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Name: SCHMIDT, Peter (Father)

Birth Date: 7 Feb 1871 Niederahr, Germany

Death Date: 4 Jan 1914 Stommelm, Germany

Nationality: German

First Date: 1894

Book Reference: North, Leader14

General Information:

Compare Franz Schmidt
Leader14 - P. Schmidt - Mombasa
Henry J. Koren, Spiritan East African Memorial, 1994: ln 1884, when the congregation was still prohibited in Germany, this exceptionally good student went to lreland for his classical education. Ordaineo a
priest in 1894, he made his vows on August 15 of the same year and was appointed to East Africa. One month later he sailed for his destination. Bp. Allgeyer entrusted to him the English and Portuguese speaking Goan Catholics on Zanzibar island until he was fluent in Swahili. ln 1897 he went to Pemba, where the British consul had donated some land for the education of liberated slaves. With the income provided by a flower plantation he could also take care of the leper colony on the island.He knew Swahili so well that experts judged the hymns and songs which he had written and put to music superb; they were published in Germany and France in 1905 and 1912. ln 1901 we find him in Mombasa as pastor and mission procurator until he was
transferred to Tanga in 1905. Suffering from tuberculosis, he retumed to Germany in 1911, but remained active as a writer and composer. He died of his affliction in a hospital near Knechtsteden.

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