Columban Father Gerald Peter “Jerry” Wilmsen, 86, died on April 6 in Bristol, Rhode Island.   

Born in Chicago, he was baptized at St. Basil and attended parochial schools before entering Quigley Preparatory Seminary in 1948.

He transferred to St. Columban’s Seminary in Silver Creek, New York, for his three remaining years of high school, after hearing a mission talk from a Columban priest.

He was ordained in 1959 and celebrated his first Mass at St. Richard Church.

He ministered in South Korea, then did vocation work while living at the Korean Center in Chicago before returning to Korea.

In 1988, he responded to a call for volunteers to teach in China. After language school, he spent most of the next decade teaching at universities in Wuhan and Guangzhou. He returned to the United States in 2000 and lived outside Hayward, Wisconsin, until deciding in 2015 to move to St. Columban’s House in Bristol.

He is survived by his brother, Lee Wilmsen.