This abridged history of the St. Gertrude Roman Catholic parish in the Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago was read at Pentecost mass on May 27, 2012. The full history is to be published later this year.

Eileen Quinlan and the other parishioners here and there in the pews of St. Gertrude church knew something was wrong. Nine a.m. had come and gone, and, though the minutes ticked away, Father Bill Kenneally hadn’t arrived at the altar to start mass.

“Then he came out, and he was white,” Quinlan remembers. “He said he just watched the second plane hit the building. He was so shaken, he could hardly say mass.”

The bright, sparkling, clear-skied Tuesday was September 11, 2001.

In the hours and months that followed, the people of St. Gertrude drew together as a faith family to confront the terror, confusion and anger of that day.

They provided support for each other as they had in fine times and dark times since the founding of the Roman Catholic community in 1912. They reached out to the rest of the Edgewater neighborhood. And they pondered the meaning of the day and what God was calling them to do in response.

Inside the rectory, telephone calls were quickly made to the leaders of Christian, Jewish and Islamic congregations to plan an interfaith service in the church on the following Sunday.

To help the older children at the St. Gertrude campus of Northside Catholic Academy cope with the shocks of the day, Father Kenneally led a prayer service at lunch time in the school cafeteria.

The doors of the church were left open for anyone who wanted to pray quietly.

That night, the Filipino members of St. Gertrude were in the midst of their annual novena to Our Lady of Penafrancia. A mass in response to the terrorist attacks of the day was joined with the novena, and 300 to 400 people attended.

“The church was packed, even though there was no notice,” recalls Carol Clennon, a lifetime member of the parish. “Like pilgrims, they just came.”

Coming to church that night felt, Margie Skelly says, “very much like the obvious thing to do.”

What mattered, she says, wasn’t so much the prayers said or songs sung but “the presence of all those people feeling vulnerable and connected to each other at the same time. Being at church felt like the absolute best place to be.”

Many, varied perspectives

Unlike many Catholic parishes in Chicago, St. Gertrude has never been identified with a single ethnic group. Rather, it has been a religious family where, over the course of a century, people of diverse backgrounds, viewpoints and social status have searched together to understand the message of Jesus and carry it out.

“This is a faith-filled community that really wrestles with the issues of its faith and its place in today’s society,” says Father Dominic Grassi who, in 2006, became the sixth St. Gertrude pastor.

The initial pioneers were immigrants from Germany, Ireland and Luxembourg, and, because Edgewater offered a wide range of housing — from mansions to apartments to two-flats and single-family homes — they represented many rungs on the socio-economic ladder.

By the 1980s, the people in the pews included immigrants with roots in other places ¬¬¬— Italy, the Philippines, Mexico, Poland, Nigeria and other parts of Africa. The blue-collar flavor of the parish was shifting as college-educated professionals from across the city, the nation and the world were moving in. Also arriving were many gay men and lesbians, individually and in couples, attracted by the openness of the St. Gertrude faith family.

The multiplicity of perspectives that such diversity entails has helped the parish develop a flair for learning and innovation. But it has also led, at times, to friction.

Through it all, though, the people of St. Gertrude have found a way to worship together and live together despite their differences.

Valiant and wonderful

In 1910, Catholics living in the northern portion of St. Ita parish were chafing at the inconvenience of traveling a mile or more each Sunday for mass. A year later, three men from the neighborhood met with Archbishop James Quigley and made their case for a new parish.

He agreed. And the new St. Gertrude parish was established on January 3, 1912, with Father Peter Shewbridge as pastor.

Like the early Christians, the people of St. Gertrude had to improvise in those initial days of the parish.

On Friday, Feb. 2, Father Shewbridge celebrated the first mass in the new parish in the apartment at 6328 N. Magnolia. where he was living. Two days later, he presided at two masses in the auditorium of the Hayt School for a total of 257 people.

The collection that day was $46.26 — or the equivalent of $1,040 in today’s money.

For seven more weeks, during a bitter Chicago winter, Father Shewbridge and parishioners met for mass at Hayt. That meant toting the altar, linens, chalice, hosts and other necessities six blocks from the Magnolia apartment and from a nearby store, and back again.

Meanwhile, construction was underway on a temporary wood-frame, one-story church on land now occupied by the St. Gertrude rectory. It was completed in time so that services could be held there on Palm Sunday, March 31.

While a testament to the determination of the pioneer parishioners, the structure was unheated, and, according to parish lore, there were times when Father Shewbridge would have to place his hands around the cruets for a few moments to thaw the contents before pouring the wine and water at the Offertory.

That building was one of two churches that St. Gertrude parishioners erected in the space of less than a year. The second — a three-story, red-brick combination church-school structure — was built at 6216 N. Glenwood and dedicated by Archbishop Quigley on Dec. 1.

Three months earlier, the parish school had opened for 80 pupils in temporary quarters in the former Lucas home on Granville near Broadway. Overseeing the education of the youngsters were the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (known as the BVMs), under the leadership of Sister Mary Verena. It was a task the BVMs would carry out for the next seven decades.

The parish boomed, and parishioners planned and collected money for a new church on the northwest corner of Granville and Glenwood, as well as for a rectory and a convent. Leading the effort was Father Bernard Heeney, who had replaced Father Shewbridge as pastor in 1918.

The new residences for the parish priests and sisters were constructed in 1929, and the limestone for the church had been cut and paid for when the stock market crashed.

Given the dire economic circumstances, Father Heeney wanted to delay construction of the church. But the people of the parish insisted that the building go ahead.

One example of the sacrifices they made: Parish women donated wedding rings and other jewelry to be melted down and fashioned into a solid gold chalice festooned with 30 diamonds, rubies and other gems, commemorating the dedication of the new church on Nov. 15, 1931.

The cost of the new church, rectory and convent came to $600,000, or the equivalent of $9 million in today’s money. It was one of the few large structures of any sort built in Chicago during the Depression.

Woven lives

At the age of 91, Ann Corso was in a nursing facility. She hadn’t had a home in St. Gertrude parish for more than 20 years. Yet, when her daughter Madaline Kiedysz would come to visit her, she had questions upon questions about her old friends and neighbors.

When she died in March, 2012, her funeral was at St. Gertrude.

“We weave our lives into and out of so many other lives and families,” says Kiedysz, “and we are all connected by one common thing, the yarn that is St. Gertrude’s.

“It reminds me also,” she says, “of the prayer shawls that the women in the parish make now and again, how the prayers are woven into the yarn and without words offer comfort to those who receive them.”

The middle of the 20th century when Ann Corso was living on Wayne Avenue was an era in Chicago when a neighborhood was known by its Catholic church, even among non-Catholics.

The children of St. Gertrude called their area the Turf. North of Devon Avenue, in the St. Ignatius parish — that was the Patch. “It was foreign territory,” says Dick Merrill. “It was like you were going to a different city.”

In the 1940s, when Carol Corbett was in St. Gertrude school, she remembers, “We wore uniforms — a navy-blue dress with long sleeves, a red tie and a white collar and cuffs which had snaps on them.”

Report cards were handed out in the classroom by one of the parish priests, and Corbett says, “When being dismissed from school, we marched out in twos while the music of John Philip Sousa was being played.”

Scores of BVM sisters shepherded and mentored generations of St. Gertrude children. “We loved those ladies,” wrote John Gaughan in a 1998 reminiscence.

He remembered the priests fondly as well: “We would knock on the rectory door and ask Fr. Tom Fitzgerald for $1 so we could go to the Protestant church on the corner of Granville and Greenview and rent the gym for an hour or so. He always said, ‘Yes.’ ”

Home

Over the past century, tens of thousands of people have been members of St. Gertrude parish.

They’ve been baptized, taken First Holy Communion, been confirmed, married, ordained, been given the Last Rites. They’ve learned about God and learned about life and learned about each other.

Some parishioners have won fame. But most have been everyday people, such as Catherine Healy, a truant officer, and Frank Combiths, a produce merchant and one of the parish founders….

And James Ennis, a handwriting expert, and Benita Coffey, who grew up at St. Gertrude and has spent a lifetime with the Benedictine Sisters of Chicago, and John and Honor Loarie who celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in 1957, and Delle Chatman, a playwright and screenwriter…

And James Manning, a welder, and Janine Denomme, a gay rights activist, and Margaret Baynes, a women’s wear buyer, and Marty Hegarty, a resigned priest, and Denis Quinlan, a public relations executive, and Sister Dolores Perry, a BVM nun who taught in the parish school…

And Mary Heidkamp, Pat Conway and Kathleen O’Toole, stalwart volunteers and leaders, killed in an auto-truck collision in 2008 while returning from the funeral of another longtime parish member.

Today, Madaline Kiedysz sums up the deep affection that generations of parishioners have felt for St. Gertrude by saying,

“It is home.”

In February of this year, she attended the funeral of seven-year-old Jake Wons, a second-grader at the St. Gertrude campus of the Northside Catholic Academy who had lost his battle with cancer.

“I looked around the church,” she says, “and saw that all this is still going on — this entwining of families, many that are so familiar to me and many more that are not. And I was overwhelmed by the strength and compassion of our community.

“It felt wonderful knowing that the potholder is still being woven.”

Patrick T. Reardon
5.27.12

Written by : Patrick T. Reardon

For more than three decades Patrick T. Reardon was an urban affairs writer, a feature writer, a columnist, and an editor for the Chicago Tribune. In 2000 he was one of a team of 50 staff members who won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. Now a freelance writer and poet, he has contributed chapters to several books and is the author of Faith Stripped to Its Essence. His website is https://patricktreardon.com/.

37 Comments

  1. Diane Swanson-Sofiakis June 2, 2012 at 5:32 pm - Reply

    Dear Patrick Reardon: Thank you so much for your wonderful article about St. Gertrude Church. Indeed it is a place where many of my family and friends have been buried from, married in, gone to the parish school. I remember when there was no auditorium but an empty area where people could park for church. What wonderful memories. Such pagentry, such a beautiful church. I recall my mother saying she and her Mother and sisters came to see the new church in 1931. At that time they were in St. Gregory Parish with Fr. Klasson. In my early days I recall Monsignor Healy. An awesome figure greeting the parishoners after mass on Sunday. Well, didn’t want to go on and on. Only wanted to say thank you again for another wonderful article. I thoroughly enjoyed the reawakening of memories and learning the history of the church I so dearly love. Diane Swanson-Sofiakis

    • Patrick T. Reardon June 2, 2012 at 10:58 pm - Reply

      Thanks, Diane. I’ll let you know when the full 14,000 word history is published. Pat

  2. Patricia Lofthouse November 3, 2013 at 7:12 pm - Reply

    Where are the photos and/or profiles of the school principals of seven decades?

  3. Patrick T. Reardon November 4, 2013 at 11:14 am - Reply

    Patricia —

    That’s a gap, for sure. If I’d had more time and space, it would have been good to try to track down.

    Pat

  4. Kim Kohn December 4, 2013 at 10:09 pm - Reply

    Hi Pat,
    Is there anyway to find yearbook or graduations pictures from the 60’s?

    • Patrick T. Reardon December 5, 2013 at 8:55 am - Reply

      Kim — The school used to have a lot of graduation photos up on the walls in the halls. I don’t know if they’re still there. My kids have been out of NCA for more than 10 years. I never saw or heard of any yearbooks. In researching the history, I used bound volumes of the parish bulletin. Those are available for the 1960s. Pat

  5. Madaline (Corso) Kiedysz June 19, 2014 at 7:16 pm - Reply

    We reproduced graduation photos from the last 100 years. We’re only missing a few. We bring them to the St Gertrude Grallet each year.

    • Patrick T. Reardon June 20, 2014 at 6:03 am - Reply

      That’s great. Anyone who grew up in the parish is more than welcome to come the Gralley each year and see them….as well as the church and the rest of the parish complex.

  6. Patricia Ball November 10, 2014 at 4:50 pm - Reply

    My God Mother Anna Carr Anstett’s husband Stanley Anstett played the organ there 1966. He played for years in this church. They were married there and then retired to Arkansas This is such a beautiful church.They had violins and a lot of other instruments at their wedding, They were married in 1967 or 68.The music was beautiful. Stan lived down the street on Kenmore and also built an organ. He had one in the parlor in his apt. Fond Memories of the church and these wonderful people. My son and I attended Mass there probably 14 years ago. It was so nice to be in the church again.

    • Patrick T. Reardon November 11, 2014 at 8:09 am - Reply

      Patricia — Thank you for sharing your memories. Often, because I’m in the church all the time, I don’t stop to notice its beauty. But visitors always remark on how good it looks. Pat

    • Rita Liske Steiner December 11, 2020 at 5:21 am - Reply

      Stanley A was a superb choir director. My brother and many of my friends were in his boys choir. They would sing an Italian lullaby along with the men’s choir at Christmas midnight mass. It started out “ Nina Nanna, Jesu pio.. “ Absolutely beautiful. Wish I could hear it again.

      • Patrick T Reardon December 11, 2020 at 3:51 pm - Reply

        Thanks, Rita.

  7. Dennis P. McKenna December 29, 2014 at 8:10 am - Reply

    I am researching some information for a book that I am writing, and just came across this article. Brings back a ton of memories. Everything good in my younger life is attributed to St. Gertrude’s. The parish priests, Father’s Flavin, and Paler, the Principal Sister Mary Karen, and the other nun’s and lay teachers during the 60’s and 70’s kept all of us on the straight and narrow. Walking from our house on Lakewood to the church only took a few minutes, and entering those enormous church doors always symbolized safety. We were such a tight community that I know all of the families that you have mentioned in this article. Every year when my wife and I travel to Chicago to visit my mother and family, we go back to the old neighborhood. Thanks for the story.

    • Patrick T. Reardon December 29, 2014 at 11:02 am - Reply

      Dennis — Thanks for your kind note. If you’d like a copy for the full history, send me your address at my email at ai********@gm***.com and I’ll mail it to you. Pat

  8. Therese McShane Maltby June 18, 2016 at 7:42 pm - Reply

    This was really interesting! My family lived on Granville about 3 blocks from St. Gertrude’s. My mother was baptized there as were her siblings, I believe all of my siblings and myself were baptized there, and all of us went to St. Gertrude’s before it became NCA. We moved when I was in 7th grade, and I still miss the church and the people we knew in the neighborhood.

    • Cynthia L Palm April 14, 2018 at 11:53 am - Reply

      Are you related to Jeanne/Jeannie McShane? I lived across the street. I believe you lived in a beautiful yellow brick six flat.

      • Patrick T. Reardon April 16, 2018 at 10:35 am - Reply

        I think you may be thinking of the Riordan family that lived in St. Gertrude before we arrived. The father was a top police commander.

      • Ed McShane November 5, 2022 at 1:49 am - Reply

        We did. Jeanne is my sister.

  9. Loretta Duryea April 14, 2018 at 11:23 am - Reply

    The happiest years of my life. That was when the family was everything. I remember my kindergarten days when there were storms and the skys turned dark. I always felt safe and cared for at St. Gertrude’s. When we went to early mass and the Sisters gave us Jelly sandwiches before school. The first book of Dick and Jane was a color wonder. Winning the statue in 8th grade for presenting the poem the best. The beautiful May Crownings. The lunch ladies bringing around extra bread. It was home….

    • Patrick T. Reardon April 16, 2018 at 10:35 am - Reply

      Great memories.

  10. Sue Lucas April 15, 2018 at 8:13 pm - Reply

    Such an awesome tribute to a parish beyond parishes, though I’ve been long gone from rhe area since the mid 70’s I still consider Gerts my parish!!

    • Patrick T. Reardon April 16, 2018 at 10:36 am - Reply

      Thanks.

  11. Barbara Bernacchi May 17, 2018 at 8:29 pm - Reply

    Patrick, great reminders of a Parish that is one for the ages. No matter where we move or why, we always come back to St.Gertrude’s. Mass or school corridors at other churches and schools ring hollow compared to St.Gertrude’s. We had a certain pride and still do.
    We moved to Margaret Mary’s in ’66, I cried so hard. However, never set foot in the church for Mass, always went to St.Gertrude’s. Married there (to a Gertrude’s boy, Marty Stich ’62) both children baptized there and went to school as well. And played in the HORSED of streets for recess! We did and so did our children.
    From Sister Mary Servatia to Rita Ellen, Ambrose and the poor old nun in room 22, it was a hell of a ride. To all my former classmates of 1962…I wish you well and remember you all fondly.
    Barbara Bernacchi ’62

    • Patrick T. Reardon May 21, 2018 at 3:06 pm - Reply

      Thanks, Barbara, for the note. My wife and I are good friends with Pat Stich.

  12. Craig Pauly September 2, 2018 at 7:45 am - Reply

    Hello, this is Craig Pauly,
    I also have fond memories of my K- 8th grade years at St Gertrude’s (1950-1958). Sister Mary Viola ( 3rd grade) Instilled in me the love of birds for which still have a passion to this day– even have the bird book ‘ text’ she used in the class. But most of all I’ve tragically lost touch with all on my old friends and classmates e.g. Terry Kelly, Terry Doyle to name only a few. So, if by some chance you discover this correspondence, please reply.
    Warm Regards to All,
    Craig

    • Patrick T. Reardon September 3, 2018 at 12:44 pm - Reply

      Will do.

    • Rita Liske Steiner December 11, 2020 at 5:28 am - Reply

      Terry Doyle is my best friend’s brother. We all went to St Gertrudes. Best memories ever!

    • Jamie Toohey December 13, 2022 at 4:35 am - Reply

      Craig Paula, John Walsh just sent me this article. I hope you get this. We are having a reunion of many of our classmates this Thursday at the Happ Inn at 1:00PM. Phil DeNapoli and Jim Hayes from Class of ‘57, John Walsh, John Gorman, Terry Doyle, Jim O’Loughlin, Louie/Tom Benedict, and a few other non-Gertie’s 58ers. Several have passed – Jack Wambach, 1977, Bob Lenahan, ~1993, Terry Kelly~1994, Ed McFadden, ~2019, Bob Molitor, ~2021. I believe George Leutkemeyer died ~2012.
      Re: Stanley Anstett – he was renowned beyond the parish as director of the men’s and boys choir from well before 1954, the year he led the choir’s participation at the Soldier Field Marian Year Mass attended by more than 250,000. I joined my older brother in 5th grade shortly after that event. I remember processing into significant church celebrations singing songs noted herein by others. However, Mr Anstett kicked me and my brother out the next year when we were late for early morning practice.
      Also, Msgr. Kealy, a better administrator than homilist, held such sway with the Cardinal (Stritch) such that he regularly got the best young priests graduating from the Seminary, e.g. Fr. Healy, Speidel, O’Malley, Flavin. Likewise, the BVMs, who as a rule hated me for my inability to submit to their authority, were such amazing authoritarian woman that they came to St Gertrude’s from the Dubuque mother house with 2-year associate degrees but taught classes of 45-50 boys and girls of all academic levels, from brilliant to needy. Nonetheless, a disproportionate share entered high schools in the highest level classes. Many of the boys were really smart, overpopulating the top classes at St. George and Loyola, and the girls were even smarter (or at least that’s what the nuns told us). Correcting Jim O’Loughlin, all teachers were BVMs except Ms. Soutsos, who taught 4th grade not kindergarten. (Bonjour, Mademoiselle Soutsos, comment allez vous.). (Perhaps not coincidentally, the only grade school teacher who liked and encouraged me?). Sister Mary Hortense taught kindergarten- slapped me across the face when I refused to abide by her orchestral directions. The nuns didn’t like me but they sure could teach math and English grammar. We were tough, unspoiled, marginally juvenile delinquent city kids. After graduating, we split between guys intent on college prep and guys destined for work as cops or firemen. The latter group did quite more street fighting (fists, not weapons) and produced a storied street cop, Michael”Sam” Cronin. Sam returned from VietNam wearing a prosthetic ankle/foot, but through the intercession of Broadway Joe (original owner of “The Bubble” on Richard J Daley’s security detail, he joined the CPD with a disability exception. Sam went on to be a storied street cop who was promoted from patrolman to Captain. We all played ball together, despite differences in perspective, in city softball leagues. Later we had 12-20 guys at AGO for Sunday touch football before retiring to the Double Bubble to watch Sunday football. Our prep oriented did less street fighting, but we could play ball. (Three of my class/teammates, Jack Wambach basketball, RIP 1977, Jim O’Loughlin, baseball and 40-year career as a famed Loyola English teacher, and John Gorman, basketball, (journalist and recently published author “Death Before Life”) are individual inductees of the Loyola Sports Hall of Fame. Another Gertie’s 58 classmate, Tony Kelly, RIP ~2003, was high scorer in Parish League basketball for Mercy Home. Yet another, Terry Kelly, RIP ~1994, was point guard on Loyola’s 1961 Catholic League Basketball (Lightweight a/k/a 5’8”” and under). Although we eventually grew apart, I went to high school, college, and law school without feeling that I needed new friends, I had my grade school friends.

    • Jamie Toohey December 13, 2022 at 4:36 am - Reply

      Craig Pauly,
      John Walsh just sent me this article. I hope you get this. We are having a reunion of many of our classmates this Thursday at the Happ Inn at 1:00PM. Phil DeNapoli and Jim Hayes from Class of ‘57, John Walsh, John Gorman, Terry Doyle, Jim O’Loughlin, Louie/Tom Benedict, and a few other non-Gertie’s 58ers. Several have passed – Jack Wambach, 1977, Bob Lenahan, ~1993, Terry Kelly~1994, Ed McFadden, ~2019, Bob Molitor, ~2021. I believe George Leutkemeyer died ~2012.
      Re: Stanley Anstett – he was renowned beyond the parish as director of the men’s and boys choir from well before 1954, the year he led the choir’s participation at the Soldier Field Marian Year Mass attended by more than 250,000. I joined my older brother in 5th grade shortly after that event. I remember processing into significant church celebrations singing songs noted herein by others. However, Mr Anstett kicked me and my brother out the next year when we were late for early morning practice.
      Also, Msgr. Kealy, a better administrator than homilist, held such sway with the Cardinal (Stritch) such that he regularly got the best young priests graduating from the Seminary, e.g. Fr. Healy, Speidel, O’Malley, Flavin. Likewise, the BVMs, who as a rule hated me for my inability to submit to their authority, were such amazing authoritarian woman that they came to St Gertrude’s from the Dubuque mother house with 2-year associate degrees but taught classes of 45-50 boys and girls of all academic levels, from brilliant to needy. Nonetheless, a disproportionate share entered high schools in the highest level classes. Many of the boys were really smart, overpopulating the top classes at St. George and Loyola, and the girls were even smarter (or at least that’s what the nuns told us). Correcting Jim O’Loughlin, all teachers were BVMs except Ms. Soutsos, who taught 4th grade not kindergarten. (Bonjour, Mademoiselle Soutsos, comment allez vous.). (Perhaps not coincidentally, the only grade school teacher who liked and encouraged me?). Sister Mary Hortense taught kindergarten- slapped me across the face when I refused to abide by her orchestral directions. The nuns didn’t like me but they sure could teach math and English grammar. We were tough, unspoiled, marginally juvenile delinquent city kids. After graduating, we split between guys intent on college prep and guys destined for work as cops or firemen. The latter group did quite more street fighting (fists, not weapons) and produced a storied street cop, Michael”Sam” Cronin. Sam returned from VietNam wearing a prosthetic ankle/foot, but through the intercession of Broadway Joe (original owner of “The Bubble” on Richard J Daley’s security detail, he joined the CPD with a disability exception. Sam went on to be a storied street cop who was promoted from patrolman to Captain. We all played ball together, despite differences in perspective, in city softball leagues. Later we had 12-20 guys at AGO for Sunday touch football before retiring to the Double Bubble to watch Sunday football. Our prep oriented did less street fighting, but we could play ball. (Three of my class/teammates, Jack Wambach basketball, RIP 1977, Jim O’Loughlin, baseball and 40-year career as a famed Loyola English teacher, and John Gorman, basketball, (journalist and recently published author “Death Before Life”) are individual inductees of the Loyola Sports Hall of Fame. Another Gertie’s 58 classmate, Tony Kelly, RIP ~2003, was high scorer in Parish League basketball for Mercy Home. Yet another, Terry Kelly, RIP ~1994, was point guard on Loyola’s 1961 Catholic League Basketball (Lightweight a/k/a 5’8”” and under). Although we eventually grew apart, I went to high school, college, and law school without feeling that I needed new friends, I had my grade school friends.

  13. James O'Loughlin September 30, 2018 at 1:40 am - Reply

    As a 1958 graduate, I still remember the names of my teachers and administrators for whom I have fond remembrances. Miss Sutsos was my kindergarten teacher, and thereafter the nuns in question were Sister Mary Servatia, Frances Marie, Viola, Mary Lucy, Clarentia, St. George,
    Cuthbert, and Helen Claire. The principals during my tenure were Sister Mary Katrina and Sister Mary Georgette. The fact that I even remember them speaks volumes on their behalf. My days at St. Gertrude’s were obviously eventful, especially when maintenance boss Vince Eckholm
    allowed his “helpers” to play basketball after we’d finished our chores. The pastor was Monsignor Kealy, and his host of priests included
    Fathers Healy, O’Malley, Graf, and Seidel. Still, hard to believe that 60 years have already passed since we moved on to high school.

    Thanks for your laborious work, Patrick, on our school and parish. You’ve taken us on a trip through Memory Lane, and we are beholding to you.

    Best Wishes,
    Jim

    Thanks, Patrick, for retracing the earlier days of St. Gertrude’s school and parish

    • Patrick T. Reardon October 1, 2018 at 9:30 am - Reply

      Thanks, Jim.

  14. Mary Jeanne Brueck Castro February 11, 2019 at 2:59 pm - Reply

    I have a lump in my chest that is huge. Reading all of these comments and the memories has been so warm. I graduated from St. Gertrude’s in 1951; my older brother, Tom Brueck graduated in 42/43; my sister, Barbara graduated in 45/46 – she was also married at St. Gertrude’s. My younger brother, Jack, graduated in 1954. I remember walking out of school to the Sousa marches. Msgr. Kealy was our pastor – later, my mother in law was a private nurse to his sister (Gretchen?); when she past away, she left one of the chairs in the rectory, to my mother in law because she knew I attended school there. I still have that chair. I was trying to remember my nuns through the grades and the only ones I can remember are; K -Sister Mary Baptista; 1st – SM Vida; 2nd – SM Gemma; 3rd = SM Viola; 4th – SM< Maura; jumping to SM Brian in 6th and in 7th – SM Cuthbert. Wish I could get the names of the my 5th and 8th grade nuns. Principal was SM Aletius. I was May Queen in 8th grade – still have the pics. Because I was so short, the crown fell off as I was descending but a nice parishioner replaced it for me……..my goodness what wonderful memories. Thank you.

    • Patrick T. Reardon February 13, 2019 at 9:56 am - Reply

      Thanks for those beautiful memories. Pat

  15. Charles Maranto January 17, 2021 at 4:13 am - Reply

    What a treat to come upon thus site. Graduated 1961. My favorite nun was SMViola with her love of birds. Still have the textbook we were required to buy. So far from Gertrudes these day as I have settled in Cave Creek AZ. My older brother, Frank, was lost in VietNam. Such great memories as a choir boy and Alter boy. Thanks for helping me remember a great time in all of our lives.

    Charles Maranto

  16. Jim Taylor August 23, 2022 at 7:10 pm - Reply

    My mother, Marie Geary, graduated from Gertrude’s in 1924. Her seven siblings followed her in short order. My three siblings and I also graduated from Gertrude’s (Bob Taylor ‘54, Bill ‘57, Mary Jo ‘63 and myself ‘60). We also had four cousins graduate from Gertrude’s.
    Now, we’re spread out across the country, actually, the world. Like most of us, we received from the nuns a great foundation and life-long habits that served us well as adults and beyond.
    I will always be grateful.

  17. Jill Beaumont Bergner ‘56 January 20, 2023 at 9:28 am - Reply

    I grew up in Gerties, and received all my sacraments there from baptism to marriage. We lived at Granville and Ravenswood and walked to school, about five blocks. We even went home for lunch, which didn’t leave much time for eating. I remember many of the BVMs who taught me. sister Mary Hortense was fun. We made a teepee out of paper and tom-toms out of oatmeal containers in first grade we prepped for holy communion and confession sister, Mary Veda, who had whiskers, scared me to death in the confessional. In third grade sister, Mary viola, taught us a lot about birds we had birdfeeders on the windowsill. I think she was a member of the Audubon society, I had sister Mary coleman in third grade and fifth grade. I was not a compliant child so we did not get along. My mother prayed me through the fifth grade. I think I had sister Mary Berckmans in fourth grade and sister Mary Miguella in eighth grade. We had dancing lessons in eighth grade and got to use the new building with the gym in high school. We hung out a lot of the time at the team club which head booths and a jukebox and we could hang over the railings and watch the boys playing basketball or dance. We had lots of sock hops in that building. May crowning was a big deal everyone got dressed up.
    Kathy Marr crowned Mary and my best friend, Mary Anne Devine what is the ring bearer. I met my husband, Bill Bergner, in the sixth grade.. we started dating when we were 16 and got married in 1964 at the age of 22. We celebrated 58 years last November..

    • Patrick T Reardon January 20, 2023 at 6:05 pm - Reply

      Thanks, Jill, for sharing your memories.

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