I'm a Chicago girl who never dreamed she'd see California. I was professed at St Peter's in Chicago. Not the famous one at 110 W. Madison with the marble front and crucifix that extends to the fourth floor of the building. That St Peter's was constructed in the business district to serve the thousands of visitors and countless people employed in the Loop.
So the Franciscan presence moved directly into the heart of downtown Chicago. The new building--with marble surfaces inside and out--is one block from State and Madison. "St Peter's in the Loop," as it is called, was consecrated in 1953. My children remember attending monthly Franciscan meetings there as a family. But that's not where memories led me.
My husband and I were professed at Old St Peter's, which no longer exists. It was not called "old" then. It was just the Franciscan church in Chicago. St Peter's stood at Clark and Polk amid railroad yards and tall commercial buildings. It was graced with a hand-carved communion rail and pulpit created by woodcraft artists in Munich, Germany.
Old St Peter's Church Old St Peter's Church stands somewhere in this mass of commercial and manufacturing buildings that adjoin the railroad yards.
Established in 1865, it had been a parish of 1,200 families with a church and school. Over time, however, the neighborhood's ethnic and residential character evolved into an area concentrating on commerce and manufacturing. Proximity to the railroads, no doubt, an influence.
The late 1800s brought the Third Order of St Francis to the parish. (The Third Order is now called the Secular Franciscan Order.) First came a German-speaking branch, but many of Irish ancestry also joined and soon became a second, separate fraternity.
In 1871, the Chicago fire changed the life of the city. Flames a mile wide and four miles long came within a few blocks of St Peter's. One could claim a miracle when all of a sudden the fire changed its course. The wind veered northward, and St Peter's and its school were spared. Late that evening a heavy rain put out the fire.
Of the 150 families of the parish left homeless, as many as possible were housed, fed, and otherwise provided for in St Peter's classrooms.
Afterward, many families moved farther south and St Peter's experienced a rapid decline as a parish. It became, instead, a "chapel of ease" among the railways and huge buildings that surrounded it. A contemporary author expressed the service it provided this way: "Where the boss, the secretary, the doctor, the nurse, the judge, the lawyer, the manager, the clerk, the banker, the teller, the foreman, the laborer forget their differences." A daily noon Mass was introduced in the days of World War I. During these years the Third Order continued to grow and flourish.
What had been a German and Irish parish gradually became seventy-five percent Italian. Most were poor.
By 1925, the parish had dwindled to twenty families. The number of school children had been reduced to forty with two nuns in charge. But not until 1942 was the decision made to close the school.
After that, the school building continued to be used for offices and meeting rooms for the many organizations active at St Peter's. One such group, introduced in the 1930s, was the Antonians, a Third Order Fraternity of young people. My husband and I met, as Antonians, about ten years later.
I was professed--that is, I promised to follow the Franciscan Rule as my way of life--as I knelt at the beautifully carved altar rail in the venerable old church by the railyard on October 24, 1948. That's 67 years ago. One week later, my first baby was born. The Franciscans have shaped my life. God bless them.
And God bless you! It is very interesting reading the history of St. Peter's. The story of the fire changing direction is a miracle, indeed! Thank you for sharing this.
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