| ATHLETICSWe know that the Momencs St. Judes High School boys competed in basketball and hockey. We believe that baseball and track, possibly even football, were offered at one time as well. If you have any specific information regarding the Black Knight athletic program please write to us via the means listed below.EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIESChorus was definitely an option at Momence St. Judes. Band, dances, and other clubs and activities were also a part of the school’s educational opportunities.
MEMORIES
**From Alphe Seymour:
“I am an alumnus of SJS. I have put together a vast amount of info about SJS. I have put together every yearbook, pictures, school songs, school news papers, video clips, memories of many of the alumni, and just about every name of the alumni. I have sent a CD (of this information) to Patrick Zugg, who lives in Momence. His insurance business is on Washington Street. He is the son of the farmer who ran the St. Jude Ranch in the 1950’s and 60’s. Good luck!”
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**From Greg Holler:
“I attended St. Jude freshman and sophomore years, Fall 1966 to Summer 1968. Information you may be missing is:
Team colors: Black and Orange
Team Nickmane: Black Knights
I played basketball and hockey and I sang in the choir while I was attending. The most notable singing engagement we had was singing at the policeman’s mass in the cathedral in Chicago. Thanks for keeping the memories alive.”
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**From Henry Ogrodnik:
“I attended St. Jude Seminary from the fall of 1965 to the spring of 1967. It was the best 2 years of my entire 16 years of parochial education and did a wonderful job preparing me for my 28 year career in the US Army. At St. Jude your day was packed from 5AM to 10PM with classes and other activities. We did not spend all day in chapel but a good portion was dedicated to that part of the seminarian life. There were also ample grounds (nearly 50 acres) to exercise and enjoy nature at St. Jude. I know of the cemetery located in the NE corner of the grounds near the apple orchard may have been omitted because of article space, but many well known Claretians were buried there.
I believe the nuns who did our great meal preparation were either from Chile or Peru. Wonderful cooking! They understood very little English but if you were able to communicate with them in Spanish you could expect some extra portions. Everyone there tried their best to make you feel at home.
I was one of the few “brother” seminarians who was originally scheduled to go to the LaSalle/Peru IL. seminary but it was closed in 1965 and the few brother seminarians attending there were transferred to St. Jude, in Momence.
I do not remember a hockey team when I was at St. Jude but I did play junior varsity and varsity basketball. One of our games was against Holy Cross Seminary at Norte Dame in Indiana. Another was against Onarga Military Academy in central IL. We did not excel in sports for various reasons but it was all in how you played the game anyway and we did that well. The gym contained a swimming pool that I really enjoyed during my off hours and the basketball court was fairly modern for those days.
I believe actor Danny Thomas was an important player in recruitment while I was going there. He was in a promotional movie that was shown to all the Catholic primary school students who were in 8th or 7th grade showcasing the Seminary. That may be what initially peaked my interest in this way of life.”
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**From Larry Meyers:
“I was just thinking the other day about my early high school experiences and looked up St. Jude Seminary in Momence, IL. I was a seminarian there from Sept. 1967 through June, 1969. I really wanted to stay, but the official notice at the time was that our school would be closing after the class term in June, 1970 and I didn’t want to spend just my senior year at another high school.
I saw this post the other day and got to thinking about my time there, the staff and friends I made and enjoy their company, and all my memories. I will try to find my memorabilia from those days. I think I might still have two old yearbooks with lots of pics and names of the students.
If I find more, I will be happy to share them with you.
Henry Ogrodnik was just ahead of me at the school. The hockey ring was added outside for the winter of 1967 and we had a few unofficial games with some of the same local schools. I also ran track and field for two years and we competed with some of the schools mentioned by him. The track field was just that, a field at the southeast end of the property and adjacent to the cemetery he mentioned. It was actually just an area to run about 600 yards in a rectangle, but it was ours.
Danny Thomas was a spokesperson and we would often get our pep talks to sell Well Wisher support pledges to help out each year. We also would yearly go into Chicago in May to sing at the Policemen’s mass at I think it was St. Peter’s Church. We would then have the day to ourselves to walk around downtown Chicago.
Thank you for the posting, and best wishes.”
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**From David Laske:
“Thought I’d add a few comments about St. Jude Seminary in Momence, IL. Sometimes I might generally use only first names for purposes of anonymity. I arrived there in June 1959 and stayed for about a half year, leaving only because of family situations which prompted me to return home. Thought I would come back, but that never happened. There were three (?) non-English speaking Claretian nuns from Peru and Chile who were the fulltime cooks and prepared what I thought were wonderful cabbage-based dinners. Vaguely, I remember that the total student population in 1959 was twenty-seven of whom four were seniors. I was assigned a senior as my “guide” (Mike) who said he was quitting as soon as possible. Surprisingly I met him by chance in the Loop fifteen years later and we chatted about the actually pleasant days at St. Jude, but both glad we left. I spent a lot of time in the “stamp room” which was located in the rear of the gym. The room was filled to perhaps three or four feet of postage stamps which had been removed from US mailed envelopes, tens of thousands. While our “job” was to separate them into the various denominations, we actually goofed around a bit occasionally by burying ourselves completely under thousands of stamps; to his day I have no idea how they were so accumulated.
While still in grammar school, I would go on Friday nights with a neighbor to St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Chicago where we assisted with the weekly bingo games. In 1959, a retired Claretian bishop of Darien (Panama), José María Preciado y Nieva, C.M.F. (1886-1963), was in residence. He often asked me to place the numbers on his bingo cards. Immense responsibilities at such a young age! And this saintly bishop was another factor in selecting St. Jude’s Seminary.
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At St. Jude’s I would encounter Fr. Walter Mischke (1914-2003), a boyhood chum of my father from their old Polish neighborhood in Chicago. Mostly I guess because of Fr. Wally, I ended up at St. Jude’s Seminary where he was my Algebra teacher (and a good one at that!). All the boys were placed on the second floor into two large rooms which served a bed rooms. For nights on end, there was sobbing as a lot of the boys missed being back in their homes; I never felt that way. Our parents could visit us every second week, and I am not embarrassed to say that I asked them to sneak in a hamburger from a local greasy spoon!
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The seminarians were awakened every morning about 5:30 am with a priest announcing “DULCE COR MARIA!” to which we were to reply “ESTES SALVE MEAM.” The off to chapel for Mass and then breakfast followed by the first class of the day at 7:30 am. Latin classes were held twice a day, once in the morning hours and then in the afternoon. I thoroughly enjoyed Latin and took Latin classes as an undergraduate and graduate student. The teaching staff were primarily clerics and they were competent men. I have no “bad” feelings about being a St. Jude’s and enjoyed my days there— it’s just I could not be under constant “control” on everything and then told not to be friendly with others! Odd but probably out of concern from tooooo close relationships.
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One of the more “dangerous” occurrences was chasing some cows who meandered on the seminary’s and neighboring acreage. We run after them and then they’d sometimes turn on us. Never touching them with rocks or sticks, we merely were having some fun. Of course, we’d have to be careful where we stepped.
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I left St. Jude’s because I could not endure the constant “control” of everything in my life. I have no idea how many of my freshman classmates ever completed their priestly training, but I excused myself from such plans and rejoined the secular world. The experience there was pleasant and satisfying. I pondered recently that had I continued all the way through ordination I would now be celebrating my twenty-seventh year as a full-fledged clergy. Sic transit gloria.”
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SPECIAL GRATITUDE…
We’d like to offer thanks to Dr. Malachy McCarthy with the Claretian Fathers in Chicago for several bits of information he provided regarding St. Judes’ history, as well as the Montay dissertation for information found in that article.
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ALL THE HELP WE CAN GET…..
is something we say a lot and can get from you if you know more information about the history of Momence St. Judes Seminary. We welcome your information via email at ihsgdwebsite@comcast.net
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