He had been looking forward to it all day: in the evening, when it got dark outside, they all came together, gathered around the hearth, shared stories about what they had experienced that day, laughed together, and listened to the tales the adults had to tell. It was the only moment of the day when the whole family was together. Adolph Kolping grew up in the early 19th century in a large family under poor conditions. During his training as a shoemaker, and especially during his apprenticeship, he became acquainted with the misery of his time: poverty and, above all, loneliness marked the everyday lives of his colleagues. However, Adolph longed for a different life; he wanted to escape the senseless misery. With great ambition and diligence, he dared to break free from his humble beginnings to become a priest after completing his training as a shoemaker. As a priest, he returned to the people he had wanted to escape from: the smallest and poorest apprentices, who could no longer compete with the world of machines and factories through their manual labor and were therefore pushed into ever greater misery. He dedicated all his skills and resources to provide these people with what he himself had been fortunate enough to experience: security, a home, education, freedom of expression, and joy.