Friar James was born in Niederbreitbach

Niederbreitbach

Niederbreitbach is a municipality and officially recognised climatic health-resort in the district of Neuwied, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. This municipality belongs to the association of municipalities of Waldbreitbach....

 / Wied-Valley in Rhineland-Palatinate

Rhineland-Palatinate

Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz ....

 on 15 October 1830 as Peter Wirth. He was the fourth child of Theodor and Katharina Wirth. His father was a shepherd

Shepherd

A shepherd is a person who tends, feeds or guards flocks of sheep.- Origins :Shepherding is one of the oldest occupations, beginning some 6,000 years ago in Asia Minor. Sheep were kept for their milk, meat and especially their wool...

; his mother ran a small pub. When he was nine, Peter lost his father, and he lost his mother a year later. Because of this tragedy, the impoverished family was torn apart, and Peter was raised by his godfather / uncle, Johann Peter Andries, who was a teacher in Niederbreitbach. Although his godfather eventually made Peter his assistant at school, for financial reasons, Peter could not attend the teacher seminar. He started instead an apprenticeship as a shoemaker in the workshop of Johann Schmitz where he lived (now St. James Wirth-Straße 19).

Religious life

Peter was an introverted young man. He joined the Franciscan Tertiary, which worked in social and religious areas in Peter’s homeland. However, he found the prospect of monastic life appealing, and therefore he and a friend founded a house of pious craftsmen in the summer of 1854. They nourished, educated and trained orphan

Orphan

An orphan is a child permanently bereaved of or abandoned by his or her parents. In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents is called an orphan...

 boys. In 1862 he founded the Congregation of the Franciscan Brothers of the Holy Cross (FFSC) with the help of father Gomm and the permission of the Bishop of Trier. While caring for smallpox

Smallpox

Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...

patients, Friar James was infected and died on 28 March 1871. Today his remains are kept in the tower chapel of the St. Joseph House in Hausen / Wied-Valley. The Franciscan brothers still look after old and ill, disabled and poor people in the same premises.