Reinig

At age 71, the late Rev. Joseph Nicholas Reinig got stuck in the Cascades on a snowy night before Easter.

Reinig, who died last month at the age of 82, was on a back road when his black-and-white Volkswagen Beetle got stuck. With only a leather jacket to cover his clerical garb, Reinig wandered back the way he had come, unable to find help and without any matches to start a fire, the result of having recently quit smoking.

“He kept getting colder and colder, so he just walked in circles through the whole night,” recalled one of his nine children, Cindy Kuykendall, who was born before her father entered the priesthood. “At one point, he told me, he looked up and prayed, ‘God, if you’re going to take me, please do it now, but keep in mind this is the busiest season for priests.’”

Reinig’s dry sense of humor was well-known at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Bend, where he served from 2006 to 2010 and was known as Father Joe. Reinig later became vicar general of Diocese of Baker, retiring in 2013 — a prestigious post for someone who left the seminary as a teenager.

Kuykendall said her father first considered the priesthood as a 17-year-old but decided to leave after meeting his future wife of 40 years. Reinig and Helen Macey, who married in 1953, had nine children, with the first and last born exactly 12 years apart.

During his secular career, Reinig was an engineer with Martin Marietta, a construction manager and a cafe owner. When his wife died from a heart attack in 1993, he decided to return to the seminary.

“It was absolutely not a surprise,” said Kuykendall, 56, of Tigard. “The best part of it was being able to tell my friends my dad is a Catholic priest, which doesn’t sound like it makes any sense at first.”

Reinig headed back to school at the same time one of his 22 grandchildren, Kuykendall’s oldest son, left for college.

“My dad challenged him to see who could get better grades,” Kuykendall said. “That was really great for my son, and it was just really incredible to see this 68-year-old man go back to school and take theology classes.”

Reinig worked in Hermiston before coming to Bend, where he led the construction of a new building for the church. Sally Smith, a priest’s assistant to Reinig, said he always carried his own yellow hard hat when checking in with contractors.

“He was a very hands-on guy,” she said. “He was always involved, always doing something. And he was always willing to go the hospital at any time of day or night. I once asked if he slept with his suit on. He was a very caring person, and I think his time as a father and husband helped with that.”

Despite constantly being in motion, when he was in his office, Smith said, his door was always open.

“Not all priests are like that. A lot of them are very scheduled and need to be in order to function,” Smith said. “But he was always there for you, and he always had chocolate. A bowl of M&M’s sat on the desk, and he made sure it was full when he was gone. It was important to him that school kids or staff could stop in and grab some.”

A Mass of Christian Burial for Reinig will be held at 11 a.m. on Thursday at St. Francis on NE 27th Street.

— Reporter: 541-633-2160, tleeds@bendbulletin.com