n 1876, St. Benedict’s Priory became an abbey, and its monks elected 33 year old Father Innocent Wolf, OSB of St. Vincent Archabbey as their first abbot. He guided the life of the community for 45 years, seeing it grow from 20 members in 1876 to 97 members at the time of his retirement in 1921. An account of the life and influence of the community’s fatherly leader is found in Kansas Monks, chapters 5 - 8. Abbot Innocent was of the first generation of young boys to come to Abbot Boniface Wimmer’s foundation in America, and he remained always a devoted spiritual son of the patriarch-founder. The relationship between the two abbots was frank and friendly — those of a father and his adult son. Fulfilling an often expressed hope of Abbot Wimmer, the monks of St. Vincent Archabbey elected Abbot Innocent to be his successor at the time of his death in 1887. While declining the election in order to remain at St. Benedict’s Abbey, Abbot Innocent himself attained to a revered stature in the life of the American Cassinese Congregation of Benedictines.