July 15, 2004
Reprinted with Permission
Retired chaplain finds new ministries
By Terry McGuire
Though
two diocesan
priests retired from active ministry this month,
one priest we overlooked is Dominican Father
Augustine "Gus" Hartman, who quietly headed
into retirement last August.
Former patients and staff at Swedish
Providence Hospital in Seattle will remember
him for his 12 years as chaplain there in the
years leading up to his retirement. In all, he
served approximately 30 years as a priest
chaplain.
A "farm boy from Spanaway" who grew up in Our
Lady Queen of Heaven Parish, Father Hartman
followed Father Stan Boyle as the
parish's second son to go into the priesthood.
Looking back, he said this week that his
participation as a boy in the Holy Childhood
Association (HCA) left an early impression on
him. The Tacoma Dominican Sisters taught
catechism to the farm kids and enrolled them in
the association, which promoted missionary
awareness among Catholic youths. The HCA "took
deep root in me without (my) even knowing it at
the time," Father Hartman recalls.
Prior to the priesthood, he served nine years in
the Navy as a hospital corpsman, receiving his
first Communion at age 19 while at sea during
the Korean War. He said the priests in the
military impressed him.
He entered the Dominican community in the
mid-1950s and was ordained on June 10, 1966 at
St. Augustine Church in Oakland, Calif. He
celebrated his first Mass at Our Lady Queen of
Heaven.
He ministered at
Blessed Sacrament Parish
in Seattle and at
Holy Family Cathedral in
Anchorage. Along the way he earned a master's of
divinity.
Now 75, Father Hartman tends the grounds and the
herb garden at Blessed Sacrament Parish, where
he resides. And he celebrates Mass regularly
with the Carmelite Sisters in Shoreline and with
the retired sisters at St. Joseph Residence in
West Seattle. "The prayer life of the sisters is
a powerful force," he said.
"What I missed most during the last 30 years was
chanting in choir the Divine Office," he said.
But now he is active with a group at Blessed
Sacrament.
He has bittersweet memories of his years at
Providence Hospital in Seattle, for it was
during that time the hospital was sold to
Swedish Medical Center and the chapel was later
torn down as part of a massive renovation
project. The loss of the venerable chapel "was
especially painful," he said.
He said one of the joys of living in retirement
at Blessed Sacrament is being outside working in
the yard. That's where he gets to meet people. 
