Submitted photo

Two of a kind. Father Elstan (James) Coghill left Victoria in 1996 for the parish of Cross in the Woods in Indian River, Mich. Sue and Al Orsen visited him several times a year. This photo was taken during one of those visits.

By Unsie Zuege

  Sue Orsen allows that she and Father Elstan Coghill didn’t exactly hit it off when they first met in 1983. Father Elstan had just arrived as St. Hubert’s new priest. Orsen, the editor and publisher of the Victoria Gazette planned to write a front page story about the new priest for her monthly newspaper.

“I’m not sure why we didn’t hit off that day,” Orsen said. “I do remember Frieda, his toy dachshund. I guess he caught me by surprise. He had such a sense of humor. And I could tell, he was anxious to get the interview over with. He had more important things to do. He’s not a front page kind of person.”

  But when Father Elstan moved to St. Victoria’s parish in 1985, he and Orsen had plenty of time to get acquainted, forging a friendship that lasted 23 years. Orsen has been St. Victoria’s church pianist and organist since 1980, and was the choir director for 10 years. Orsen and Father Elstan couldn’t help but become good friends as they spent so much time at the church together.

  “I played for every funeral, every wedding, during Holy Week; I worked with Father preparing music for elaborate services, so it’s necessary to get to know the priests,” Orsen said. In the process, she realized that she and Father Elstan were on the same wavelength.

  About what?

  “Everything,” she said. “We were on the same page about everything.”

Father Elstan (James) Coghill, 85, a former priest at St. Hubert’s Church, Chanhassen, and St. Victoria’s Church, Victoria, died on Friday, May 9 in Loretto Home at the Motherhouse of the Hospital Sisters of Saint Francis in Springfield, Ill. Coghill was born and raised in Jordan, Minn. and went into the priesthood after completing eighth grade, according to his brother Jesse Coghill of Jordan.

  Orsen recruited Father Elstan to write a monthly column for the Gazette. According to a story written in 1996, when he left St. Victoria’s, Orsen noticed that his early columns covered church news, but after a year or so, his true voice started coming through in his writing. Orsen said he was a born storyteller, and his warm, funny stories covered all sorts of subjects from church news, dogs, golf, people he knew, musings on life, and whatever else caught his fancy.

  When Orsen knew he was planning to leave St. Victoria’s, she decided to compile his 11 years worth of columns into a book. She began in January of 1996, working on it every day, retyping his columns, and proofing them. She finished it in June.

  It wasn’t easy to keep the project a secret from him. Father Elstan, who didn’t know how to boil water, Orsen said, used to eat his meals at the friary in Chaska. When it closed, Orsen invited him to be her and her husband Al’s dinner guest every evening. “So I’d have to make sure I cleared everything away before he got here at 5 p.m.” Orsen said. “There were only five people who knew what I was planning to do.”

  When she presented him with the published book called “Prints of a Priest,” at his going away mass, he was completely surprised. At the time he said, “I was stunned into silence, which is rare for me.” Orsen had 5,000 copies printed, and sold 500 copies within the first few weeks.

  The Orsens personally delivered Father Elstan to his new parish, Cross in the Woods, Indian River, Mich., by RV. “We asked Pete and Irene Kerber if we could borrow their RV,” Orsen said. “We drove him to Indian River and literally delivered him to its doorstep. He was there for 5 or 6 years and we would visit him two, three, four times a year. I’d invite different people to go with me. I had the time as my kids weren’t married yet; I didn’t have any grandchildren then.”

  Orsen continued to visit him when he retired to Our Lady of Angels Friary in Villa West, Sherman, Ill, in 2002. Orsen last visited him a year ago.

  “I was supposed to go visit him this past Tuesday,” she said. “If I’d gone, I would have been there with him when he died. I didn’t go because I didn’t know how to tell Jamie Moore (St. Victoria’s music director) that I wouldn’t be here for practice. We’re playing at the confirmation service at the Basilica in Minneapolis on Monday night, May 19. We have huge music to do. So I stayed home.”

Orsen felt some guilt about canceling her plans but was consoled when a priest told her that “duty comes first,” something Father Elstan understood.

  Orsen will play at his funeral today. Music includes his favorite hymn, “Fill My House Unto the Fullest. “Once for his birthday, which happened to fall on a Sunday,” she said, when he lived in Michigan, “I sent the music to his church so they could surprise him with it during the service. I heard that he got emotional.”

  In addition to his favorite hymn, those attending the funeral will have an opportunity to pick up a copy of his book. Of the 5,000 originally printed, Orsen said she recovered her printing costs and was able to give Father Elstan a couple thousand dollars from sales. Not being a marketer, she would over the years, drop a box of his books off at churches around the area. “Every once in a while, he’d hear from someone who picked up his book,” Orsen said. “I’ve got 40 copies here at the house. I’m bringing them to the funeral to give to his family and anyone else who would like one.”