St. Gertrude Catholic Parish

As of April 1, I have been here 22 years. That’s right, I began on April Fool’s Day, 1984. So I had been a priest for twenty-three years and this was to be my first crack at being pastor. There were two associates (Tom Hastings and Michael Jacobson) and one resident (John Lynch) living in the rectory. Msgr. Larry Lynch had died three months before. He had been pastor for a number of years having taken over from Msgr. Gerald Kealy. There were only two other pastors before them. So all told we have had five pastors in 94 years. Dom Grassi will become number six on July 1.The parish has gone through various phases since 1912. When I arrived in 1984 there was a project going on in the Urban Studies department of Loyola University. The question to be answered was: Will Edgewater become another Uptown or another Rogers Park? The paper written concluded that Edgewater would become Edgewater. And so it has.

In 1984 there was a common perception that the need for community organizing in this part of the city was essential. The Edgewater Community Council was providing some wonderful services backing some important issues, but there were some important areas which were not being attended to. A line of community organizers came calling and Mary Gonzalez won out. She became a key figure in the raising of consciousness for the parish. We learned about the building blocks of organization: power, self-interest, one-on-ones, participation, etc. From that early schooling we grew a parish council and a methodology. O.N.E. and United Power fit into our plans and we fit into theirs.

The twenty-two years have flown by. I wouldn’t have missed them for the world.

WK

Filed under: Dear Saint Gertrude