USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Catholicity in northern Ohio and in the diocese of Cleveland from 1749 to December 31, 1900, Volume II, pt2 > Part 29
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The Rt. Rev. Bishop Horstmann is president of the Board of Managers ; Rev. P. O'Brien, vice-president; Rev. A. Eilert, treasurer ; Mr. Charles J. Kirschner is the efficient secretary and superintendent, and Mr. Henry Bresser the competent and faithful sexton.
YOUNGSTOWN. CALVARY CEMETERY.
The present union burial place for the Catholics of Youngstown became a necessity in 1882, not only on account of the old cemetery, "Rose Hill," being nearly filled with interments, but also because a city ordinance extended one of the streets through it, thereby rendering it almost useless for its original purpose.
Accordingly, in 1882, and in compliance with the provisions of a decree of the Diocesan Synod, held in that year, a move was made to provide a union burial place. The preliminaries culminated in the pur- chase of twenty acres of land, in 1884, for the sum of $6,500. Six being $1,700 ; while, in 1901, a parcel of land abutting on the east, and comprising over twenty-one acres, was added at a cost of $4,274, mak- ing the cemetery grounds about fifty acres in extent. The credit for all this is largely due to the Rev. Edward Mears, rector of St. Columba's Church, who, despite much opposition, carried the enterprise through from the beginning and wisely appointed Mr. George Rudge as superin- tendent. In 1885 the first parcel of land constituting the cemetery was blessed by the Rt. Rev. Mgr. F. M. Boff, V.G., and named "Calvary Cemetery." The added ten-acre tract was blessed in the fall of 1890, but the parcel purchased in 1901 has not as yet been blessed, although geographically a part of the cemetery.
Calvary Cemetery is situated on the main road leading west, and is about two miles from the center of the City of Youngstown. It has a frontage on said road of 1,145 feet, with a compact hedge of Arbor Vitæ, four feet high, neatly trimmed, and extending the entire frontage of the two parcels first purchased.
The receiving vault of stone was built soon after the first purchase was made. It cost $1,600, and has space for twenty bodies. Removals from the old cemetery to the new were commenced soon after the bless- ing of the first parcel of land, but not until the spring of 1898 was there an entire clearance of the remains. The sexton's house was built dur- ing the summer of 1889, and cost something over $1,000. The land being clayey and in some places wet, it was decided to sub-drain the sections as they may be laid out. The matter was referred to Mr. George Rudge, who had previously been appointed superintendent, with
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instructions to carry out what was required. Mr. Rudge had the lots laid out, underdrained with tile laid from six to eight feet deep, the drains being thirty feet apart. It was costly work, but the desired effect was accomplished. The great crucifix of copper, with brown stone pedestal, was erected during the spring.of 1893 at a cost of $616. The size of the corpus is six feet. The well for pure water for drink- ing purposes, and looking to providing a supply for the cemetery, was drilled in August, 18944, and is ninety-two feet deep. A water tower of four cylinders, three feet in diameter and fifty feet long, placed vertically, and anchored to a solid foundation of masonry, with a wind- mill on the top for the pumping power, and a two-inch main pipe with one-inch branches and California garden hydrants, makes an excellent and economical system for sprinkling and watering. The whole cost over $1,000.
The new entrances cost $3,300. They consist of the main entrance and two side entrances, the one near the sexton's house, the other near the east line, including a column at the west end of the hedge at the northwest corner of the cemetery. They were commenced in 1899, and completed in 1900. The main entrance gates are of wrought iron, the bars being one inch square, all solid hammered work, each picket finished on top with a fleur de lis, which is electro-coppered, and gilded. The gates are ten feet high, and the opening between the gate columns is fourteen feet. The main gate columns are each five feet square, six- teen feet ten inches high, and surmounted by Celtic crosses five feet high, and richly carved. The quadrant fences, with a radius of four- teen feet at either side of the main entrance gate columns, by which the main entrance is recessed from the road, are of three-fourths inch square wrought iron, six feet high, upon a stone base twenty inches high. The blocks are securely fastened together and are inade fast to the columns with bronze dowels and clamps. The columns terminating the quadrant fences at either side of the main entrance, and on a line with the evergreen hedge, are each three feet square and twelve feet nine inches high to the top of the ball-cap. They stand fifty feet apart in the line of the hedge. The side entrance gates are of three-fourths inch wrought iron, four feet nine inches high, and have an opening or drive of twelve feet in a line with the hedge. The columns for these gates, also the columns in the northwest corner, are two feet six inches square, and eight feet high. All the masonry is of reddish brown sand- stone from quarries near Ashland, Wisconsin, and the whole makes a pleasing contrast with the evergreen hedge.
A feature of consequence in a cemetery is good roads. As soon as Superintendent George Rudge was appointed he began the necessary work looking to this end, by grading and excavating. That accom- plished, spalls of stone were hauled from a quarry near by, till a bed was made eighteen to twenty inches in thickness, and then rolled with a ten-ton steam roller. Over this was scattered a thick coating of gravel. and thus Calvary Cemetery has as good, smooth, solid roads as can be desired.
The latest improvement is the Mater Dolorosa statue erected
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CALVARY CEMETERY, YOUNGSTOWN-MAIN ENTRANCE.
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October, 1900, in the place of the wooden cross in the center of the circle in the main drive. The figure was designed from a copy of the painting of Carlo Dolci, in the Dulwich Gallery, London, sometimes called the Madonna of the Thumb. The statue and pedestal are of white bronze, the latter six feet high, the former five and one-half feet high. The foundation, of concrete, is raised one foot above the road. The cost of statue and pedestal was something over $600.
The lawn adjoining the sexton's residence is very beautiful, and, like other portions of the grounds, is interspersed with flower beds and rare varieties of flowering shrubs, evergreens and. deciduous trees. This "city of the dead" will compare favorably with the finest in the diocese, and redounds to the credit of Mr. George Rudge, who, as superintendent, devotes his best efforts to its beautification and practical advancement.
CLEVELAND. THE CATHOLIC CENTRAL ASSOCIATION.
The year 1874 witnessed the beginning of a closer union between the Catholics of Cleveland, Ohio, through the establishment of the Catholic Central Association. The nucleus of the organization was the Irish-American national societies, whose representatives met each year to make arrangements for the fitting celebration of St. Patrick's Day. Bishop Gilmour took advantage of the meeting of these dele- gates to impress on them the necessity and utility of enlarging their mission and making it so Catholic and American that each society of the laity, having a regularly appointed priest as its spiritual director, might become affiliated with them. The Irish-American organizations readily assented to the suggestions of the bishop, and at once the famous association, above mentioned, sprang into existence.
The first meeting rejoiced in having seventy-five delegates repre- senting fifteen organizations, whose total membership exceeded 3,500. The number of societies was subsequently increased until. in later years. almost the entire Catholic body in the city of Cleveland was included and represented as societies or parishes, in the association. In its palmy days it spoke for over 50,000 of the Catholics of Cleveland.
The scope of the association's purpose was along the lines of religious and civil liberty as provided for in the Constitution of the United States. Demand was made that Catholic priests be not debarred from the exercise of their right, guaranteed by the organic law, to min- ister to unfortunate Catholics who might be confined in the penal or reformatory institutions of the State. Much opposition on the part of non-Catholic preachers, the daily press, and politicians was exhibited, and loud and long was the cry raised on every side against allowing priests to enter and minister to Catholics in State or municipal institu- tions. This was quite marked in the case of the Workhouse in Cleve- land, where every obstruction was placed in the way of the association. and of priests intent upon the exercise of their religious rights, and
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of the liberty of conscience of the prisoners. But so persistent and determined were the priests and the association, and so glaringly illib- cral and untenable was the stand of the opposition that public opinion and justice prevailed, and the rights of Catholics, although grudg- ingly recognized, were not openly impeded. Although the preachers and politicians swore that "Romish worship" should never be tolerated in the Cleveland Workhouse, they had, nevertheless, to relent. A port- able altar was constructed, and cach alternate Sunday since then the holy sacrifice of the Mass is offered up in the institution. Until 1877 the Workhouse was attended from St. John's Cathedral, and for a short time from the Franciscan Monastery, but since then, until 1894, a period of seventeen years, the Rev. Chancellor Houck was the chaplain. After- wards, until 1896, the Jesuit Fathers had charge. By Father Houck's zeal and faithfulness, coupled with his gentlemanly deportment, he won the esteem of the inmates and the confidence and respect of the officials. In recent years the Apostolate Fathers have sent a chaplain there.
In the State, too, the battle for liberty of conscience was waged with great vigor until, in 1875. the Geagan bill became a law, command- ing that, "those in charge of the penal and reformatory institutions of the State shall furnish ample and equal facilities to all persons con- fined therein, for receiving the ministrations of the authorized clergy- man of their own religious denomination or persuasion, provided that such ministration entail no expense to the public treasury."
The organization continued its triumphs in the interests of civil and religious liberty for all, demanding nothing for Catholics that was not accorded to every citizen. It had an awakening effect upon all, and opened the eyes of everyone to the apparently forgotten principles of the organic law of the land.
It is to be regretted that the association was allowed to decay, and that agencies were permitted to be active in its ranks that, before final dissolution, in 1893, marred the harmony that had characterized it from the beginning. However, it only sleeps to be awakened again to fight with renewed vigor the battle for liberty of conscience for every Amer- ican citizen. When will the trumpet note be sounded calling it to action ?
END OF VOLUME II.
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