Bernard Henry Pennings, a Canon Regular of Premontre and founder of St. Norbert Abbey, was born on June 9, 1861, in Gemert, Holland, and was ordained on June 19, 1886, at Berne Abbey, Heeswijk, Holland. He became the first abbot of St. Norbert Abbey in De Pere, Wisconsin, on May 27, 1925. He died at St. Vincent's Hospital in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on March 17, 1955. In the summer of 1959, his remains and those of other deceased members of St. Norbert Abbey who had been buried in Mount Calvary Cemetery and elsewhere were exhumed and re-interred at the abbey, and his body was placed in the crypt of St. Joseph within the abbey walls.