Meinrad Widmer was baptized as Joseph Widmer on 1 March 1844 at Hohenrain, Canton Luzern, Switzerland. During his boyhood he attended the Catholic school of his hometown, was confirmed in 1855, and later worked on the family farm. The Mother General of the Sisters of Mercy at Ingenbohl, Canton Schwyz, employed him to work on the extensive farm of their convent. When he was twenty-eight, he left Ingenbohl for Grafenort in Unterwalden to work on the estate belonging to the Abbey of Engelberg. There he met Fr. Frowin Conrad and soon afterwards decided to become part of the new Benedictine foundation. At his religious profession he took the name Meinrad, perhaps in honor of the monastery of Saint Meinrad in Indiana, whose abbot and prior were so helpful in the early days of the Engelberg foundation.