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About a month ago, I joined a few of my high school classmates at the annual reunion dinner at our school, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of our graduation (Really? 25 years already? Doesn’t seem possible…). Our school, known then as Archbishop Walsh High School (and today as Archbishop Walsh Academy), is and was a small Catholic school serving the rural communities of western New York near the state line with Pennsylvania. For me, it was an essential escape from a toxic peer group at my local public school, and provided me with a much needed fresh start during my adolescence. My four years in that school were important in my personal development and I have (mostly) fond memories from that period.
However, as important as that school was to me, I never really gave much thought to the name. So when it came up during a conversation at the reunion, it got me wondering…Who the heck was Archbishop Walsh, and why was our school named after him? Somehow it seemed wrong that we should all have graduated from the school without knowing at least a little bit about the schools namesake.
Well, that question has bugged me for a month, so I did some research. Turns out that Archbishop Thomas J. Walsh was the first archbishop of Newark, from 1937 until his death in 1952. It seems that he was a big advocate for Catholic education, and expressed a preference for school construction over church construction. This much seemed to be at least vaguely known by at least some of the alumni at the reunion. But his connections to our school are actually deeper than that.
Thomas Walsh was born in Pennsylvania in 1873, but grew up in Wellsville, NY (about 30 miles from the school and one of the communities that was served by it), and studied at St. Bonaventure College (now St. Bonaventure University, operated by the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor), only a little more than a mile from our school. When Archbishop Walsh High School opened, the original faculty included Friars from St. Bonaventure as well as nuns from the nearby Motherhouse of the Order of St. Francis. I suspect that this connection with St. Bonaventure also played a role in the naming of the new school when it was founded in 1959.
After being ordained as a priest, Fr. Walsh served as Chancellor for the Diocese of Buffalo (which built and operated the school until the 1990s) before he was appointed Bishop of Trenton. This gives us a third and final link between the Archbishop and the school that uses his name. While his support for Catholic education would have been a sufficient reason to name a school after him, the local connections are the more satisfying for me.
However, as important as that school was to me, I never really gave much thought to the name. So when it came up during a conversation at the reunion, it got me wondering…Who the heck was Archbishop Walsh, and why was our school named after him? Somehow it seemed wrong that we should all have graduated from the school without knowing at least a little bit about the schools namesake.
Well, that question has bugged me for a month, so I did some research. Turns out that Archbishop Thomas J. Walsh was the first archbishop of Newark, from 1937 until his death in 1952. It seems that he was a big advocate for Catholic education, and expressed a preference for school construction over church construction. This much seemed to be at least vaguely known by at least some of the alumni at the reunion. But his connections to our school are actually deeper than that.
Thomas Walsh was born in Pennsylvania in 1873, but grew up in Wellsville, NY (about 30 miles from the school and one of the communities that was served by it), and studied at St. Bonaventure College (now St. Bonaventure University, operated by the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor), only a little more than a mile from our school. When Archbishop Walsh High School opened, the original faculty included Friars from St. Bonaventure as well as nuns from the nearby Motherhouse of the Order of St. Francis. I suspect that this connection with St. Bonaventure also played a role in the naming of the new school when it was founded in 1959.
After being ordained as a priest, Fr. Walsh served as Chancellor for the Diocese of Buffalo (which built and operated the school until the 1990s) before he was appointed Bishop of Trenton. This gives us a third and final link between the Archbishop and the school that uses his name. While his support for Catholic education would have been a sufficient reason to name a school after him, the local connections are the more satisfying for me.
