Category Archives: 20th Century

The Making of Blessed Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979): Irish Roots, Academic Brilliance, and a Life of Faith.

FEATURE image: Feature Image: Newly-Blessed Fulton J. Sheen posing for an official promotional portrait for the wildly popular NBC radio program, The Catholic Hour, which he hosted on Sunday nights. He launched the show with NBC in 1930, where his voice reached millions of households across the America each week, establishing him as America’s first true “media priest.” During his 20-year run on the radio Fulton Sheen pioneered a distinct blend of deep theology, patriotism, and sharp cultural commentary. For example, in the midst of the Great Depression (1929-1941) Sheen frequently attacked the moral failures of unbridled greed and monopoly capitalism, while simultaneously warning the poor not to fall for the “siren song” of class warfare. He consistently hosted sociology and labor experts on the program to advocate for worker rights, fair wages, and interracial justice, declaring that all people “have equal rights as children in the house of the Lord.” Public Domain. Fulton Sheen’s Beatification Illuminates His Message – WSJ – retrieved September 24, 2026.

How Fulton J. Sheen’s Irish-American family heritage, Catholic education, intellectual gifts, academic accomplishments, and disciplined spiritual life combined to form the future priest, bishop, evangelist, and eventual Blessed of the Catholic Church.

On September 24, 2026, the Catholic Church officially beatified Bishop Fulton J. Sheen during a historic ceremony in St. Louis, declaring him a Blessed of the Church. This milestone recognizes a lifetime of profound faith, intellectual brilliance, and pioneering media evangelization that began from immigrant Irish and Midwestern roots.

Family Roots and Early Life

Blessed Bishop Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979), known for his perfect Catholic school penmanship, rarely made mistakes during his live, unscripted broadcasts. Born into an everyday working-class background in El Paso, Illinois, near Peoria, he was the eldest of four sons of Newton and Delia Sheen, both of Irish descent. Delia (1864–1943) grew up on a farm near Kickapoo in Peoria County, and Newton (1863–1944) was born in El Paso. Bishop Sheen’s maternal grandparents were born in Ireland; his paternal grandfather was from Dublin, Ireland, and his grandmother from Indiana.

The stone stands at 25 West Front Street in downtown El Paso, Illinois. It marks the exact location where Fulton J. Sheen was born on May 8, 1895. PHOTO: “Fulton J. Sheen Birthplace Marker, El Paso, Illinois, November 2024” by HeatherMarieKosur is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Relatives remembered Delia—“Aunt Dee”—as laid back, cordial, sociable, and an excellent cook. Newton, short and slim, was generally quiet with a mechanical bent of mind. Newt first married Ida, a woman from Ohio, in 1886; she died in 1892, leaving him with a daughter (Eva Sheen married Luke Walsh in 1907). Afterward he married Delia, and the couple settled in El Paso, where Newton and his brother opened a hardware store. In 1900, while operating two farms on each side of Peoria, the family moved to 111 Seventh Street in Peoria, where Newt, Delia, their four sons, and Delia’s parents lived together. Fulton inherited his mother’s dark hair and deep-set eyes. The family moved from the farm directly into the city of Peoria for the express purpose that Fulton and his brothers could enroll in school.

Sheen’s holiness, intellectual achievement, disciplined spiritual life, and groundbreaking use of mass media were all deeply rooted in the formative influences of his family, education, and early experiences in Peoria.

Formative Education in Peoria

His parents prioritized their children’s education, enrolling Fulton in St. Mary’s Cathedral grade school and later the elite $60,000 Spalding Institute boys’ academy founded in 1899 by Peoria’s first bishop. There, Sheen not only served as an altar boy and discovered his priestly vocation but, in his class of 43 aspiring boys, graduated as the valedictorian of the class of 1913. His time there was highly influential, formed by the rigorous discipline of the Marianist brothers (not to be confused with the Marist Brothers), a French order founded in Bordeaux in 1817 by Blessed William Joseph Chaminade who staffed the school (Brother Gerald, S.M. was its first principal) from its founding until 1933 when the Benedictines took over (those were the days when they had the numbers to do that!).

Fulton J. Sheen’s high school graduation portrait from 1913. He was 18 years old having just concluded his time at the Spalding Institute in Peoria, Illinois. It was for this exact graduation milestone that he earned top academic honors and delivered the commencement address as the class valedictorian. A classmate recalled that at 18, Sheen possessed a terrifyingly good memory and a “golden tongue” that kept the entire auditorium pinned to their seats. Core themes of Sheen’s address included moral integrity over intellect, devotion to the truth, and a call to action as the vocation of the educated Christian man. Public Domain.

Higher Education, Debating, and Ordination

Fulton Sheen entered St. Viator College in Bourbonnais, Illinois, where he earned a combined B.A./M.A. in philosophy in 1917. Sheen was a star debater at the school, leading St. Viator to a legendary triumph over the University of Notre Dame, showing the golden dome fellows that the real fighting Irish lay everywhere (though that is a slightly later moniker under Knute Rockne and Notre Dame President Father Matthew Walsh). After college, Sheen entered the seminary in Minnesota and was ordained a priest in September 1919 at St. Mary’s Cathedral, where he had gone to grade school and served as an acolyte.

Fulton Sheen’s official ordination portrait taken in September 1919. He was 24 years old and had just been ordained a Roman Catholic priest on September 20, 1919, at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Peoria, Illinois. As a priest he made two resolutions that he kept for the rest of his life: He resolved to offer the Holy Eucharist every Saturday in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary to petition her lifelong protection over his priesthood. He noted that according to the Epistle to the Hebrews, a priest must offer sacrifices not just for his congregation, but for his own soul. He also resolved to spend one continuous, uninterrupted hour every single day in prayer and adoration directly in front of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament (the Tabernacle). While the Saturday Masses anchored his weeks, the Daily Holy Hour became the defining spiritual signature of his life. Even when he became a massive television celebrity with an exhausting travel schedule, Blessed Bishop Sheen never broke the vow. PHOTO: Public Domain. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2016860626/

Academic Brilliance and the “Peoria Product”

Sheen’s aspiration and capability led him to become a canon lawyer where he completed his studies at The Catholic University of America in 1920. The arguably not yet over-educated Sheen now earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium (where he became the first American to win their prestigious Cardinal Mercier Prize) as well as an S.T.D. (Sacrae Theologiae Doctor) at the Angelicum in Rome.

This man from an everyday Midwestern family’s first assignment was a parish priest at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Peoria, Illinois, in 1926. This was partly so that the church could show off their new product to the folks at home and to see how he plays in Peoria—a time of perfect joy for Sheen—though some narratives imply it as a mere test of his humility. The only thing humbled is the diocese itself, who closed St. Patrick’s in Sheen’s lifetime in 1976 for dwindling attendance for shattered perceptions of the Church, liturgical confusion, and an unintended loosening of strict church laws after Vatican II. see – Review: Why did so many Catholics leave after Vatican II? – America Magazine – retrieved September 25, 2026.

Young Rev. Sheen in a portrait taken around 1930 by Harris & Ewing Washington D.C. portrait studio. Rev. Sheen was approximately 35 years old. At the time Sheen was a young professor teaching philosophy at The Catholic University of America (CUA). This was the exact year Sheen launched into the national spotlight by becoming the first regular host of The Catholic Hour—a Sunday night NBC radio program that quickly grew to reach an estimated 4 million weekly listeners. Public Domain.

The Catholic University of America and National Fame

The Catholic University of America now called him to Washington to join their School of Theology, become a professor, launch his radio career, and begin his path to international fame and holiness. The first course Sheen regularly taught was “God and Religion in Contemporary Thought.” He taught at CUA until 1950, where his course offerings expanded as he transitioned into the School of Philosophy.

Consecrated as an auxiliary bishop of New York the previous year (1951), this photograph was taken in 1952 on the custom-designed library set of his groundbreaking, Emmy-winning television series, Life Is Worth Living. Dressed in his formal clerical attire—including his cassock, zucchetto, pectoral cross, and flowing structural ferraiolo cape—the image captures him at the absolute height of his national cultural influence. Airing on Tuesday nights on the DuMont Television Network, his unscripted, chalkboard-driven program surprisingly went head-to-head with “Mr. Television” Milton Berle, drawing up to 30 million weekly viewers of all faiths and backgrounds. PHOTO: “Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, full-length” by libraryofcongress is marked with CC0 1.0.

Blessed Bishop Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979), known for his perfect Catholic school penmanship, rarely made mistakes during his live, unscripted broadcasts.

On a personal visit in August 2007 (my wife Deb is pictured) to the Archbishop Fulton John Sheen Spiritual Center and Communication Room, located inside the Historic Railroad Depot in his birthplace of El Paso, Illinois. The vintage studio spotlight on the left, old radios, and typewriter props in the room are deliberate design choices meant to recreate the atmosphere of Bishop Sheen’s pioneering mid-20th-century radio and Emmy-Award-winning television programs like The Catholic Hour and Life Is Worth Living. In October 2000, the museum founder first set up a modest Bishop Sheen exhibit in the “Reading Corner” of the newly restored historic depot. By July 2001 this dedicated, separate large, full-size room officially opened within the depot— the exact space in this photo. At his beatification Mass on September 24, 2026, the papal delegate and presider, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, called Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen a “son of Illinois, son of the United States of America,” and “indeed, son of the world.” Author’s photograph.

“The Killers” at 80 and Universal’s Postwar Reinvention: When Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner Lit Up a Changing Hollywood.

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FEATURE: Twenty-three-year-old Ava Gardner was a noir icon in the making when, in 1946, she sat beneath a hard cone of light, her satin gown, long gloves, and crisp shadows distilled into pure mid-century glamour. Distributed globally across newspapers, movie magazines, lobby cards, and posters, cross‑legged on the polished table, she projects cool, controlled noir magnetism—elegance with an undercurrent of danger. Captured by veteran Universal studio portrait photographer Ed Esterbrook, this iconic image served as the primary promotional portrait for Robert Siodmak’s 1946 masterpiece, The Killers. On the Universal film sets, cinematographer Elwood Bredell shaped the movie’s high-contrast lighting, carving sharp, expressionistic shadows while giving Gardner’s skin a luminous, dangerous sheen. Bringing this lethal on-screen look to life was Gardner in a famous, custom-made asymmetrical black satin gown crafted by Vera West, Universal’s legendary chief costume designer. Altogether, these elements froze a moment in time that remains one of the most recognizable and enduring symbols of cinematic post-war noir glamour. PHOTO: “Ava Gardner in The Killers, 1946” by thefoxling is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Robert Siodmak’s 1946 film The Killers stands as a pivotal milestone in cinema history, serving as the catalyst for Universal Pictures’ postwar commercial stabilization while simultaneously redefining film noir by launching Burt Lancaster into stardom and establishing Ava Gardner as the definitive archetype of the Hollywood femme fatale.

A Film Noir Breakthrough

Eighty years ago today—August 28, 1946—Robert Siodmak’s The Killers exploded onto American movie screens, instantly becoming a film noir sensation. It launched Burt Lancaster into overnight stardom after producer Mark Hellinger couldn’t land his first choice, Wayne Morris, and it introduced Ava Gardner as Hollywood’s definitive femme fatale. Adapted from Ernest Hemingway’s 1927 existential and grim short story, the film follows a washed-up ex-boxer who waits calmly in a dark room for hitmen to kill him, utterly undone by Gardner’s double-crossing allure. Though Anthony Veiller received official screen credit, the script carried major, uncredited writing contributions from future directing icons Richard Brooks and John Huston, while Miklós Rózsa’s tense, four-note brass score sharpened its fatalistic mood.

From the complete, dramatic original motion picture score for the 1946 film noir classic The Killers, composed by the legendary Miklós Rózsa. The soundtrack includes the famous, tense instrumental tracks that heightened the movie’s fatalistic mood, alongside the nightclub torch song performed with vocals by Ava Gardner herself.

Hollywood at Peak Attendance

Moviegoing in 1946 was at its absolute historic height, drawing a staggering 90 million weekly admissions. However, ticket prices had nearly doubled since before the war. This spike made post-war audiences far more selective, pushing major studios away from cheap “B-movies” and toward full-length, high-production features—frequently shot in vibrant Technicolor and paired as double features to ensure patrons got their money’s worth.

Universal Pictures tried to reinvent itself by merging with independents, including Hellinger’s banner, which produced The Killers for under $1 million and earned more than $3 million. Emboldened to meet the new demand, the studio chased prestige cinema, dropped its old B‑pictures and many longtime stars, and merged with International Pictures to form Universal‑International—but audiences mostly shrugged, and by decade’s end the company was losing money.

The Return to What Audiences Wanted

Veteran executive Edward Muhl, who had been with Universal since 1927, stepped up as general manager to steady the studio before officially becoming Head of Production in 1953. He steered the company back toward what mainstream American audiences reliably embraced: lucrative, low-budget comedy franchises like Ma and Pa Kettle (10 films, 1947–1957) and Francis the Talking Mule (7 films, 1950–1956), alongside a steady, highly profitable output of escapist Technicolor action-adventure films.

Film still from the production of The Killers (1946) captures the charged chemistry between Ava Gardner as Kitty Collins and Burt Lancaster, making his debut as Ole “The Swede” Andreson. Their first meeting is a textbook noir seduction: the doomed protagonist instantly, helplessly drawn into the orbit of the femme fatale who will seal his fate. At the center of the frame, cinematographer Elwood Bredell turns a crystal oil lamp into a diegetic light source—a glowing boundary between the two characters that casts soft illumination across Gardner’s face while dropping the rest of the room into deep, moody shadow. She’s wearing Vera West’s asymmetrical black satin gown—the same one from the famous publicity portrait—and on screen the heavy satin drinks the light, turning her into the ultimate femme fatale. PHOTO: “Ava Gardner y Burt Lancaster” by afevrier is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

This video short captures the electric first meeting between Ava Gardner and Burt Lancaster in the 1946 film noir classic The Killers, highlighting her sultry debut scene as Kitty Collins. The clip showcases Ava Gardner’s mesmerizing screen presence that audiences will remember as she delivers her smooth, fatalistic dialogue directly to the spellbound Swede. KITTY COLLINS: “How wonderful of you, I could never bear to see a man I really cared for being hurt.”

“She can’t sing, she can’t act, she can’t talk. She’s terrific!” – Louis B. Mayer on Ava Gardner.

Before The Killers, Ava Gardner was hopelessly stuck in Hollywood limbo. MGM head Louis B. Mayer had signed the 19-year-old North Carolina newcomer in 1941 purely based on her breathtaking physical photos. For five long years, she drifted through more than twenty films as an uncredited extra, barely noticed by the industry.

The Killers changed everything. Producer Mark Hellinger fought to cast the 23-year-old as Kitty Collins, freeing her from MGM’s rigid, squeaky-clean star-making machinery and handing her a role with genuine dramatic weight. Dressed in Vera West’s iconic, asymmetrical black satin gown, Gardner used her natural magnetism, smoldering gaze, and quiet confidence to completely command the visual frame. On the silver screen, she crafted a cold, calculating siren who seamlessly weaponized vulnerability to orchestrate a massive double-cross.

When the film became a box-office triumph in August 1946, audiences and critics were instantly transfixed. Gardner and Lancaster became overnight A-list sensations. Suddenly, she wasn’t just a glamorous face in the gossip columns—she was a legitimate actress widely praised for her dramatic depth and dangerous screen presence.

MGM moved fast to exploit her newly minted star power. Gone were the uncredited bit parts; instead, Gardner was vaulted into high-profile late-1940s productions like The Hucksters (1947) opposite Clark Gable, One Touch of Venus (1948), and The Bribe (1949). By the turn of the decade, MGM’s publicity office was completely overwhelmed, processing more than 3,000 fan photo requests per week for Hollywood’s ultimate new siren.

The original theatrical movie poster for The Killers (1946) pulses with classic film noir energy, dominated by bold red typography and the striking tagline: “TENSE! TAUT! TERRIFIC!” Public Domain.
The poster had a valid copyright notice, as seen on the bottom left corner. However, the copyright for the artwork was not renewed, as was required by American copyright law to extend/maintain protection for works published 1963 or earlier. In order to maintain copyright protection, the poster would have had to be renewed 28 years after publication, in either 1973 or 1974. Because it was not renewed, copyright lapsed at that time. Note that the poster art is a distinct work from the film it represents and had to be renewed separately.

SOURCE: The Universal Story, Clive Hirschhorn, Crown Publishers, Inc. New York, 1983, pp. 156-64.

This explanatory article may be periodically updated.

Once More into the Breach: Shakespeare, History, and Olivier’s 1944 Henry V.

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Feature Image: Movie poster in Spanish for Laurence Olivier’s 1944 Technicolor adaptation of William Shakespeare’s play, Henry V (1599). Produced in Ireland to serve as a British morale-boosting propaganda tool during WWII, the film achieved global distribution through theatrical releases and subsequent re-releases and is today frequently used in university studies (e.g., Cambridge Core) on cinematic Shakespeare. Photo: “Enrique V” by Kirby York is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.

Shakespeare’s Henry V was first published in 1600 in a quarto edition and in subsequent editions in 1602 and 1619. A more complete, reliable text was later published in the First Folio in 1623. Photo: “Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories & Tragedies [Title page]” by Boston Public Library is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Henry V in the Regement of Princes, c. 1411–1413. Henry V died in 1422 at the age of 35, likely from dysentery contracted in the unsanitary conditions of his military camp. In his will, he named his brother, John of Bedford, as regent for his infant son, the future Henry VI, who would not be crowned in his own right until 1437. Although the Treaty of Troyes had positioned Henry V to inherit the French crown, he never became King of France; Charles VI outlived him, preventing the succession. His son, Henry VI—often described as gentle, passive, and averse to violence and warfare—proved unable to sustain his father’s hard‑won claims. His authority in France collapsed, and at home he was deposed in March 1461 by the Yorkist Edward IV. A brief restoration in 1470 returned him to the throne, but only for months; Henry VI was permanently deposed and killed in May 1471. Public Domain.

William Shakespeare likely wrote Henry V in spring 1599. The play dramatizes the 28-year-old English king’s campaign to claim the French throne, culminating in his victory at Agincourt on October 15, 1415—a battlefield I visited in 1993, still largely unchanged after six centuries. Henry based his claim on his ancestor Edward III, and his triumph was aided by a France divided by civil war between Burgundians and Orléanists.

At the Battle of Agincourt (1415), roughly 80% of Henry V’s army were longbowmen—an overwhelming concentration of missile power that defined the fight. Henry deployed thousands of archers along his flanks and center, unleashing relentless, high‑velocity arrow storms that tore through the densely packed, heavily armored French ranks. Behind their sharpened stakes, these archers acted as an offensive engine, cutting down waves of advancing knights before they ever reached English lines. The result was one of military history’s most lopsided victories. Estimates suggest 6,000–10,000 French dead—including more than ninety nobles—against only a few hundred English losses. French formations collapsed, morale shattered, and an army that outnumbered the English by as much as six to one simply disintegrated. Agincourt proved that disciplined, trained, often low‑born archers could annihilate superior numbers of elite, armored cavalry. It didn’t just win a battle—it rewrote the rules of medieval warfare. Photo: “Enrique V (3)” by Kirby York is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.

Entrée de Jeanne d’Arc à Orléans (“Entrance of Joan of Arc into Orléans”), painted in 1887 by the academic artist Jacques Scherrer (1855-1916), portrays Joan’s triumphant arrival in Orléans on May 8, 1429, after she lifted the city’s siege during the Hundred Years’ War. Her victory set in motion the campaign that culminated in the Dauphin’s coronation as King Charles VII at Reims on July 17, 1429. Public Domain.

Within fifteen years, Jeanne la Pucelle—Joan of Arc—led Orléanist and Armagnac forces to lift the siege of Orléans in 1429. Captured by Burgundians in 1430, she was handed to the English and condemned by their puppet ecclesiastical court before being burned in Rouen. Henry’s 1415 victory enabled the 1420 Treaty of Troyes, which disinherited the Dauphin, named Henry regent and heir to Charles VI, and arranged his marriage to Catherine of Valois, sister of the future Charles VII. On July 17, 1429, after Joan’s visions and military successes, she stood beside the Dauphin as he was crowned at Reims. By 1453, the French had expelled the English entirely from France.

The 1944 Technicolor film follows a performance of Shakespeare’s history play at the Globe in 1603 as it evolves toward a sharper, more realistic style. Laurence Olivier’s bold, experimental film adaptation—directing and starring in the title role—reimagined Shakespeare for the screen centuries after the play’s premiere. The production became a landmark of cinematic Shakespeare, celebrated for its visual flair and Olivier’s command of film technique, especially in the sweeping, meticulously staged battle sequences. (8) William Walton : Henry V : Touch her soft lips and part. Film clips. – YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnQl4Wj8NXc) – retrieved April 23, 2026.

The play Henry V emerged during an intensely creative year for Shakespeare and was likely among the first plays staged at the new Globe Theatre. Though often read as patriotic, it also probes the ethical and personal costs of war, exposing its brutality and questioning the justice of Henry’s campaign. Laurence Olivier’s 1944 Technicolor adaptation transformed the play into wartime propaganda to bolster British morale and later earned recognition as a landmark Shakespearean film. Its iconic score was composed by William Walton.

Henry V starred British actors Laurence Olivier as Henry V and Renée Asherson as Catherine of Valois. Photo: “Enrique V (2)” by Kirby York is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.

The original Globe Theatre opened in summer of 1599 in Southwark, London, built by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men which was the company William Shakespeare wrote for and part-owned. It is widely believed that the first play by Shakespeare performed at the Globe was Julius Caesar, likely alongside Henry V and As You Like It. Today’s Globe Theatre in London is the third Globe. see – Globe Theatre | About us | Discover | Shakespeare’s Globe – retrieved April 23, 2026. Photo: “Shakespeare’s Globe” by Werkmens is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

The Entrance to an Era: Chicago’s Metropolitan Tower (1924) and the Rise of Modern Michigan Avenue.

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Feature Image: Main Entrance, Metropolitan Tower (1924), 310 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, was designed by Graham, Anderson, Probst & White. December 2015. 4.89 mb DSC_0963 (1). Author’s photograph.

Metropolitan Tower’s main entrance is more than an architectural detail: it is a surviving gateway to one of Chicago’s most significant early skyscrapers, a building that embodied the ambitions, craftsmanship, and corporate prestige of the 1920s while reflecting the evolution of Michigan Avenue and modern Chicago.

Located at 310 South Michigan Avenue on the southwest corner of Jackson Boulevard, Metropolitan Tower originally served as corporate headquarters for S.W. Straus and Co., a banking and investment firm. The building was erected in 1924 by Graham, Anderson, Probst & White in their signature classical style. The architectural firm was one of the largest in the first half of the twentieth century and went on to build Chicago’s Civic Opera Building in 1929. Founded in 1912, the firm was the successor to D. H. Burnham & Co. by way of partner, Ernest R. Graham (1868-1936), and Burnham’s sons, Hubert and Daniel Jr. Five years later the Burnhams left to form their own firm (Burnham Brothers) and Graham partnered with others of the firm’s members: William Peirce Anderson (1870-1924), Edward Mathias Probst (1870-1942), and Howard Judson White (1870-1936). No expense was spared for the Straus Building’s interior, though of the original lobby’s opulence all that remains are the elaborate bronze elevator doors. The entrance’s coffered bronze doors by Italian sculptor Leo Lentelli (1879-1961) were destroyed. see – Saliga, Pauline A., editor, The Sky’s The Limit A Century of Chicago Skyscrapers, Rizzoli New York, 1990, p. 117.

The Metropolitan Tower was built in 1924 as the headquarters of S.W. Straus & Co. and designed by Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, successors to the Burnham architectural tradition.

Ernest R. Graham (1868-1936).

William Peirce Anderson (1870-1924).

Edward Mathias Probst (1870-1942).

Howard Judson White (1870-1936).

The elaborate entrance and lobby originally featured exceptional decorative work, including bronze doors created by sculptor Leo Lentelli, although many original elements have been lost.

Leo Lentelli (1879-1961). The Italian sculptor created the original main entrance doors for Metropolitan Tower that were later destroyed. Public Domain.

The 30-floor classical-style Straus Building was renamed over the years for other of its famous inhabitants including Continental National Insurance Co. and Britannica Center for Encyclopedia Britannica. Metropolitan Tower was the first building in Chicago that took advantage of the new 1923 zoning ordinance for skyscrapers that allowed buildings taller than 260 feet (30 or more floors) with the necessary setbacks. Metropolitan Tower’s required setbacks begin at the 21st floor on which sits a nine-story tower until there is a second setback and then the final two stories. Crowned by a stepped pyramid and possessed of a powerful beacon that opened in 1924, the building is Chicago’s first Michigan Avenue skyscraper.

Metropolitan Tower was the first skyscraper on Michigan Avenue and one of the earliest buildings to take advantage of Chicago’s new 1923 zoning regulations permitting greater height through setbacks. Its distinctive stepped crown, beacon, and symbolic ornamentation made it a recognizable feature of the Chicago skyline.

Built in 1924, Metropolitan Tower was Michigan Avenue’s first skyscraper. PHOTO: “Metropolitan Tower, Chicago in May 2016” by MusikAnimal is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Unused for years, the building’s 1,500-pound carillon bells were restored in 1979 for Pope John Paul II’s visit to Chicago. Just steps from Metropolitan Tower, the papal visit included an outdoor mass in Grant Park on October 5, 1979, which attracted over one million attendees, the largest gathering ever in Grant Park history up to that time. see – CBS Chicago Vault: Pope John Paul II enthralls Chicagoans on 1979 visit – CBS Chicago – retrieved March 18, 2026.

At one time, the thirtieth floor was the Straus Tower Observatory, which was open to the public for viewing the city in all four directions. see – Home | Metropolitan Tower – retrieved February 24, 2026. Home to the Continental National Insurance Company soon after it was built, this iconic skyscraper is located within Chicago’s Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District. The glass “beehive” supported by four bison figures at the top of the building held the blue light of a four-direction beacon. The ensemble, symbolizing industry, strength, and thrift, saw its beacon, signifying global reach, permanently shut down in 1934 following the financial failure of the S.W. Straus and Company during the Great Depression. The building was converted to residential condominiums in 2007. see – Metropolitan Tower | Powered by Baird & Warner– retrieved February 24, 2026; AIA Guide to Chicago, 2nd Edition, Alice Sinkevitch, Harcourt, Inc., Orlando, 2004, page 42.

The building was constructed in a classical style and represented the high quality and prestige associated with major Chicago commercial architecture of the 1920s. Over time, the building adapted to changing uses and occupants, including Encyclopedia Britannica and residential condominiums, demonstrating its continued relevance and preservation.

125 Feet of Steel Above the Calumet: How the 1958 Chicago Skyway Shaped Regional Transit.

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Feature image: Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge, 95th Street & S. Baltimore Avenue, Chicago. July 2016. Author’s photograph. 4.03mb DSC_0774 (1).

The massive steel infrastructure of the Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge (specifically the “High Bridge” at 95th Street and S. Baltimore Avenue) represents a monumental feat of mid-20th-century engineering, combining structural strength, durability, and commercial utility with a striking architectural aesthetic.

This photograph of the Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge (also known as the “Skyway”) is at the exact point where it spans the Calumet River and Calumet Harbor, a major harbor for industrial ships. Built by the City of Chicago in 1958 this massive steel undergirding is part of the 7.8 miles long expressway toll road that connects Chicago’s Dan Ryan freeway on the South Side to the Indiana Toll Road. The main feature of the Skyway is this half-mile long steel truss bridge known as the “High Bridge” whose maximum vertical clearance allowing ships and objects to pass safely underneath is 125 feet or about 10-12 building stories. The Chicago Skyway truss is primarily made of rolled and built-up steel beams for incredible weight-bearing strength, durability and functionality.

Chicago Skyway, 95th Street & Baltimore Avenue, Chicago. July 2016. Author’s photograph. 4.05 mb DSC_0772 (1)

This intersection is located on the city’s Far South Side in the South Chicago neighborhood. The area is heavily industrial, sitting just west of the Calumet River and directly underneath the massive steel framing of the Chicago Skyway High Bridge. The actual boundary of the city limits sits further east and south toward the Illinois-Indiana state line.

The Skyway was operated and maintained by the City of Chicago until January 2005 when Skyway Concession Company, LLC assumed its operations under a 99-year operating lease. The lease agreement between Skyway and the City of Chicago was the first privatization of an existing toll road in the United States. In February 2016, Skyway was purchased by three Canadian Pension Funds (OMERS Infrastructure, CPP Investment Board, and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan) and in December 2022 global toll road operator Atlas Arteria Group based in Australia, acquired 66.67% stake in the Skyway with OTPP retaining the rest. see – The Skyway – Chicago Skyway – retrieved December 19, 2025. While exact current figures go up and down, best estimates put daily vehicular traffic on the Chicago Skyway, both cars and trucks, at between 40,000 and 50,000 per day. see – FHWA – Center for Innovative Finance Support – Value Capture – Case Studies: Hays County, Texas Transportation Reinvestment Zones – retrieved December 19, 2025.

Chicago Skyway. 95th St. & Baltimore Ave. July 2016. Author’s photograph. 4.93mb DSC_0765 (1).

**Chicago Skyway. 95th St. & Baltimore Ave.** July 2016. Author’s photograph. 2.21mb DSC_0764 (1).

The 1958 steel truss undergirding serves a vital operational purpose—allowing massive industrial shipping to pass underneath into the Calumet River while carrying thousands of daily vehicles above—as it simultaneously serves as a compelling subject for architectural art.

**Chicago Skyway. 95th St. & Baltimore Ave.** July 2016. Author’s photograph. 5.13mb DSC_0769 (1).

50 years ago today: The Wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald (November 10, 1975).

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FEATURE image: Edmund Fitzgerald in 1971. “Edmund Fitzgerald, 1971, 3 of 4 (restored; cropped)” by Greenmars is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

“Gordon Lightfoot” by Original uploader was Piedmontstyle at en.wikipedia is licensed under CC BY 3.0.

Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot began releasing solo albums in 1966. The first six were on United Artists label and sold moderately well (up to 200,000 copies). Switching to Reprise in 1969 his debut album with the label, Sit Down Young Stranger, coincided with his first U.S. hit, If You Could Read My Mind, in 1970 and became Lightfoot’s first Gold album. This was followed by Lightfoot’s second Gold album (Platinum today) and no.1 single both called Sundown in 1974. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald – a true story of an ore vessel named after a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, civic leader, that sank in a Lake Superior storm in November 1975 – was Lightfoot’s next big hit appearing on Summertime Dream, a 1976 album that has gone Platinum.¹

On November 10, 1975, during basically the colliding of two freshwater storms on Lake Superior, the largest of the five Great Lakes, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, in service since 1958 and, when launched, the largest ship on the Great Lakes at over 700 feet long, went down into deep waters. For a cargo ship that should have normally expected more decades of service, the sinking caused the loss of its entire crew of 29 men. At 7 p.m. on November 10, 1975, the Fitzgerald radioed another cargo ship, the Anderson, telling them that, despite losing their radar, they were “holding their own.” Shortly thereafter the Fitzgerald was lost.

“File:SS Edmund Fitzgerald wreck.png” by Oaktree b is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Location of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald wreck in Lake Superior approximately 17 miles (27 kilometers) north-northwest of Whitefish Point, Michigan. The ship now rests beneath about 535 feet (165 meters) of water and is considered a protected gravesite.²

Recovery Efforts involved the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard.

“The Bell of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by TheGreenHeron is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

Whitefish Point, located on the southeastern shore of Lake Superior in Michigan, houses the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, which holds memorial events for the SS Edmund Fitzgerald each November. The wreck’s location, being 17 miles north-northwest of the point, places it beyond safe navigation lines, illustrating why the ship never reached shelter that fateful night. On a personal note, I have had the opportunity to visit the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Whitefish Point, Michigan that contains the bell from the SS Edmund Fitzgerald recovered in 1995.³

“Edmund Fitzgerald” by jpellgen (@1179_jp) is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

The ultimate cause and circumstances of the wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior remain a mystery, weather conditions surrounding the sinking are well known – extraordinarily severe storm conditions, including 60 m.p.h. winds, towering waves of 25-30 feet, and heavy thick ice, which impacted possible structural vulnerabilities of the large, nearly 20-year-old cargo ship. The exact sequence of the events leading to the sinking are also unknown, as no distress signal detailing mechanical failure was received, so that the wreck has been attributed to adverse weather and lake conditions that impacted the vessel suddenly.⁴

The disaster, unlike the other hundreds of shipwrecks that have taken place on the Great Lakes, has entered into American mythology with Gordon Lightfoot’s ballad The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, written within a couple weeks after the disaster that same November 1975. Though the song by a bestselling recording artist about a recent shipwreck carried some risk where it was too early to know every fact, the verses are meticulously based on news stories of the basics that were known. By Lightfoot’s 7th studio album, Don Quixote, released in 1972, the Canadian singer-songwriter had begun in earnest to explore nautical themes. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, released in June 1976 on Lightfoot’s 11th studio album, Summertime Dream, stayed on the same course.

2025 01 06 Record – Gordon Lightfoot 7” by Blake Handley is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Summertime Dream was released in June 1976 and peaked at no. 12 on the Billboard 200 (no. 1 on Canada Top Albums). The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald was the album’s second track and, in August 1976, became its second single peaking at no. 2 in the U.S. and no. 1 in Canada.

The song was getting local airplay from the album in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Its popularity led to its release as a single in August 1976 and became Lightfoot’s biggest and most unlikely hit record commemorating the sinking of a transport cargo ship with its lives lost from less than a year before. The six-and-one-half minute folk rock song reached no. 1 in Canada and no. 2 in the U.S. where it was kept out of the top spot by Rod Stewart’s Tonight’s the Night. After the song’s release, Lightfoot never lost contact with the surviving family members of that shipwreck. Gordon Lightfoot, who was born in a town on Lake Simcoe in Ontario, Canada, died less than 90 miles away on Lake Ontario in Toronto in May 2023 at 84 years old.

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake, they called Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy
With a load of iron ore, twenty-six thousand tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early

The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
With a crew and good captain well seasoned
Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ship’s bell rang
Could it be the north wind they’d been feeling?

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the captain did too
‘Twas the witch of November come stealing
The dawn came late, and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashin’
When afternoon came, it was freezin’ rain
In the face of a hurricane west wind

When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin’
“Fellas, it’s too rough to feed ya”
At seven p.m., a main hatchway caved in, he said
“Fellas, it’s been good to know ya”
The captain wired in he had water comin’ in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went outta sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay
If they’d put 15 more miles behind her
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the rooms of her ice-water mansion
Old Michigan steams like a young man’s dreams
The islands and bays are for sportsmen
And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered

In a musty old hall in Detroit, they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors’ Cathedral
The church bell chimed ’til it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake, they call Gitche Gumee
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early

“Edmund Fitzgerald in MacArthur Lock” by Detroit District is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

SS Edmund Fitzgerald in MacArthur Lock, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.

“DSC_6472” by Jim Sorbie is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

NOTES:

The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Third Edition (2001), p. 566.
https://spectrumlocalnews.com/mi/michigan/news/2025/11/10/retired-ap-reporter-helped-cement-the-legend-of-the-wreck-of-the-edmund-fitzgerald – retrieved November 10, 2025.
https://fieldethos.com/wreck-of-the-edmund-fitzgerald/ – retrieved November 10, 2025.
https://www.history.com/articles/edmund-fitzgerald-sinking-lake-superior – retrieved November 10, 2025.

PHOTO CREDITS:

Edmund Fitzgerald in 1971 – “Edmund Fitzgerald, 1971, 3 of 4 (restored; cropped)” by Greenmars is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Gordon Lightfoot guitar – “Gordon Lightfoot” by Original uploader was Piedmontstyle at en.wikipedia is licensed under CC BY 3.0.

map – “File:SS Edmund Fitzgerald wreck.png” by Oaktree b is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

bell – “The Bell of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by TheGreenHeron is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

mystery – “Edmund Fitzgerald” by jpellgen (@1179_jp) is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Summertime Dream album cover – 2025 01 06 Record – Gordon Lightfoot 7” by Blake Handley is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

at MacArthur Lock – “Edmund Fitzgerald in MacArthur Lock” by Detroit District is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

lighthouse – PHOTO: “DSC_6472” by Jim Sorbie is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

National Shrine of St. Jude: The Chicago Church That Helped Inspire Danny Thomas to Found St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

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FEATURE Image: The many prayer intentions received at the National Shrine of St. Jude in Chicago are placed at the patron of hopeless cases’ devotional altar in the main sanctuary. These petitions are remembered at the National Shrine’s Masses and devotional prayers throughout the years. June 2018 80% 7.76mb DSC_9191. Author’s photograph.

Chicago’s National Shrine of St. Jude is more than a local religious landmark. It is a place where faith, devotion, and personal transformation intersect, most famously in the life of Danny Thomas, whose prayers to St. Jude here helped inspire a career that ultimately led to the founding of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The shrine stands as a living testament to the powerful role that religious faith and pilgrimage can play in individual lives and broader humanitarian endeavors.

The National Shrine of St. Jude at 3208 E. 91^st Street on Chicago’s far southeast side at Our Lady of Guadalupe parish church was canonically established in 1929. Its official decree was promulgated on November 15, 1929, by Chicago Cardinal Archbishop George Mundelein (1872-1939). June 2018 88% 7.72mb DSC_9173. Author’s photograph.

The pastor of the church at the time was Fr. James Tort, a Claretian missionary, who had a deep personal devotion to St. Jude, patron of hopeless cases and those that are almost despaired of. The saint, not to be confused with the traitor, Judas Iscariot, is honored by the church universally as the saint who brings visible and speedy help in most dire circumstances. A portrait of the founder of the Claretians, Spanish priest and bishop, St. Anthony Mary Claret (1807-1870), is one of the artworks that greet visitors into the main sanctuary. The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is over the main altar. The devotional altar to St. Jude is right of the main altar. The altar to St. Jude contains a major relic of the saint: a piece of his bone. June 2018 84% 7.78 DSC_9177. Author’s photograph.

The shrine contains a major relic of St. Jude and serves as an active center of prayer and pilgrimage.

The shrine altar to St. Jude (right). In the darkest days of the Great Depression, Father Tort petitioned St. Jude with a request to help complete the parish church building for the people. In gratitude for the granting of this great favor. Fr. Tort promised to never cease to honor the saint, a true blood relative of Jesus and Mary, by dedicating a shrine altar to him in the church and to do all in his power to spread devotion to him. June 2018 2.29mb DSC_9186 (1). Author’s photograph.

This is one of the stained-glass windows in Chicago’s St. Jude Shrine. It depicts Jude preaching in Persia. Tradition holds that Saint Jude preached the Gospel in Judea, Samaria, Idumaea, Syria, Mesopotamia and Libya. He is also said to have visited Beirut. In addition to being patron of hopeless cases, Jude is patron of vegetarians. That Jude is portrayed holding an image of Jesus Christ has an interesting origin. During Jesus’s public ministry, a king had an incurable condition and was dying in Edessa. He sent a letter asking for Jesus to come. Instead of going himself, Jesus sent Jude. As Jude set out on this journey, Jesus pressed a cloth against His face, and when he gave it back to Jude, it had the Lord’s image on it. When St. Jude then went to the dying king in Edessa, and the king looked at the cloth with Christ’s miraculous impression, he was immediately healed. June 2018 6.47mbDSC_9184 (4). Author’s photograph.

Danny Thomas, struggling to establish himself in show business, learned of the shrine while in Chicago and prayed to St. Jude there for assistance. Soon afterward, Thomas received the career opportunity that launched him to national fame as a comedian, television star, and entertainer.

In 1940 when entertainer Danny Thomas (1912-1991) came to Chicago to do radio commercials, he found early success doing stand-up comedy in nightclubs. When work was finished, often around dawn, Thomas went to 6 a.m. Mass at St. Clement Church. There Thomas learned about Chicago’s National Shrine of St. Jude on the far southeast side. A couple of years earlier, Thomas, starting out in show business in Detroit— and with his first child, Marlo Thomas, on the way— had dedicated himself to St. Jude as the patron of hopeless cases. Soon after visiting and praying at the Chicago shrine, Thomas was offered a stand-up comedy job in New York City at La Martinique at 57 West 57th Street. This job launched his entertainment career into the big time. Following World War II, Thomas was performing for $3,750 a week at New York’s Roxy Theater just off Times Square and was performing in nightclubs across the country as well as offered film roles. In 1953 he starred in his own television show, Make Room for Daddy (later, The Danny Thomas Show). The sitcom ran for 11 consecutive seasons and became more popular with each year. By 1957 it was the no.2 show on television and, when the sitcom ended in 1964, it was in the top ten. PHOTO: “Danny thomas kayrouz” by Hany raymond rahme is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Remembering his promise to give back if he succeeded, Thomas founded St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis in 1962, creating one of the world’s most respected pediatric medical institutions.

Remembering St. Jude from his early days in Detroit and Chicago—and promising if he made it big he’d give back somehow— Danny Thomas in 1962 founded the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. In 2020, St. Jude’s has expanded to eight affiliate hospitals across the United States. In 1996 one of its doctors in St. Jude’s Immunology Department was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology. The prize was for key discoveries on how the immune system works to kill virus-infected cells. PHOTO: “Have you heard of @StJude Children’s Research Hospital? Named for the patron saint of lost causes Danny Thomas founded St. Jude because he believed that ‘no child should die in the dawn of life.’ I’m homored to be invited to spend the next two days with t” by Leticia Barr @TechSavvyMama is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

The National Shrine of St. Jude in Chicago was canonically established in 1929 and became one of the most important centers of devotion to St. Jude in the United States.

Altar of St. Jude, The National Shrine of St. Jude in Chicago. St. Jude Thaddeus was one of Jesus’ 12 apostles and. legend has it, that it was Jude who was the groom at the wedding feast of Cana where Jesus performed his first miracle of turning water into wine (John, chapter 2). Matthew states that Jude was one of the “brothers” of Jesus usually interpreted as a blood cousin. St. Jude, pray for us! June 2018 73% 7.89mb DSC_9182. Author’s photograph.

MAY 27, 1941: BRITISH SINKING OF THE GERMAN WARSHIP BISMARCK IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC HELPED CHANGE THE COURSE OF WORLD WAR II.

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FEATURE image: HMS Rodney unloading her guns. HMS Rodney’s 16-inch guns played a pivotal role at the last battle with the Bismarck in the North Atlantic in May 1941. The British battleship’s powerful broadsides at the Bismarck caused significant structural damage that sunk the German warship. “HMS Rodney lightens her load sometime in the 1930’s.” by WWII in View is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.

In 1941 the Allies determined the war would need to be won in the Atlantic.¹ From 1939 to 1945 the Battle of the Atlantic was the longest continuous military campaign in World War II. It stemmed from the start of the war in Europe with Hitler’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, and the declaration of war by France and Britain on the Third Reich. This was followed by the Battle of Britain and Fall of France in 1940 and the Allies’ declaration of war on Italy on June 10, 1941. The United States, as a non-belligerent and working through its neutrality laws, aided the Allies, namely Britain, through cash and carry and lend-lease purchases of large amounts of American-made armaments as well as providing reconnaissance to the British navy and air force who were in the fight against German U-boats and battleships aggressively attacking and sinking the merchant ships headed for Britain.

German submarine U-52. Public Domain.

A massive nearly square-shaped zone of conflict surrounded Great Britain and Iceland with its approximate boundaries from the southeast coast of Greenland across the Atlantic to France and north between Britain and Norway and back around Iceland towards Greenland. Since Denmark was occupied by German forces, the United States in April 1941 occupied their abandoned colony of Greenland and designated it as part of the Western hemisphere to categorize American non-belligerent military activity as self-defense. The Americans took the same approach with Iceland sending troops as a forward, if ostensibly defensive, posture.²

This situation brought the navies of the United States, Canada and Great Britain together as the Allies provided escort to the merchant ships into a combat zone with the German Kriegsmarine (navy), specifically U-boats (submarines) and warships, as well as the Luftwaffe (air force), who were severely disrupting the supply line. The commanders of the opposing forces were both World War I veterans. Vice-Admiral Gilbert O. Stephenson (1878-1972), a pioneer of anti-submarine techniques in the First World War, was training commander of the British escort groups while Admiral Karl Dönitz (1891-1980), whose navy career began before the Great War was the commander of the German U-boat fleet.

Vice-Admiral Gilbert O. Stephenson, 1929. Stephenson who served in World War I was recalled at the start of World War II and aided in the evacuation of Dunkirk. In 1940 Stephenson was tasked with setting up the training base at Tobermory on the Isle of Mull in the Scottish Inner Hebrides. Stephenson was a noteworthy disciplinarian, and his training vision and methods had an influence within the service after the war ended. The Vice-Admiral believed the most important priorities for trainees were, in order, (1) to instill the will to win; (2) to accept discipline; (3) to execute a highly competent administration; and, (4) to display technical proficiency. Public domain.

**German officer Karl Dönitz on the U-39 during World War I.** Public domain.

Until the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan on December 7, 1941 the United States was a non-belligerent and Hitler wanted to keep it that way. Germany was mounting its invasion of Russia called Operation Barbarossa, which, involving almost 4 million troops, was the largest offensive operation in military history. For American internationalists looking for a way into the war in 1941, American neutrality and Lend-Lease laws along with public opinion complicated that desire. American opinion, markedly isolationist through the 1930’s and into the early 1940’s, was, in spring and summer 1941, split on whether the U.S. should escort merchant marine vessels while a large majority was against entering the war. Most Americans polled believed the United States had already been doing too much for Britain.³ In April 1941, after a year of the largest armament production program in U.S. history, President Roosevelt decided for American patrols comprised of ships and airplanes, rather than escorts or convoys, to insure the delivery of needed supplies to Britain and other Allied combatants. The mission, started without diplomatic or public fanfare, gave solely reconnaissance aid to Britain. This role in an expanding territory in the Atlantic was justified by FDR as hemispheric self-defense from the Nazis. This position was reinforced by Roosevelt in a fireside chat with the American people on May 27, 1941. By then the Bismarck was under attack and sunk. FDR’s rationale was based on the premise that the “supreme purpose” of the Axis powers was to achieve world domination by its control of the high seas and the capture of Great Britain was key to that endeavor.⁴

In 1941, before America’s entry as a belligerent into World War II, President Roosevelt aided the Allies with immense U.S. armament production sent to Britain and American patrols in the North Atlantic to provide intelligence to the British navy to assure their safe delivery to Britain. Further, FDR worked within the parameters of U.S. laws as well as listening to, and helping shape, the American people’s sentiments as to how much to aid Britain short of war. President Roosevelt with Microphones, September 11, 1941 (NARA). “Public Domain: President Roosevelt with Microphones, September 11, 1941 (NARA)” by pingnews.com is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.

In the face of these American patrols that FDR spoke of, Hitler was, after the fall of Denmark, Norway, the Low Countries, and France, looking east. The Germans were on the offensive from Yugoslavia to Greece to North Africa. Though the invasion of Britain was off, the Atlantic remained under siege. In April and May 1941 German wolfpacks (coordinated attacks by U-boats on convoys) took a heavy toll on British merchant shipping in the combat zone south of Iceland.⁵

May 24, 1941.

On May 24, 1941, the German battleship Bismarck, accompanied by the cruiser Prinz Eugen, left Norway for the Atlantic. The British intercepted the German ships in the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland, but the Bismarck fought back and sank the HMS Hood, the biggest battlecruiser in the world at that time, which exploded with the loss of 1,415 of its crew. The sinking of the Hood marked what remains the single greatest loss of life in Royal Navy history.

The battle also damaged the Prince of Wales. The Bismarck, under the command of Günther Lütjens (1887-1941), continued its passage south to the convoy routes but had sustained battle damage to its fuel tanks which led to subsequent flooding. Pursued by the damaged Prince of Wales and cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk, the Bismarck, traveling more slowly and trailing oil, changed course to head to Brest for ship repairs. In short order, the Bismarck turned on the British pursuers to allow the Prinz Eugen to escape into the Atlantic.

British battleship Hood. The biggest battleship in the British navy, the Hood was sunk in the Denmark Strait by the German Bismarck on May 24, 1941, with a staggering British loss of 1,415 crew lives. “H.M.S. Hood 1924” by State Library of South Australia is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

The film is recorded from the Prinz Eugen with Bismarck firing.

Günther Lütjens (1887-1941). Commander of the Bismarck. It was two days after celebrating his 52^nd birthday that Adl. Lütjens perished in battle with his crew on May 27, 1941. “<div class=’fn’> <div class=’language de’ style=’display:inline;font-weight:bold;’>Günter Lütjens</div> <abbr class=’BArchtooltips’ title=’Short title assigned by the archive’><span typeof=’mw:File’><span><img src=’https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Info_non-talk.svg/20px-Info_non-talk.svg.png’ decoding=’async’ width=’15’ height=’15’ class=’mw-file-element’ srcset=’https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Info_non-talk.svg/40px-Info_non-talk.svg.png 1.5x’ data-file-width=’62’ data-file-height=’62’></span></span></abbr></div>” by Unknown author Unknown author is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

That evening, Fairey Swordfish planes — a resilient British torpedo bomber biplane that originated in the early 1930s —took off from the Home Fleet’s aircraft carrier Victorious for its first attack on the Bismarck. They engaged the warship but without important effect. For the next 31 hours, since the sinking of the Hood, the Bismarck eluded the English fleet which was looking for it further to the west.

“Swordfish Salute 9648” by Thorbard is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

May 25, 1941.

Commander Lütjens was not aware that the British had lost him. In the early hours of May 25, 1941, he broke radio silence to send a coded message to Germany. Though its content was indecipherable, the British heard it and observed that the German commander had stopped communicating with Wilhelmhaven in Germany and began talking with Paris. This was a break that allowed the British to figure closely the actual vicinity of the enemy warship and that it was heading to France. British warships in search of the Bismarck were provided the new coordinates and the orders to pursue accordingly. This included King George V and Norfolk to be joined by a flotilla of 5 destroyers under the command of Captain Philip Vian (1894-1968).

British Captain Philip Vian in 1940. Taken before 1957, this work created by the United Kingdom Government is in the Public Domain.

May 26, 1941.

At 10 a.m. the Bismarck was spotted by an American pilot in one of the American-made Catalinas provided by Roosevelt to the British war effort. Flying out of a base in Northern Ireland, the plane was part of a squadron that had been assigned a specific search area for the Bismarck. It was piloted by American Ensign Leonard “Tuck” Smith (1915-2006) whose role was to familiarize RAF Pilot Officer, Dennis Briggs, with the plane’s controls. Though revealed long after the war’s end, Smith was credited with being the first person to spot the Bismarck before the final battle. He was awarded the Navy’s Distinguished Flying Cross for his role in the sinking of the Bismarck. Leaving in the middle of the night on May 26, 1941, the weather was bad with a ceiling of about 100 feet. According to Smith’s report, it took six hours to reach the search area. As soon as they spotted the Bismarck, they came under intense anti-aircraft fire from the warship and Smith had to take violent evasive action to escape getting blown out of the sky. Smith and the crew soon lost contact with the battleship, but their messages as to its precise location had been received. British ships and planes soon converged on an intercept course. Already the aircraft carrier Ark Royal had sent scouting planes and a pair of Swordfish spotted the enemy warship shortly after Smith did. When Smith landed his Catalina back in Northern Ireland at 9: 30 p.m., 18 hours after having taken off, it would be just 12 more hours that the 35,000-ton Bismarck would be at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

After the Bismarck’s location was known, Captain Philip Vian’s flotilla that was to join King George V in the search for Bismarck, changed course and headed directly for the Bismarck. Three days earlier, on May 23, 1941, the British naval formation known as Force H had left Gibraltar for convoy duties that included the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, battlecruiser Renown, and light cruiser Sheffield. On May 26, 1941, Force H set course to intercept the Bismarck.

Starting late on Monday, May 26, 1941, the last battle of the German battleship Bismarck started in the Atlantic Ocean The ship was sunk about 350 miles west of the port city of Brest in France. At 2:50 p.m. on May 26, 1941, fifteen Fairey Swordfish planes took off from the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal to attack the Bismarck.

The British aircraft carrier HMS Rodney with fighter biplane. “Supermarine Walrus being hoisted onto HMS RODNEY (4888758875)” by whatsthatpicture from Hanwell, London, UK is licensed under CC BY 2.0

The attack failed and the British cruiser Sheffield fell under friendly fire. The British staked everything on one more attack to stop the Bismarck before it could safely enter into Brest harbor the next day. At 7:10 p.m., a second sortie of 15 Swordfish planes took off from the HMS Ark Royal armed with conventional torpedoes. At 8:47 p.m., these Swordfish began their attack. The Bismarck received a direct hit but it was not mortal. A second torpedo hit the ship’s stern that jammed and disabled the battleship’s rudders crippling it. The King George V and HMS Rodney joined the fray from the northwest about 6.00 p.m. and, at 10:00 p.m., the Sheffield directed Captain Vian’s destroyers towards the target where they harassed an unmaneuverable Bismarck with torpedo attacks through the night.

The battleship HMS King George V in 1941. Commanded by Admiral Sir John Tovey, it was one of the ships which sank the Bismarck. Public Domain.

May 27, 1941.

The next day, Tuesday, May 27, 1941, the Bismarck, unable to steer or repair the rudder, expected an attack from the British battleships. At 8:30 a.m., they readied battle stations. At 8:43 a.m. the HMS Rodney and HMS King George V, joined by cruisers and destroyers, including the HMS Norfolk and HMS Dorsetshire, spotted the Bismarck. At 8:47 a.m., from a distance of over 10 miles, the battleship HMS Rodney opened fire commencing the final battle. Though Bismarck returned fire, with its disabled rudder, its gun platforms were unstable due to uncontrollable movements on a rising sea in gale-force winds. At two minutes past 9 a.m. the HMS Rodney unloaded its 16-inch guns and hit the Bismarck’s forward superstructure, severely damaging the bridge, command facilities, fire control, and observation posts, as well as killing most of the warship’s senior officers. Both HMS Rodney and HMS King George V engaged Bismarck in heavy gunfire with increasing precision as British shells dismantled the ship’s command structure and gun turrets making the Bismarck a floating hulk. With Bismarck’s ability to return fire random and infrequent the British warships came into closer range for the German warship’s final neutralization. HMS Norfolk and HMS Dorsetshire joined HMS Rodney to fire on Bismarck with its 8 -inch guns and torpedoes. With its four main gun turrets inoperable, at 9.31 a.m., the Bismarck had lost the capacity to fight back with orders down the chain of German officers to scuttle and abandon the ship.

Nearly 3,000 projectiles were used against the Bismarck to achieve this outcome in the final battle. In the final stages of the battle the British ships surrounded the Bismarck in a crossfire that overpowered the German crew. In addition to significant structural damage, this intense continuous British gunfire set off fires on the Bismarck that caused secondary explosions.

Following the battle with the Bismarck, the HMS Rodney continued its service in World War II. In November 1942, the HMS Rodney provided naval gunfire support in Operation Torch for the Allied landings of North Africa. In 1943 during the Italian Campaign the HMS Rodney provided support for the Allied landing in Sicily (Operation Husky). In 1944, as part of Operation Neptune (the navy component of Operation Overlord), the HMS Rodney provided gunfire support during the D-Day Normandy beach landings. Following the war, in 1948, the HMS Rodney was sold for scrap. “HMS Rodney lightens her load sometime in the 1930’s.” by WWII in View is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.

The British kept firing, the HMS Rodney at point-blank range and the King George V from a greater distance to lob in shells. At 10:05 a.m., the Bismarck was sunk. In the battle’s last stage, the British torpedoes tore holes in the Bismarck’s hull hastening the ship’s decline into the sea. Of the Bismarck’s crew of 2, 200 men only 114 survived. The Luftwaffe that the Bismarck hoped would intervene was not able to fly in meaningful number due to bad weather. The British left the rescue mission with hundreds of German sailors still in the water as a German U-boat periscope had been spotted.

Winston Churchill with the Lord Privy Seal, Sir Stafford Cripps, and the Commander-in-Chief Home Fleet, Admiral Sir John Tovey, on the quarterdeck of HMS KING GEORGE V at Scapa Flow, 11 October 1942. Adm. Tovey who made the above observations about the Bismarck served as Commander in Chief of the Home Fleet from 1940 to 1943 and served as Commander in Chief, Nore from 1943 to 1946. Adm. Tovey was First and Principal Naval Aide de Campe to the King from January 1945. Public Domain.

After the sinking, Admiral John Tovey (1885-1971) said: “The Bismarck had put up a most gallant fight against impossible odds worthy of the old days of the Imperial German Navy, and she went down with her colours flying.”⁶

Sink the Bismarck! is a 1960 black-and-white CinemaScope British war film based on the 1959 book The Last Nine Days of the Bismarck by C. S. Forester. It stars Kenneth More and Dana Wynter and was directed by Lewis Gilbert. Norman Shelley was the uncredited voice of Winston Churchill: “I want to make it unmistakably clear that there is absolutely nothing as vital to the nation at this moment as the destruction of the Bismarck. You are authorized to employ any means at your disposal regardless of risk and regardless of the price that must be paid. This is a battle we cannot afford to lose. I don’t care how you do it, you must sink the Bismarck!“

In 1960 the British black-and-white film production, Sink the Bismarck!, was a hit in the United States and, after its first run, regularly broadcast on TV through the 1960’s and 1970’s in reruns. It co-starred Kenneth More as Captain Jonathan Shepard who coordinates the hunt for Bismarck aided by Women’s Royal Naval Service Second Officer Anne Davis (Dana Wynter). More had served as a Royal Navy lieutenant on HMS Victorious during World War II. “Kenneth More, ‘Sink the Bismarck’, 1960” by thefoxling is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

FOOTNOTES:

1. Freedom From Fear: The American People In Depression and War, 1929-1945, David M. Kennedy, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 490 and 493.

2. Freedom from Fear, p. 492.

3. Operation Barbarossa – Freedom from Fear, p. 495; polls- Ibid., p. 491.

4. Freedom from Fear, pp. 492-493.

5. The Reluctant Belligerent: American Entry Into World War II, 2^nd edition, Robert A. Divine, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 1979, p. 117.

6. Last battle of Bismarck – Wikipedia – retrieved October 18, 2025.

SOURCES:

The Reluctant Belligerent: American Entry Into World War II, 2^nd edition, Robert A. Divine, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 1979.

Freedom From Fear: The American People In Depression and War, 1929-1945, David M. Kennedy, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999.

https://navalhistoria.com/hms-rodney-helped-to-sink-the-bismarck/#:~:text=The%20final%20battle%20between%20HMS%20Rodney%2C%20HMS%20King,turning%20point%20in%20the%20Battle%20of%20the%20Atlantic. – retrieved October 14, 2025.

The American Who Helped Sink the Bismarck | Defense Media Network – retrieved October 15, 2025.

Gilbert Stephenson Explained – retrieved October 18, 2025.

Halfway Between Two Cathedrals: Archbishop Derek Worlock (1920-1996) and the Christian Unity That Changed Liverpool.

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FEATURE image: Archbishop Derek Worlock, sculpture Liverpool. “Archbishop Derek Worlock, sculpture Liverpool” by mira66 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Derek Worlock was one of the most important ecumenical church leaders in modern Britain, whose lasting legacy was not simply his role as Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool but his determined effort to bridge historic divisions between Catholics and Anglicans through friendship, collaboration, social engagement, and practical Christian unity.

Derek Worlock: Archbishop of Liverpool

Derek Worlock (February 4, 1920 – February 6, 1996) was an English priest of the Roman Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Liverpool. A leading figure in post‑war British Catholicism, he became known for his pastoral warmth, public presence, and commitment to unity among Christians.

A Ministry Shaped by Collaboration

Worlock devoted his episcopal life to fostering cooperation across Christian traditions. His partnership with Anglican Bishop of Liverpool David Sheppard became one of the most celebrated ecumenical friendships in modern Britain. Together they co‑authored Better Together and With Hope in our Hearts (both 1995), works that embodied their shared vision for a reconciled, outward‑facing Church. His episcopal motto, Caritas Christi eluceat—“For the Shining Light of Christ”—captured the spirit of his ministry.

His partnership with Anglican Bishop David Sheppard became one of Britain’s most influential and visible examples of Christian cooperation. Their efforts sought to overcome centuries of Catholic-Anglican rivalry and demonstrate that reconciliation between churches could help foster reconciliation within society.

Bishop Worlock’s mitre, placed at his tomb, recalls a pivotal moment in his early episcopal ministry. In 1973, while serving as Bishop of Portsmouth, Worlock was preparing to attend the upcoming Roman Synod of Bishops. Asked to suggest a theme for the Synod’s work, he proposed “Evangelization”—a choice Pope Paul VI accepted. Worlock’s proposal did more than set the agenda for a major global gathering. It highlighted two convictions that shaped his entire episcopate:

that evangelization is rooted in the Church’s ancient mission shared by all the baptized, and
that the spirit of Vatican II’s outreach to others—its ecumenical openness, its desire for dialogue, its pastoral warmth—must animate that mission.

In many ways, the theme anticipated the hallmark of Worlock’s later ministry as Archbishop of Liverpool: a commitment to opening outward, building bridges, and embodying the Gospel through collaboration with other Christians, especially his Anglican counterpart David Sheppard. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-the-most-rev-derek-worlock-1318052.html – retrieved May 27, 2025. PHOTO: “Derek Worlocks Mitre” by James O’Hanlon is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Honors and Public Recognition

In 1994, Worlock received the Freedom of the City of Liverpool, a civic acknowledgment of his decades of service to the city. Two years later, in 1996, he was appointed a Companion of Honour, one of the United Kingdom’s most distinguished awards.

A Memorial on Hope Street

After his death in 1996, plans began for a public memorial. Commissioned in 2005 and funded through widespread public donations, the sculpture was created by British artist Stephen Broadbent (b. 1961). Placed at the midpoint of Liverpool’s Hope Street, the memorial stands symbolically between the city’s Anglican and Roman Catholic cathedrals—an architectural embodiment of the unity Worlock championed throughout his life.See it here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/newfolder/2535308455

Worlock and Sheppard worked together through joint pastoral letters, civic leadership, public appearances, and shared responses to social crises, giving Liverpool a united Christian voice. The Hope Street memorial sculpture symbolizes their shared ministry, standing midway between Liverpool’s Anglican and Catholic cathedrals.

David Sheppard and Derek Worlock memorial, Hope Street, Liverpool. The placement is deliberate: halfway between the two cathedrals, exactly where their work met with space between them for everyone. PHOTO: “DSCF0029” by geraldmurphyx is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.

A Shared Mission of Reconciliation

The statue commemorates the extraordinary partnership between Archbishop Derek Worlock and Bishop David Sheppard, two churchmen who refused to let centuries of division define Liverpool’s Christian life. At a time when Catholic–Anglican relations still could be frosty and suspicious, they pointed to a a different path of public friendship, joint action, and a united moral voice for their city.

Their collaboration was not symbolic but deeply practical. They issued joint pastoral letters, appeared together at civic events, and spoke with one voice during moments of crisis. In a city marked by economic hardship, sectarian memory, and social fragmentation, they insisted that Christian leadership must be shared leadership. Their partnership became a model for ecumenical cooperation across Britain.

Healing Historic Divisions

Worlock and Sheppard understood that Liverpool’s religious landscape had long been shaped by rivalry—Catholic and Anglican identities often hardened by class, migration, and political history. Their work aimed to soften those boundaries. They promoted joint prayer services, encouraged cooperation between parishes, and supported community initiatives that crossed denominational lines.

Their message was simple but radical: unity was not an optional ideal but a pastoral necessity. They believed that reconciliation between churches could help foster reconciliation within the city itself.

A Memorial to Unity

The statue’s purpose was to create a permanent reminder of this shared ministry. It honors not only two individual leaders but the ecumenical vision they embodied. Positioned on Liverpool’s Hope Street—linking the Anglican Cathedral at one end and the Catholic Cathedral at the other—the memorial stands as a physical metaphor for the bridge they built.

Above: Archbishop Derek Worlock London‑born Derek Worlock was ordained a Catholic priest in 1944 and began his ministry as curate at Our Lady of Victories, Kensington, then London’s wartime pro‑cathedral. For nearly two decades he served at the heart of English Catholic leadership as private secretary to three Archbishops of Westminster, a role that shaped his administrative skill and national profile. He later spent a year as Rector and Rural Dean of the Church of SS Mary and Michael—one of London’s historically largest parishes—before being appointed Bishop of Portsmouth, serving the English Channel region for eleven years. In 1976 he became Metropolitan Archbishop of Liverpool, the post that defined his public legacy. PHOTO: “File:Sheppard-Worlock Statue 2017-2.jpg” by Rodhullandemu is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Detail from the Sheppard-Worlock statue Liverpool. Anglican Bishop David Sheppard was Worlock’s closest ecumenical partner and the other half of Liverpool’s most influential Christian alliance. Before Derek Worlock’s appointment as Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool in 1976, the Anglican archbishop of Liverpool, David Sheppard, was consulted over a meal together with Pope Paul VI’s Papal Nuncio in Britain, Archbishop Bruno Heim. Before he became one of Liverpool’s most respected church leaders, David Sheppard was a national sporting hero—a stylish right‑handed batsman whose cricketing career made him a household name across Britain. His cricketing fame gave him a public platform long before he entered the clergy, and he later used that visibility to speak on issues of poverty, racial justice, and urban renewal. Public Domain (Man vyi – Self-photographed. Own work, all rights released).

The ecclesiastical Coat of Arms of Archbishop Derek Worlock, Metropolitan Archbishop of Liverpool. The green galero with fifteen tassels and the golden double-barred cross denote his rank as an archbishop. The shield combines the pallium and Lancaster Rose of Lancashire with a fleur-de-lis and blazing sunburst. The scroll below bears his motto, + CARITAS + CHRISTI + ELUCEAT + (“May the love of Christ shine forth”), expressing the pastoral vision that guided his ministry. PHOTO: “Uk rc liverpool worlock” by EborArmorist is licensed under CC BY 3.0.

Influenced by the reforms of Vatican II, Derek Worlock viewed Christian unity as a pastoral duty rather than an abstract theological goal.

This striking bronze monument honors the powerful ecumenical alliance between Bishop David Sheppard (left) and Archbishop Derek Worlock (right), whose joint leadership provided comfort and unity to Liverpool during severe social and economic hardships in the late 20th century. Designed by sculptor Stephen Broadbent and unveiled on Hope Street in 2008, the statue features two bronze panels facing each other across the sidewalk, symbolizing their historic partnership in building bridges across deep religious and political divides. PHOTO: “5783 Sheppard Worlock Statue” by steeljam is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Worlock’s commitment to ecumenism predated his Liverpool years. As Bishop of Portsmouth, he developed practical approaches to interchurch cooperation, including the famous “Portsmouth solution” involving a Catholic-Anglican marriage.

Worlock’s Early Ecumenical Leadership

Archbishop Derek Worlock served as bishop and archbishop from 1965 to 1996—years that spanned the close of the Second Vatican Council and the unfolding of its new teaching on ecumenism. From the beginning of his episcopal ministry, he treated the Council’s call to Christian unity not as an abstract ideal but as a pastoral responsibility.

The Portsmouth Years: Learning to Live Together in Love

As Bishop of Portsmouth, Worlock was already experimenting with practical ways for Catholics and Anglicans to share life, sacraments, and community with greater charity. His most famous initiative, later nicknamed the “Portsmouth solution,” emerged in the early 1970s when the daughter of a local Anglican bishop wished to marry a Catholic.Worlock crafted a pastoral compromise that honored both traditions:

The marriage rite and promises were celebrated first in the Catholic church, fulfilling canonical requirements.
Later that same day, the couple’s marriage was celebrated again in the bride’s Anglican parish, with her father—the Anglican bishop—presiding.

This arrangement was bold for its time. It respected Catholic sacramental discipline while acknowledging the Anglican family’s pastoral and emotional needs. More importantly, it modeled the kind of mutual recognition, goodwill, and shared joy that Worlock believed should characterize Christian life.

Worlock played a significant role in broader Church leadership, supporting evangelization, lay participation, justice, peace initiatives, and advocacy for the poor and homeless.

A Foreshadowing of His Liverpool Partnership

The Portsmouth solution was not an isolated gesture but an early sign of the ecumenical instincts that would later define his partnership with David Sheppard in Liverpool. It showed Worlock’s willingness to take risks, to trust the good faith of other Christians, and to build unity through concrete acts rather than theoretical statements.

The precise source for this quote is an interview published in the London Observer newspaper on December 16, 1990. In the article, Archbishop Derek Worlock used this poignant phrasing to address the growing homelessness and poverty crisis in the United Kingdom during the winter of 1990. He directly reframed the biblical “brother’s keeper” concept to highlight the urgent moral duty society has toward marginalized individuals struggling with homelessness (“sleeping rough”). This sentence distills the core of his ministry: the conviction that Christian leadership must be measured by its solidarity with the most vulnerable.

Building bridges across historic divisions

Archbishop Worlock’s mitre, resting at his tomb, evokes a churchman whose influence extended far beyond Liverpool. Over more than three decades as bishop and archbishop, he became a driving force within the episcopal conference, shaping how the Catholic Church in Britain engaged with the modern world.

He helped lead national initiatives on the media, the laity, and justice and peace, urging the Church to speak with clarity, courage, and compassion. His advocacy for the poor was especially memorable. When drawing attention to Britain’s growing homelessness crisis, he captured the moral urgency in a single, searing line: “I am my brother’s keeper, and he’s sleeping pretty rough these days.” London OBSERVER, December 16, 1990. (on the homeless).

BELOVED HOMETOWN OF PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN (1911-2004): DIXON, ILLINOIS.

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Feature Image: June 2017. 4.37mb DSC_0785. The statue of Ronald Reagan by American sculptor Donald L. Reed in DIxon, Illinois, was dedicated on August 14, 2009. It is based on a photograph of Reagan when he visited Dixon in 1950 and rode a horse through its streets in a parade. The statue itself is nine feet high on its pedestal and called Begins the Trail. It is the first of a series that includes a life-sized statue for the Reagan Foundation at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, called Along the Trail. These artworks capture Reagan’s rugged amiable nature and his natural ability throughout life when riding. see – https://www.cowboysindians.com/2016/02/ronald-reagan-rides-again/ – retrieved April 13, 2025.

All text and photographs (except where noted) by John P. Walsh.

Considered the heart of Dixon, the memorial arch has been a landmark since the 1920s. The original arch, built in 1919, was made of beaver board and wood. It was built to celebrate the return of Dixon’s soldiers after World War One. In 1949, a new arch was constructed of wood. It was replaced in 1966 when Galena Avenue was widened. In 1985 the arch was replaced with this fiberglass one with the letters from the 1966 arch. In 2024 it went through a major restoration.
See – https://www.wifr.com/2024/06/04/dixons-iconic-memorial-arch-facing-repairs/ – retrieved February 28, 2025.

This helicopter (above and below) wears five Purple Hearts carved from enemy ground fire in Vietnam — battered, scorched, and shot to pieces, yet every time it clawed its way back through the smoke, it delivered its crew home alive. In Dixon’s (Illinois) Veterans Memorial Park founded in 2001 the 1967 AH-1F Cobra Attack Helicopter Gunship (serial #67-15475) was issued to the 7th Squadron of the First Calvary Divisions Aviation Group for its entire tour of duty. This helicopter arrived in Vietnam in March 1967. Following 1142 combat hours flown, the helicopter was damaged on July 27, 1969, because of a weapons malfunction. At 1792 hours flown it was shot down on February 6, 1970, by heavy enemy ground fire while providing armed escort to medivac helicopters with both crewmen wounded. On April 15, 1970, at 1954 hours flown, it was damaged while providing direct fire support to infantry. On July 13, 1970, it was shot down by small arms fire while providing escort at 2092 hours. At 2471 hours, on January 19, 1971, it was severely damaged by gunfire while providing direct escort protection to ground troops. On July 6, 1971, it was damaged by heavy ground fire on an armed escort mission at 2745 hours flown. see – Cobra Attack Helicopter – Veterans Memorial Park & Museum – retrieved April 13, 2025.

**June 2017. 3.12mb DSC_0751.** Author’s photograph.

On June 5, Ronald Reagan’s death day, Honor Guard gather at the Reagan Boyhood Home in Dixon, Illinois.

Reagan was a lifeguard at Lowell Park from 1926 to 1932. The original 200-acre public park opened in 1907 and began Dixon’s park system with the objective to preserve scenic beauty and establish civic beautification. From the start, Lowell Park attracted large numbers of people to its location along the Rock River. In this area, the valley of the Rock River contains bluffs and unique rock outcroppings that create a natural beauty. More than 100 years later, Lowell Park has maintained its distinctive scenic and natural recreational resources for free public use.

Lowell Park predated the development of Illinois state parks in areas of outstanding natural attractions by many years. Lowell Park is the only public place in the Dixon area that preserves remnants of the Boles Trail established in 1826 from Peoria, Illinois, to Galena, Illinois. The trail was replaced in popularity by the famous Kellogg Trail established in 1825 east of the Boles Trail route. See – https://historyillinois.org/boles-trail-the/ – retrieved March 3, 2025.

“Lowell Park Dixon, Illinois” by Kepper66 is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Lowell Park, Dixon’s first recreational park, was gifted in 1906 by Carlotta Lowell who was the niece of James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), a famous Boston (Cambridge) poet. The family came west on the invitation of Alexander Charters, a wealthy New York businessman, who purchased a large, wooded estate overlooking the river north of Dixon in 1837 and named it Hazelwood. His home later became the estate of Mr. & Mrs. Charles R. Walgreen, founder of the drug store chain that bears that name. Charles Lowell. a guest at Hazelwood, purchased the adjacent tract of land to live. Lowell married Josephine Shaw, also originally of Boston, and then of Staten Island in New York. When the Civil War broke out, Charles enlisted and was promoted to the rank of colonel and was killed in 1864 at the Battle of Cedar Creek in northern Virginia. Carlotta never knew her father as she was born after his death and the family never lived on their land in Dixon. In 1874, they moved to New York City and stayed there the rest of their lives. After her mother died, Carlotta offered the property in 1906 to the City of Dixon for a park in memory of her parents.

40th U.S. president Ronald Reagan visiting the Rock River in Lowell Park where he was an effective and beloved lifeguard for seven consecutive summers. In July 1921 a longer dock had been installed at the beach, extending 75 feet into the river with a springboard platform. The new bathhouse was built in 1922 that accommodated hundreds of bathers. Electricity was installed at the park in 1922 with lighting that allowed the beach to remain open until after dark. Over those summers, Reagan saved 77 swimmers from drowning. Obviously proud of his achievement, President Reagan often showed his Oval Office visitors a picture of the Rock River while telling them that his lifeguarding there was “one of the best jobs I ever had.”

Reagan at Lowell Park 1927. Ronald Reagan as lifeguard getting into a canoe in Lowell Park, 1927. Public Domain. https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/photo/ronald-reagan-lifeguard-getting-canoe-lowell-park-1927-32 – retrieved March 4, 2025.

**June 2017. old beachfront. 5.73mb DSC_0879.**

The original 200 acres of Lowell Park opened to the public in 1907. The park was designed by the Olmsted Brothers, a nationally prominent architecture firm headed by the sons of Frederick Law Olmsted. Lowell Park was designed in the American Romantic style which is characterized by its emphasis on natural scenery, native plant materials, native building materials, curvilinear roads, and minimum formality. In 1959 the beach was finally closed after ten years of declining usage due to the opening of Memorial Pool in Vaile Park in the city of Dixon. The Lowell Park bathhouse was used for storage as its concession stand continued to operate until the late 1980s.

**June 2017. Lowell Park was designed in the American Romantic style by the Olmsted Brothers. 7.24mb DSC_0916 (1)**

Rock River at Lowell Park is still the hub for recreational activities as it has been for over a century.

President Reagan on his lifeguard years in Dixon: “One of the Best Jobs I Ever Had.”

Ronald Reagan as a lifeguard at Lowell Park in 1927. Public Domain.

**June 2017. Lowell Park, Dixon, IL. DSC_0882**

**June 2017. Diving top with changing rooms and concession behind. Lowell Park, Dixon, IL. 5.38mb DSC_0896**

Bus service from Dixon city to the park started in 1921. This diving top was anchored to the river bottom during its swimming hole glory days when Reagan was lifeguard. Swimmers teetered, spun and jumped into the water during hot Illinois summers which Reagan knew and loved. The one-story bathhouse behind it was designed and built in 1922. When Reagan was a lifeguard the building served as the concession stand and the check area for clothing baskets. Under a hipped roof, the men’s wing was to the south and women’s wing out of sight to the west. The architect of the bathhouse is unknown. Native stone was used from the ground to the height of the concession building’s serving counters and for the foundations of the two wings. Above that the walls were stucco on the exterior. All stonework was coursed and roughly squared. It was ventilated by raising the hinged board covers of the screened window openings. The steel-supported roof was covered originally with black-blue slate shingles that were replaced in 1934 with asphalt shingles. The overhang is broad with exposed rafters.

June 2017. Lowell Park, Dixon, Illinois. 3.53mb DSC_0877

Ronald Reagan in Dixon, Illinois, in the early 1920’s. Public Domain.

The Reagans settled in this rented house at 816 S. Hennepin Avenue in Dixon, Illinois, on December 6, 1920. The family of father Jack, mother Nelle, and 12-year-old Neil and 9-year-old Ronald lived here for three years. From 1921 to 1924, Neil and Ron attended South Side/Central School which still stands four blocks north of the house and is now the Dixon Historic Center. Reagan often walked along Hennepin Avenue going downtown to the Dixon Public Library at 221 South Hennepin Avenue and the First Christian Church at 123 South Hennepin Avenue where both Neil and Ron were baptized on June 1, 1922. Nelle taught Sunday school and sang in the church’s choir. Ronald and his mother were members of the Disciples of Christ church until 1937. Between 1924 and 1930, the Reagans lived in a rented house at 338 W. Everett Street in Dixon. Reagan lived in that house in Dixon when he was home from college after he began attending Eureka College in September 1928.

Reagan 1920s with family. Ronald Reagan sitting (hand on chin in front row) posing with other family members, Neil Reagan at far right (front row), Jack Reagan (middle row at left), Nelle Reagan (last row, second from left), Illinois. Public Domain.

Ronald Reagan sitting (hand on chin in front row) with other golf caddies for the Lincoln Highway Ladies Golf Tournament in 1922 in DeKalb, Illinois. Public Domain.

Reagan (second row, left) in 4^th grade in Tampico, Illinois. Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois, on February 6, 1911 in a second-floor apartment at 111 Main Street and, until 1914, at 104 W. Glassburn Street. Afterwards the family moved in sequence to Chicago, Galesburg, and Monmouth until they returned to Tampico in 1919-1920 and ultimately to Dixon in early December 1920. Reagan’s father was an alcoholic and they moved around a lot. As a young man Reagan became a lifesaver. Public Domain.

Brothers Neil and Ron Reagan attended South Side/Central School in DIxon, Illinois. The school building still stands at 205 W. 5th Street, four blocks north of the Boyhood Home. It is now the Dixon Historic Center.“Dixon Illinois ~ The Dixon Historic Center ~ Exhibits devoted to President Ronald Regan” by Onasill ~ Bill is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

June 2017. Inside the Reagan Boyhood Home, Dixon, Illinois. 4.90mb DSC_0778 (1)

**June 2017. Veterans Memorial Park, Dixon, Illinois. 6.41 mb DSC_0827.**

The M60 tank is designed as one of the main assault vehicles of an Armor/Mechanized Infantry/ Infantry Division. It weighs about 105,000 pounds unloaded and has a 64,000 pound payload. The tank can travel at top speeds of 30 m.p.h. and can travel nearly 300 miles.

**June 2017. Veterans Memorial Park, Dixon, Illinois. 7.05mb DSC_0831.**

Republic F-105D Thunderchief (serial #60-455) was a new aircraft that served the U.S. Air Force from 1958 to 1984. This specific aircraft fought in Vietnam between 1968 and 1970. It was stationed at Takhli Airforce Base in Thailand with the 355 Tactical Fighter Wing that was established in April 1962 at George AFB in California and transferred to Thailand in 1965. This F-105D Thunderbird was one of 833 airplanes manufactured by Republic in Farmingdale, New York, with over half the fleet lost in combat or due to mechanical failures. With 610 built, this particular warbird was the definitive production model with all-weather capability because of advanced avionics, including AN/APN-131 navigational (Doppler) radar. This aircraft was retired with almost 6000 flying hours and two men who had flown it receiving the Medal of Honor. The plane’s maximum range is 2390 miles at a maximum ceiling of 48,500 feet and reached speeds of supersonic Mach 2 (1,534 m.p.h.) at over 36,000 feet. In addition to a Vulcan Gatling Gun the plane’s payload includes 750-pound conventional bombs (16 of them) or one nuclear bomb.

UNITED STATES. My Art Photography: Bronze, 1930, Capt. A. Lincoln, Illinois Volunteer Militia, Black Hawk War, 1832, by LEONARD CRUNELLE (1872-1944), on the Rock River in Dixon, Illinois.

Capt. A. Lincoln, 16th president of the U.S., looking onto the Rock River in Dixon, Illinois, This 1930 statue by Leonard Crunelle (1872-1944) Reagan would have seen and known while living in Dixon. Young Lincoln enlisted in the Illinois Volunteers on April 21, 1832 and, following more enlistments, finally mustered out of military service on July 10, 1832. Across the Rock River is the modern Reagan statue.

Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) lived in Dixon, Illinois from 1920 to 1933. Reagan always referred to Dixon as his “hometown.” Reagan made several visits to Dixon after he lived here, even when he was President of the United States. The statue is on the banks of the Rock River which is the same waterway where Reagan saved 77 lives as a lifeguard upstream at Lowell Park.

After Reagan’s death in 2004 local donors commissioned this larger-than-life-sized statue of Dutch Reagan on a palomino horse and gifted it to the City of Dixon. It was dedicated to the eradication of Alzheimer’s that was a foe that President Reagan had to battle in last years.

Reagan in DIxon in the early 1920’s. Public Domain.

In 1982, President Reagan told the Eureka College audience, “Everything that has been good in my life began here.”

September 2016. Eureka College’s **Burrus Dickinson Hall built in 1858**. **3.87 mb**

On campus at Eureka College in Eureka, Illinois, about 90 miles south of Dixon, where Reagan lived. The college, affiliated with the Disciples of Christ of which Ronald Reagan was a member, was founded in 1855. At the time of its founding Eureka was one of a handful of U.S. colleges that was co-ed. In 1856 Abraham Lincoln spoke on campus. After he graduated Reagan returned for campus visits at least a dozen times and served on its board of trustees. Reagan attended Eureka College from 1928 to June 10, 1932, when he graduated as the elected student body president with a degree in economics/sociology. Eureka College is the smallest college or university in American history to graduate a future U.S. president with a bachelor’s degree. The school is in Woodford County in Illinois.

On May 9, 1982, President Reagan announced the START treaty proposal in the Reagan Gym at Eureka’s commencement exercises. It resulted in a bilateral treaty signed in 1991 between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. on the reduction and the limitation of strategic offensive arms including nuclear warheads and intercontinental ballistic missiles and heavy bombers.

Ronald Reagan is the only U.S. president who was born, grew up and received his education in the state of Illinois.

**September 2016. Part of the Berlin Wall. Eureka College. 2.40mb DSC_0493 (3)**

Of Dixon the Gipper once said: “It was the place I really found myself.”

Portrait of Ronald Reagan in 1934 the year after he left Dixon, Illinois. His career led to Hollywood, California as a film actor and Screen Actors Guild president; to Sacramento, California as 33rd Governor of California (1967-1975); and to Washington, D.C., as 40th President of the United States of America (1981-1989). But it was to Dixon, Illinois, that Reagan always returned with its fond memories. Reagan graduated from Eureka College, a liberal arts school affiliated with the Disciples of Christ, in 1932 where he was active in sports and drama and elected student body president. Reagan’s first job was as a sports radio broadcaster in Davenport, Iowa, for Big Ten football games. Afterwards he was a sports announcer for Chicago Cubs’ baseball games on WHO-AM in Des Moines. Reagan arrived in Hollywood in 1937 and was cast in his first feature film Love is on the Air for Warner Bros. where he gets to play a newscaster. Fair use.

**In Love is on the Air (1937) Ronald Reagan made his screen debut as a crusading radio reporter who takes on civic corruption.**

This explanatory article may be periodically updated.

SOURCES-

https://web.archive.org/web/20171014084448/http://gis.hpa.state.il.us/pdfs/223426.pdf – retrieved March 3, 2025.

https://www.dixongov.com/content/dixon-community/reagan-s-roots-run-deep-in-the-dixon/ – retrieved March 4, 2025.

https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/audiovisual/white-house-photo-collection-galleries/early-ronald-reagan-and-family – retrieved March 4, 2025.

https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/reagans/ronald-reagan/residences-ronald-w-reagan – retrieved March 4, 2025.

https://www.wifr.com/2024/08/23/what-is-ronald-reagans-connection-dixon/ – retrieved March 4, 2025.

Fair Use. Reagan Library – https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/public/2021-08/E24-1_0.jpg?KN9FfhLcWyx9eRcpUu744qKrRtzZnsV6= – retrieved March 4, 2025.

Reagan giving a speech in Liberty State Park in Jersey City, NJ on September 1, 1980. On a personal note, I met Ronald Reagan at the Palmer House in Chicago in June 1980 during a press conference. He was gracious and had movie star looks: tall and handsome. Reagan was elected the 40^th U.S. president in a landslide over Jimmy Carter in November 1980 and re-elected in 1984. I later met Jimmy Carter in Chicago at a book signing in the 1990’s.

Author and wife at Reagan Boyhood Home, Dixon, Illinois.

The Ronald Reagan Trail (IL-26) is a route in Illinois that follows sites of interest associated with the 40th president of the United States who was born in Tampico, Illinois and grew up in Dixon, Illinois. Route 26 originally ran north-to-south for about 25 miles from Freeport, Illinois to Polo, Illinois. In 1937, IL-26 was extended about 15 miles north to the Illinois-Wisconsin state line and about 15 miles south to Dixon, Illinois. In 1969, IL-26 was extended almost 100 miles south from Dixon to East Peoria, Illinois.

How Fulton J. Sheen’s Irish-American family heritage, Catholic education, intellectual gifts, academic accomplishments, and disciplined spiritual life combined to form the future priest, bishop, evangelist, and eventual Blessed of the Catholic Church.

Family Roots and Early Life

Sheen’s holiness, intellectual achievement, disciplined spiritual life, and groundbreaking use of mass media were all deeply rooted in the formative influences of his family, education, and early experiences in Peoria.

Formative Education in Peoria

Higher Education, Debating, and Ordination

Academic Brilliance and the “Peoria Product”

The Catholic University of America and National Fame

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A Film Noir Breakthrough

Hollywood at Peak Attendance

The Return to What Audiences Wanted

“She can’t sing, she can’t act, she can’t talk. She’s terrific!” – Louis B. Mayer on Ava Gardner.

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The Metropolitan Tower was built in 1924 as the headquarters of S.W. Straus & Co. and designed by Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, successors to the Burnham architectural tradition.

The elaborate entrance and lobby originally featured exceptional decorative work, including bronze doors created by sculptor Leo Lentelli, although many original elements have been lost.

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The 1958 steel truss undergirding serves a vital operational purpose—allowing massive industrial shipping to pass underneath into the Calumet River while carrying thousands of daily vehicles above—as it simultaneously serves as a compelling subject for architectural art.

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Recovery Efforts involved the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard.

SS Edmund Fitzgerald in MacArthur Lock, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.

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The shrine contains a major relic of St. Jude and serves as an active center of prayer and pilgrimage.

Danny Thomas, struggling to establish himself in show business, learned of the shrine while in Chicago and prayed to St. Jude there for assistance. Soon afterward, Thomas received the career opportunity that launched him to national fame as a comedian, television star, and entertainer.

Remembering his promise to give back if he succeeded, Thomas founded St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis in 1962, creating one of the world’s most respected pediatric medical institutions.

The National Shrine of St. Jude in Chicago was canonically established in 1929 and became one of the most important centers of devotion to St. Jude in the United States.

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German submarine U-52. Public Domain.

German officer Karl Dönitz on the U-39 during World War I. Public domain.

May 24, 1941.

British battleship Hood. The biggest battleship in the British navy, the Hood was sunk in the Denmark Strait by the German Bismarck on May 24, 1941, with a staggering British loss of 1,415 crew lives. “H.M.S. Hood 1924” by State Library of South Australia is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

May 25, 1941.

British Captain Philip Vian in 1940. Taken before 1957, this work created by the United Kingdom Government is in the Public Domain.

May 26, 1941.

The British aircraft carrier HMS Rodney with fighter biplane. “Supermarine Walrus being hoisted onto HMS RODNEY (4888758875)” by whatsthatpicture from Hanwell, London, UK is licensed under CC BY 2.0

The battleship HMS King George V in 1941. Commanded by Admiral Sir John Tovey, it was one of the ships which sank the Bismarck. Public Domain.

May 27, 1941.

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Derek Worlock: Archbishop of Liverpool

A Ministry Shaped by Collaboration

Honors and Public Recognition

A Memorial on Hope Street

A Shared Mission of Reconciliation

Healing Historic Divisions

A Memorial to Unity

Influenced by the reforms of Vatican II, Derek Worlock viewed Christian unity as a pastoral duty rather than an abstract theological goal.

Worlock’s commitment to ecumenism predated his Liverpool years. As Bishop of Portsmouth, he developed practical approaches to interchurch cooperation, including the famous “Portsmouth solution” involving a Catholic-Anglican marriage.

Worlock’s Early Ecumenical Leadership

The Portsmouth Years: Learning to Live Together in Love

Worlock played a significant role in broader Church leadership, supporting evangelization, lay participation, justice, peace initiatives, and advocacy for the poor and homeless.

A Foreshadowing of His Liverpool Partnership

Building bridges across historic divisions

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All text and photographs (except where noted) by John P. Walsh.

On June 5, Ronald Reagan’s death day, Honor Guard gather at the Reagan Boyhood Home in Dixon, Illinois.

Rock River at Lowell Park is still the hub for recreational activities as it has been for over a century.

President Reagan on his lifeguard years in Dixon: “One of the Best Jobs I Ever Had.”

The M60 tank is designed as one of the main assault vehicles of an Armor/Mechanized Infantry/ Infantry Division. It weighs about 105,000 pounds unloaded and has a 64,000 pound payload. The tank can travel at top speeds of 30 m.p.h. and can travel nearly 300 miles.

After Reagan’s death in 2004 local donors commissioned this larger-than-life-sized statue of Dutch Reagan on a palomino horse and gifted it to the City of Dixon. It was dedicated to the eradication of Alzheimer’s that was a foe that President Reagan had to battle in last years.

In 1982, President Reagan told the Eureka College audience, “Everything that has been good in my life began here.”

Ronald Reagan is the only U.S. president who was born, grew up and received his education in the state of Illinois.

Of Dixon the Gipper once said: “It was the place I really found myself.”

In Love is on the Air (1937) Ronald Reagan made his screen debut as a crusading radio reporter who takes on civic corruption.

Author and wife at Reagan Boyhood Home, Dixon, Illinois.

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**German officer Karl Dönitz on the U-39 during World War I.** Public domain.

**In Love is on the Air (1937) Ronald Reagan made his screen debut as a crusading radio reporter who takes on civic corruption.**