During these years in Japan, Uncle Jack baptized many babies and performed many weddings. A good number of these weddings were the marriages of Sophia students and were conducted in the SJ House chapel.

Later, after retiring from teaching, at Sophia University, Uncle Jack served for 9 years as Dean of the International Language and Culture Studies at Kagoshima Immaculate Heart University, in Kagoshima, Southern Japan. This is 600 miles south west of Tokyo.

After Uncle Jack retired for the second time, he returned to Sophia University where he would tutor students and friends in brushing-up on their English language skills. For many years, and until the last months of Uncle Jack’s life, a group of wonderful Japanese ladies would attend a book reading and discussion group led by Uncle Jack and held in one of the Sophia SJ House meeting rooms. Some of these wonderful Japanese ladies traveled to Baltimore to attend Uncle Jack’s 50th anniversary of the priesthood celebration held here at St. Agnes in the year 2006.

Uncle Jack’s students recall his good sense of humor and his pleasant smile. He was also known to be strict in the classroom, but students’ laughter was often heard in response to his classroom humor. His interest in eating desserts was also widely known, so much so, that I will conclude with the following:

A friend of Uncle’s Jack’s related this story to us by email:

Mrs. Akiko Nakamura wrote: ‘I would like to inform you that Fr. Nissel went to Heaven with his favorite cake. In the afternoon of Sunday, the day he passed away, … Yuriko, the youngest daughter of the Suzuki family, with the permission of Fr. Ribera, placed a cake in Fr. Nissel’s coffin. The Suzuki family says that Fr. Nissel always appreciated little Yuriko’s cakes.’

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The Nissel and Degenhard families would like to thank you all for attending this service today. We celebrate Uncle Jack’s generous giving of his whole person to God in a life of fidelity and service to the Gospel.