John Joseph Wohead was born on September 28, 1916, in Bremond, Texas, son of Henry J. and Katy M. Wohead. He attended St. Ann's Parochial School in Chicago, Illinois, and two years of high school at Clearspring School, Clearspring, Indiana. After formal schooling, John gained wide spread experience in four years as a journeyman carpenter, five years general farm work, ten years of truck farming selling vegetables in Chicago and one and a half years of technical arc welding. He entered the U.S. Air Force in September 1942 and served overseas with the 306 Bomber Group, 423rd Bomb Squadron in Thurleigh, England. He loaded all kinds of bombs on "B-17 Bombers". It was very encouraging when orders came out to load propaganda leaflets instead of bombs. Then he knew the war was almost over. He received credits for Normandy, Northern France, the Rhineland and Central Europe offenses. He was honorably discharged as a Corporal on September 15, 1946.

At age 34 John became a postulant at the "Old Farm House" which used to be the Maryknoll Seminary and entered the Maryknoll Brothers Novitiate, Brookline, Massachusetts, on June November 15, 1950. He took the religious name of Brother Ernest and pronounced his First Oath of Obedience on June 29, 1952 and his Permanent Oath on June 18, 1955. After profession, Brother Ernest was assigned to the Maryknoll Junior Seminary, Mountain View, California, and placed in charge of the boiler room and heating plant and other mechanical equipment. He installed new laundry equipment for the whole community.

On May 21, 1955, Brother Ernest was assigned to the Maryknoll Mission in Maswa-Shinyanga, Tanganyika, East Africa. Except for periodic, short home leaves, he served his entire mission life in Africa. While on home leaves, besides visiting his family members in Naperville, Illinois, he worked at Maryknoll College, Glen Ellyn, on special jobs and attended some Mission Renewal and Spiritual Renewal Programs arranged for him. In 1965, Brother Ernest changed his name to Brother John, his baptismal name.

In Shinyanga he supervised and worked on the construction of many churches and school buildings in many of the Maryknoll Missions and made a great contribution to the building of the Cathedral in Shinyanga town. His job was to see that the African Contractor did a good job and he had to do all the measuring and setting up all the "batter boards" because for the African workers the church was "too big" and they refused to do any measuring for fear of doing it wrong. In most cases, he had to tell them what to do next. He used his own concrete mixer, wheel barrows, shovels, vibrator and electrical generator. The Cathedral was increased in size four times and decreased three times. Finally Bishop Castor Sekwa let Brother John determine the final size of the Cathedral, big enough to seat 1,250 people comfortably. When the construction of the cement block walls and the two main gables were ready for the steel structure, Brother John was in the U.S. on home leave. The Bishop informed him by letter that he was not needed any more on the Cathedral project.

At age 74, Brother John opted to enter the Special Society Unit with continued residence in Shinyanga. He made four trips to Medjugorje, Yugoslavia, where he found a peaceful and prayerful atmosphere; where the Blessed Mother said "I am the Queen of Peace." Brother John said: "Next September (1992) I will be 76 years old. These past 40 years of mission work went by very quickly. It seems like only yesterday."

John's Reflections             John's Ministry

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