Weitersburg, Peter Friedhofen's Birthplace If you are on the plain above the Rhine and look from Koblenz to the other riverbank, a slender high tower, visible for miles, rises on the hills between Ehrenbreitstein and Neuwied: the steeple of the Catholic Church of Weitersburg. Here on these heights above the Rhine Peter Friedhofen first saw the light of day on 25 February 1819. On Highway 69 in Weitersburg stood the house in which the greatest son of this small village was born. At that time there were approximately 200 inhabitants in 30 families, all Catholic. Vallendar on the Rhine was the main parish. There, Peter Friedhofen was baptized on 26 February 1819 and there he received his first communion on 29 April 1832. He was confirmed in Ehrenbreitstein on 10 May 1833.
 

His first cloister His home gave him a solid religious formation: especially his devotion to Mary has its roots here.

In Weitersburg Peter Friedhofen began building his »little cloister« in 1849, one year before the founding of the order. At first, the move into the small house in Weitersburg on 16 November 1850 did not exactly begin a happy time. In a letter, Friedhofen wrote, »A few tools and about three or four Taler are our only possessions. We had hardly arrived, when a great commotion against us arose, incited by a few people who thought they had suffered damages because of us. This went so far that the authorities gave us a strict order that at most I alone could live there.« Because of this threat one of the brothers, Karl Marchand, returned immediately to Linz am Rhein. Brother Peter Josef Otten from Aachen remained—but in hiding. But to this Peter Friedhofen, full of trust, could only say, »Where the need is greatest, there also is God the closest.«
 

secretary Liehs in Trier—emerges an abject poverty which always and again was eased by gifts from neighbors in Weitersburg. But in these lines one can also recognize a never tiring trust in God. Thus the Brothers gave themselves in this difficult time a strict rule and lived accordingly, although they did not make their vows until later in Koblenz.
 

Peter Friedhofen also had connections to Bendorf, for he writes about two sisters in the nearby village who helped him in many things. More important, however, was the connection he made to Sayn. He wrote to the »illustrious Princess of Wittgenstein, resident in the Castle of Sayn« and petitioned for help. The princess had her chaplain summoned and through him advised the Brothers to move immediately to Koblenz. She would provide for housing and financial support.

The bishop’s order to leave Weitersburg and move to Koblenz is dated 23 January 1851. Brother Peter Friedhofen and Brother Peter Otten loaded all their possessions onto a handcart and pushed it themselves to Koblenz, where on 15 February 1851 they moved into the house of Mr. Brache, Altenhofstraße 37.