1. John Willms worked in a missionary capacity among the Catholic population in the United States, serving as the second rector of the Pittsburgh Catholic College of the Holy Ghost in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and as the director of the Holy Childhood Association in America.
John Willms was born to a large family in Nideggen, a town near Cologne, Germany.
John Willms succeeded Father William Patrick Power as the second rector of the Pittsburgh Catholic College in 1885.
John Willms led the fledgling college for a single year, before being transferred to a parish in Pittsburgh's suburb of Millvale.
Subsequently, John Willms was one of two delegates from the American Province of the Holy Ghost Fathers to attend their General Chapter meeting in 1896; in 1897 he was appointed to the office of National Director of the Association of the Holy Childhood, a Catholic children's association for the benefit of foreign missions.
John Willms had planned to take the steamer La Bourgogne to Paris to attend a meeting of the Holy Childhood Association, but when he arrived at the dock it was discovered that his second-class seat had been erroneously given to another passenger.
John Willms was offered a first-class cabin, but he considered that level of luxury incompatible with his vow of poverty, and he decided to wait for another ship.
John Willms died at Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh on January 3,1914, at the age of 63.
Two anecdotes illustrating John Willms's personality were remembered in the February 1941 edition of the American Province of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost's monthly bulletin:.
John Willms left the church immediately and stood on the tracks, refusing to let the engineer pass with the noisy train until the sermon was finished.
The other story relates how John Willms suffered from a diabetic disease in his later years.