It was through his brother-in-law, Louis Bancel Warren, that I got to know Robert Francis Wilberforce (1887–1988), and none too soon, for he was closing in on his 100th birthday—a genetic habit of the family, for his mother died in her 100th year, and his father was 91 in a time of rudimentary medicine. Louis … Read more
It was through his brother-in-law, Louis Bancel Warren, that I got to know Robert Francis Wilberforce (1887-1988), and none too soon, for he was closing in on his 100th birth-day—a genetic habit of the family, for his mother died in her 100th year, and his father was 91 in a time of rudimentary medicine. Louis … Read more
“Most Holy Father, the work that Your Holiness has deigned to entrust to me, I today return to You. . . . May you deign, Holy Father, to allow the entire world to hear your august words,” Guglielmo Marconi beseeched Pius XI at the inauguration of the Vatican Radio in 1931, 36 years after he … Read more
“Most Holy Father, the work that Your Holiness has deigned to entrust to me, I today return to You. . . . May you deign, Holy Father, to allow the entire world to hear your august words,” Guglielmo Marconi beseeched Pius XI at the inauguration of the Vatican Radio in 1931, 36 years after he … Read more
A wag said that calling Billy Burke a fireman was like calling Elvis an entertainer. The Requiem Mass in St. Patrick’s Cathedral for Captain William E Burke Jr. (1955-2001) at which I was celebrant and preacher was the biggest funeral I ever had. The cardinal presided from the throne, and present were a governor, mayor, … Read more
As I was unfamiliar with the Spanish convention of naming boys for the Savior, it startled me upon arriving in my new parish to read on the bulletin board: “If there is no usher at the 7:30 Mass, Jesus will take up the collection.” So I came under the tutelage of sexton Jesus Vasquez (1927-1996), … Read more
As 1978 was the Year of the Three Popes, so was 1888 the Year of the Three Emperors: Drei Achten, drei Kaiser. Eugen Rosenstock was born to Jewish parents in the three eights of Wilhelm I, Frederick III, and Wilhelm II. He studied law at Zurich, Heidelberg, and Berlin and shone in Leipzig as the … Read more
She was the only woman I knew who lived in three centuries, and was the longest-lived English royal when she died on Easter Eve in 2002—a record until her sister-in-law, the Duchess of Gloucester, died at 102. But as do all the children of Adam, she began young, and nursed the wounded in the Great War, … Read more
By providence, George Charles Lang was named for the patron of soldiers in Flushing, New York, 1947, and soon his family moved to Hicksville out on Long Island where he began the battle that mankind, for want of a larger vocabulary, calls life. In Tremendous Trifles, Chesterton says that a baby’s acquaintance with the dragon … Read more
Before there was an Armistice Day, Walter Ciszek was born on November 11, 1904, and lived through a crucified century. Death came gracefully in 1984 on the feast of the Immaculate Conception. In boyhood he was a bully in a gang on the gritty streets of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, and Ciszek’s Polish immigrant father dragged him … Read more
A Cape Cod tourist brochure referring to the Nickerson Room in a Chatham library asks rhetorically, “Who was W. B. Nickerson?” The answer gives the obituary particulars, born in 1942 and so on, and recommends the archives to visitors interested in local lore. William Brewster Nickerson, for whom the room was named, was named in … Read more
A quick Internet search for Rev. Bernard Basset (1909-1988) will provide a lot more information about St. Bernard, and the showing of hounds, than what pertains to this Jesuit who was one of the world’s beguiling retreat directors. Much of his appeal was from an enthusiasm for fugitive shards of joy: Recorded retreat addresses have … Read more
I never saw James Charles Risk (1913–2005) in a plain business suit. A dinner jacket without decorations was to him tantamount to aboriginal nudity. Lifelong interest in numismatics led to the study of royal orders and decorations, plenty of which garnished his wiry frame. Like all civilized men who find time for high things … Read more
I never saw James Charles Risk (1913-2005) in a plain business suit. A dinner jacket without decorations was to him tantamount to aboriginal nudity. Lifelong interest in numismatics led to the study of royal orders and decorations, plenty of which garnished his wiry frame. Like all civilized men who find time for high things in … Read more
The last time I saw Wellington Mara (1916-2005) dancing was at my birthday party. He and Ann, married more than 50 years, allowed that we had been good friends for more than 20 years because I held professional football in contempt and never asked them for tickets. His father, Tim, a legal bookmaker who had … Read more
As my Cantonese is not what it would have been had I been present at Pentecost, in 1999 I led the intercessory prayers in French and Latin at a Solemn Mass on the 70th priestly ordination anniversary, 50th episcopal anniversary, 20th cardinalatial anniversary, and 98th birth anniversary of Ignatius Kung (Gong) Pin-Mei in his home of … Read more
A woman who sang on television in 1937 can be said to have had a long career. A priest at St. John’s Cathedral High School in Milwaukee had told Hildegarde Sell (1906-2005) to give up thoughts of the convent and, when lack of funds thwarted the Marquette University student’s classical music studies, she played the … Read more
Odd it seems to see a historical marker on the house of Richard Eberhart (1904-2005). My English class met there weekly in the early 1960s before the pillars of our firmament were pulled down by the cultural chaos of ugly years panting to break forth. As Poet-in-Residence at Dartmouth, having been Poet Laureate at the … Read more
Of wealth and war, Chauncey Devereux Stillman (1907-1989) knew much and said little. He did write a life of his great- grandfather Charles who left colonial roots in Connecticut to establish a fortune in Mexican cotton, real estate, and silver mines. Moving north to Texas, he helped bankroll an attempted invasion of Mexico by Carbajal … Read more
Her books on The Revolt of French Canada and British Colonial Government After the American Revolution remain standard references, but Helen Taft Manning ( 1891-1987) was a far more interesting talking history in the 1970s when I knew her in Pennsylvania. She had become dean of Bryn Mawr College at the age of 25, was … Read more
