BX
1418
M582M
B937s
ST. MARY'S CHURCK_ _ �". __ -
PIONEER MEMBERS





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But if the first thought and purpose of this Requiem
service be, as it ought to be, to remind us of what we
may do by our prayers for the departed, another and not
less important purpose of it is, to remind us of what
those departed members, especially the early members
of the parish have done for us. Looking back fifty years
we can see great changes. The parish has grown, in
numbers and in influence it has been multiplied over and
over; but, if we look at the matter rightly, we shall see
that all that the parish is in numbers, material resources,
and inner spirit, and all the work that it is doing,
religious, educational and social, is but the growth and
development of that which was implanted and organized
here in the beginning. I t is the story of the mustard
seed over again-the tiny seed springing up in the earth
and growing greater and greater, until at length it
becomes a mighty tree, under which men may find rest
and in whose branches the birds build their nests. The
parable, as uttered by our Blessed Lord, was doubtless a
prophesy of the growth of the Church as a whole, but it
is not less applicable to the e]ements severally which go
to make up the Church, according to the law governing
the growth of organic - bodies, by virtue of which the
characteristics of the body as a whole are reproduced in a
general way in each and all of its parts. '
This memorial service for the deceased benefactors
and members of the congregation carries us back in
thought to the time of the foundation of this city, when
as yet there were only a few fishers' and traders' shanties
huddled together at the foot of Hoosier Slide, with a few


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and during the several years following, while the rail­
roads were being pushed on to Chicago, they continued to
come. These early Catholic settlers were all either Irish
or Germans. They were poor, and glad to get work of
any kind; and- the work that they engaged in here was of
the hardest and roughest kind, out on the railroad tracks
as section hands, or as day laborers and helpers in the
grimy railroad shops. N either they nor their wives had
any social standing or influence in the community,
although these terms did not mean quite as much in those
early days as they do now; but those men and women had
that which was better than riches and more ennobling
than any social standing, they had the spirit of the faith,
the faith of Catholic Ireland and Catholic Germany, and
poor and humble as they were, those Catholic emigrants,
they were carrying with them, although they little knew
it, the destinies of the Church Catholic and universal into
this great empire of the west.
The beginnings of organized parish life here really
date from this period, although a permanent pastor was
not appointed until some years later. Michigan City was
fortunate in its proximity to Notre Dame, where Father
Sorin and his devoted bands of brothers, priests and
sisters were engaged in the development of that ancient
centre of the faith. From the year 1847 on, we find in
the old parish books, the names of priests who came from
Notre Dame once a month or so to minister to the infant
parish. Fathers Shortis, Schilling, Granger, Cointet,
Rooney, Wallace, Force, Flynn, Kilroy, Meagher, Gillen
and even that of Father Sorin himself, who came occa-


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the labors and sacrifices of priests, sisters and laymen of
the past; and that, if St. Mary's parish is able to boast
today of a fine school system, if we are able to say today
that both priests and people are united as never before in
support and defense of the Catholic school, the result is
due in very large. part to the fact that the generations of
today have themselves been trained in a Catholic school,
that Catholic schools have existed in this parish from the
very beginning, and that, if there is anyone thing which
stands out clearly and consistently all through the history
of the parish, it is that principle which those pioneer
Irish and German Catholics brought with them from
their Catholic fatherlands and embedded, so to speak, in
the very foundation of this parish, the principle of a
Catholic school and Catholic education from start to
finish for every Catholic child. It was the great Arch­
bishop Hughes who, about the time this parish was
forming, gave utterance to the opinion that "the time
has come when we must build Catholic schools, even
before we build Catholic churches.' , That was, in fact,
the principle the pioneer Catholics of Michigan City
acted upon, for we find that as early as 1856, one year
before a permanent pastor was appointed, a little school
was opened alongside. St. Ambrose church, at Washing­
ton and Second streets, and two sisters of the Holy Cross
came' from St. Mary's, Notre Dame, to take charge of
it. It did not require much to start a school in those
,days, once the teachers were go tten, The school
appears to have been taught at first in the sisters'


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fact, m aybe said to have been the last .of the pioneer
priests, as well as the first of the pastors of what
might be called the modern period in t.heb lst.or-y of
the parish. A German hy nationality, he was heloved
by Irish and Germans alike, and by non-Catholics as
well as Catholics. Under his pastorate. the two
llt.tle congregations were united, and a way was thus
paved for an escape from financial burdens which had
resulted from this scattering of forces, as well as for
the rapid and substantial progress that was soon to
result from their union. But Father Steiner was not
able to remain and reap where he had sown; the
labors and anxieties of these first four years under­
minded his constitution; many, even of those who
were but children at the timé, remember how he
came here, as a last token of his fatherly affection for
his parish, when he was starting out with Father
Becks on that journey to the far southwest from
which he was never to return.
It is fitting that we should' recall also this
morning the name of Father Julius Becks, who suc­
ceeded Father Steiner in 1864. It was Father Beè'ks,
who, continuing the work of union and expansion
inaugurated by his predecessor, purchased the two
blocks of church property here and built this church,
and it was by his hand that most of those who are
now grown up members of the congregation were
baptized. There are probably few things more diffi­
cult in this world than to manage successfully a


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guished by the piety of his youth, during the greater
part of which, as in the case of the youthful Samuel,
his life and duties centered about the sanctuary, there
was something priestly about Father Trahey, even
before he went to Notre Dame, at the age of 1.5, to
begin his studies. A learned priest at Notre Dame
w ho is regarded as a rare judge of character, said to
me not long ago, that no one ever came there as a
candidate for the holy priesthood, in all the years that
he was there, who was more richly endowed with nat­
ural and supernatural qualities befitting the holy priest­
hood than Father Trahey. While he was making
his theological studies, I lived in the same house with
him, and I can say that he was truly a model of all
that the seminarian ought ideally to be, regular and
exact in whatever regarded the rule of his religious
life, the current of his life outwardly ran on in an
even, monotonous way; but interiorly, it was easy to
recognize in him that profound attachment to spiritual
things, that abiding earnestness, that fervent zeal
and all-embracing purity of intention which betokened
a rare and saintly soul, a real man of God. Along
with holiness of life, there went a devotion to study
and a development of mental power that marked him
out as one who was, in the judgment of his professors,
destined to accomplish great things. You knew him
here as a priest, after he came back crowned with the
honors of the University, you saw him at the altar
saying mass, you heard his burning words in the


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