at St. Joseph Center?

I’d go up (on the roof) and clean out the gutters at least once or twice a year, but that was about 10 or 15 years ago. Now, I mostly try to give them information about where pipes are underground, where there are cutoffs in the waterline — all that kind of stuff. Sometimes, I come down here to check the boiler. … I come up here, and I enjoy driving around the building all the time. The second-floor door isn’t painted yet, so I’m going to ask Sandy (DeCoursey, executive director of the St. Joseph Center) if I can get some paint and a ladder and fix it up for them. Sandy’s done a good job. … She reminds me so much of Sister Charlene.

What is something you wish more Catholics knew about this place?

Everything that it has stood for. Back when it was an orphanage and they were taking care of kids, I think they had 120-some-odd kids here at one time. We often joked that Benedictine nuns didn’t know how to count, because we were only supposed to have around 107 kids, but they got away with it, because there was plenty of space here. … I think that’s why I’m so pro-life. Back then, people had the option of bringing their child somewhere like an orphanage if they couldn’t care for them. … Maybe they can make another orphanage out of this building or another building like that, to have more loving alternatives to abortion, if a woman cannot raise that child.

 —  Katie Zakrzewski