  7andkelly Member Username: 7andkelly Post Number: 1713 Registered: 04-2008 |
Fr. LoGrasso was before my time at SJ. I remember pastors Fr. Ording and Fr. Villerot, of course, and Fr. Grady, Fr. DeJarnes, Fr. Bodie, Fr. O'Leary, and NDHS visiting priest Fr. Martin. Some of the other names escape me right now. | ||
Kellyroad Member Username: Kellyroad Post Number: 1259 Registered: 04-2007 |
In addition to 7and Kelly's list of priests: Fr. Raymo (early 60s). Fr. Matthew (Indian priest 70s) Fr. Burns (early to mid 60s), Fr. Coil (visiting priest from Salesian HS..dramatic orator with a fire and brimstone style 60s). Fr Gallant (visiting priest from NDHS 60s), Fr. Morris (visiting priest from NDHS 60s-70s), Fr. Ron Victor (late 70s-80s) | ||
Kellyroad Member Username: Kellyroad Post Number: 1260 Registered: 04-2007 |
http://www.archive.org/details /DetroitC1965 You may have already seen the above video but I thought I'd post it anyway..feeling rather nostalgic. | ||
Kellyroad Member Username: Kellyroad Post Number: 1261 Registered: 04-2007 |
http://www.archdioceseofdetroi t.org/AODOnline/News+++Publica tions+2203/Michigan+Catholic+N ews+12203/2007+The+Michigan+Ca tholic+News+14936/071013Novena .htm Another FYI just in case you haven't heard or read. | ||
Kellyroad Member Username: Kellyroad Post Number: 1262 Registered: 04-2007 |
Hope all is going well with all the friends of St. Jude on this first Sunday of Advent. (hey, at least the Lions didn't play) | ||
Jcole Member Username: Jcole Post Number: 4856 Registered: 04-2005 |
I saw the Detroit video a while back, and it was rather depressing. I think the one from the Novena was from 2007, but it still applies. Mary was heavily involved in that one, I think. | ||
Eastburn Member Username: Eastburn Post Number: 561 Registered: 03-2008 |
KR, your 1965 video had me sitting here asking "What in the hell happened?". That's the Detroit we grew up in. Looks like the slackers have taken the weekend off. Don't worry, I'm sure we'll all be back here tomorrow. | ||
Jcole Member Username: Jcole Post Number: 4857 Registered: 04-2005 |
That's what I meant about the video being depressing. How the hell did all this happen in less than one lousy lifetime? | ||
Kellyroad Member Username: Kellyroad Post Number: 1263 Registered: 04-2007 |
That article WAS from 2007. It it interesting to note that St. Dominic had a shrine to St. Jude (and Shrine of the Little Flower's St. Jude chapel) that got more "St. Jude" visits than the name sake parish. Back in the days of perpetual adoration, when the church was open 24/7, the St. Jude chapel had a very powerful beckoning force. I'm not sure if was solitude, the candles, or the fact that people's written requests left at the foot of St. Jude's statue were supposedly of despair or hopeless cases... but in any case it was a great place of refuge or just simple quiet contemplation and prayer. (Message edited by kellyroad on November 30, 2008) | ||
Kellyroad Member Username: Kellyroad Post Number: 1264 Registered: 04-2007 |
And St. Jude Parish is a microcosm and great example of the rapidity of change in just one generation. JC, I know your question is somewhat rhetorical and the answer as you know has been well documented and is a fav of local authors and sociologists for years but it still makes one contemplate "How did this happen"? I've asked this question before, and it is somewhat rhetorical, but I'll give it a shot anyway....Are there any current parishioners that were parishioners during 40s-70s still living within the St. Jude Parish boundaries (northeast Detroit/Harper Woods)? I see familiar names in the St. Jude Calendar or on the sick list but I'm not sure if they're still residing in the parish boundaries. Does anyone know of just one? Regarding the Detroit video...in a way it is depressing to see what Detroit was probably just a little past its heyday supposedly during its "rebirth era". Interestingly that video highlighted a "cosmopolitan" society with many diverse nationalities, races, and creeds and an unguarded international border, Of course segregation and other urban issues were never mentioned..but of course the video's intention was to promote Detroit as a site for the 68 Olympics. I understand that the Detroit and Mexico City were very close and that Detroit lost because it was going to charge more for the athlete's meals..It was that close...What if??? | ||
Jcole Member Username: Jcole Post Number: 4858 Registered: 04-2005 |
Mrs. Pauline D'aoust still lives on Maddelein. Her husband John just passed away a couple weeks ago, so I don't know how much longer that will last.Mike Sawicki lives over on Woodland or Woodside in Harper Woods, but am not positive if it's in the Parish or not, but he's listed as being on the Council. | ||
7andkelly Member Username: 7andkelly Post Number: 1714 Registered: 04-2008 |
Apparently, and unfortunately, the video was merely promotional...a gross exaggeration of life in the city...at least the inner city upon which it bragged. Decay, crime and blight had already taken hold there. In reality, it was a tinderbox waiting to explode, which it did just two years later. | ||
Jcole Member Username: Jcole Post Number: 4859 Registered: 04-2005 |
7, you're somewhat correct. To be blunt, it was fine for the 'white folk' but not so fair for minorities. There was still a lot of segregation and prejudice going on, and a great many people thought that that was the way it should be. Something had to give, and it gave in July '67 | ||
Kellyroad Member Username: Kellyroad Post Number: 1266 Registered: 04-2007 |
JC: Thanks. Pauline is the first one I've heard of. I wonder how many "originals" still remain. | ||
7andkelly Member Username: 7andkelly Post Number: 1715 Registered: 04-2008 |
And give it did, J. Many families and businesses (white and black) left as soon as they could, and for good reason...safety. "White Flight"?...no, more like "Fright Flight". The burning, the looting, the rock throwing and shooting...no one who witnessed that could forget, and if you cared about your family or your employees, maybe you just got them the hell out of danger. If the '67 riot was an organized collective effort seeking justice (and I don't believe it was), it failed miserably...sealing the fate of many without the means to escape for decades to come. | ||
12468_laing Member Username: 12468_laing Post Number: 280 Registered: 07-2008 |
watching that video brought back a thought to me. back when i lived on laing, granted the houses weren't castles, but i thought they were. what a great area to grow up in? it was the best place to live. by the way, they are playing "let there be peace on earth" on the radio with the old words, "with God and my brothers....". wish they never had to change that to make it politically correct. that song always brings back memories of sjs. | ||
7andkelly Member Username: 7andkelly Post Number: 1716 Registered: 04-2008 |
Cool. You must have found a Catholic channel down there. We sang that song at graduation in '72, but I was never much of a singer. I get the melody, but the words escape me sometimes. I remember it like this: "Let there be peace on earth, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah..." | ||
Jcole Member Username: Jcole Post Number: 4864 Registered: 04-2005 |
We sang it in 70 at SJS. I think it was a 'standard' there. My sister Fran sang it in 65. | ||
Jcole Member Username: Jcole Post Number: 4865 Registered: 04-2005 |
7, I don't think it was so much an organized collective effort, but according to my Dad, there was some nation-wide 'rabble-rousing' involved here, Watts, Harlem and I think Newark. Members of the Black Panthers were moving around speaking to various groups. I remember him mentioning Stokely Carmichael, H. Rapp Brown and several others who had been to Detroit shortly before the shit hit the fan. Over two summers, those cities were hit and hit hard. We just didn't rebound, ever. | ||
Campfire_girl Member Username: Campfire_girl Post Number: 46 Registered: 03-2008 |
It's hard to know how many "original" folks still live within the parish boundaries. I know from doing the mailings for the Mardi Gras and other functions that there are still quite a few of the older folks living in the neighborhoods - but the majority of us come in from surrounding 'burbs. The St. Jude Chapel - now the Eucharistic Chapel - still captures the sanctity of the serenity of quiet prayer. It was a perfect neighborhood and wonderful place to grow up and create memories, that 40 yrs+ later, we still remember quite vividly! Being at St. Jude gives me many things, not the least of which is having some of that "home" every week. | ||
Zitro Member Username: Zitro Post Number: 2443 Registered: 04-2008 |
I'm fairly certain my next door neighbor Helen Kraft still lives in her house. Her husband Frank passed away about a year ago. They had 7 kids so I'm sure some of you remember some of their kids. | ||
Kellyroad Member Username: Kellyroad Post Number: 1267 Registered: 04-2007 |
Thanks everyone. There are actually more I than anticipated. ...Granted, the present day St. Jude has a different mission than a generation ago but it's nice to see a connection to yesteryear. | ||
Diane12163 Member Username: Diane12163 Post Number: 484 Registered: 07-2008 |
I just watched the 1965 video on Detroit. The city was so clean and together back then. I was just 2 years old when that came out. So nice to be able to see the city as it looked. I love the cars. They don't make style like that anymore. It's so cookie-cutter nowadays. Also, it was still a time of real job security. My mom worked on Jefferson for the UAW and she got a COLA(cost of living allowance), really decent pay and a great benefit package. She started back in 39 when they were still in a house. Dad built a lot of the houses in Detroit and downriver as well as some of the businesses buildings. Back then it was still safe to leave your front door unlocked and know you'd come back to an untouched house. Our house did get hit once in the mid 70's. A guy ran through it putting footprints in places you didn't think footprints could go and knocked things over and broke some stuff, but the stuff wasn't taken. We were there for the brown outs and riots. After then, the city really began to take a downward spiral each year getting bleaker, dirtier and with businesses and homes boarded up. Some of those houses were once so elegant, so stately and huge, enough to hold many families that were now in some of the worst neighbourhoods when they used to be the most opulent. West of Woodward used to be quite a lovely place to live and now those homes in the Sherwood Forest area, you take your life in your hands to live there and they still cost in upwards of $200,000+ from last I looked. Now SJS is closed, my high school is closed, my old house is boarded up. Driving through the Hayes/Gratiot/Queen/Monarch area is eerie. So odd, really to see a Cadillac Esplanade parked in the drive of a ill cared for house with a terrible almost non-existent lawn, broken windows on the house and no floral growth to speak of. So much is in the priorities of people and how they have changed, how a disdain for one's property is evident and yet they have a tricked out car. But, I still love Detroit and have some great memories of places visited, food eaten and good times shared. | ||
7andkelly Member Username: 7andkelly Post Number: 1717 Registered: 04-2008 |
Diane, I guess you can loan someone 110% of the value of a home, but you can't make them mow the lawn. And I'm not just talking about Detroit. More than a few suburbanites I know have "the Clampets" living next door, with cars on blocks on their front lawn, Christmas lights up all year, and junk yard dogs on the loose. An agreement to maintain the property should be in the papers you sign along with agreeing to pay your property tax. In the burbs some subs have "associations" which enforce this kind of stuff, and while I don't endorse many of their ridiculous and onerous restrictions, and their confiscatory fees, some of these are successful in helping to maintain proper standards and a sense of normalcy. But really, why is this something that would need to be enforced? What became of common decency and the pride of ownership? | ||
Diane12163 Member Username: Diane12163 Post Number: 485 Registered: 07-2008 |
7andkelly---I am completely on your page. Some people have just become lazy. They also put more stake in having a super car with a stereo that can deafen at 10 miles(really all it is is booming bass which has no musical value and with words so distorted by volume they no longer make sense), and bling. They've lost that sense of pride that comes from taking care of where you live. Our lawn was composed of Kentucky Blue Grass and a unique blend of bent grass making it as soft as a carpet, barefoot friendly. To look at it now is a crying shame. To see the flower boxes dad and I put up(that was a fun, one of the very precious few I had with my dad times when I helped him at what he so enjoyed doing, building things with brick). Our flagpole proudly flew the American Flag and flew it at half mast for deaths and sad times. The last time I saw the house, the awnings were all painted a dull black. Long gone were the rose bushes my mother loved, the flower beds held no flora and half the shrubs were missing. The thing, too that I have noticed with alarm about not only Detroit but, many other cities throughout America is so few of the original architecture remains. Half the time anymore buildings are flattened to build modern structures, car parks, etc. And how many restaurants and banks on every corner, every niche do we need? Half the places don't see enough business to last anyways. I love places like Europe, Asia, Africa, Russia because they keep most of their old buildings and turn them into housing, businesses and some just get restored and used for educational tours. Rome has the coloseum. We had Tiger Stadium, which was our coloseum. SJS is a smallish yet grand old structure that hopefully will stay standing. Our SJ Church is so beautiful. I used to wait for a transfer bus on Gratiot and Seymour when I went to Dominican back in 77-81. that isn't too long ago but, even then I still felt safe in that area. Walking down Manning the 1 1/2 blocks home I always felt safe. Today, I'd be taking my life in my hands and might not make it past the Seymour/Gratiot bus stop. They had a Detroit library branch at Seymour/Gratiot, too and I always felt safe enough popping in there for a bit before catching the bus to my street. People complain "laws, laws, laws all these laws" but, those laws, most of them would not have been made had they taken the responsibility for themselves and their property. | ||
Zitro Member Username: Zitro Post Number: 2444 Registered: 04-2008 |
The good thing about this change of priorities is that kids no longing get yelled at for cutting across people's lawns! | ||
Jcole Member Username: Jcole Post Number: 4886 Registered: 04-2005 |
And it's hard to soap a window when it's boarded up. | ||
7andkelly Member Username: 7andkelly Post Number: 1718 Registered: 04-2008 |
Yes, and the boards are but a canvas. | ||
Jcole Member Username: Jcole Post Number: 4887 Registered: 04-2005 |
A removable canvas. I feel bad enough about my home being boarded up; I prefer to try to put some positive spin on it. At least there are people on the streets, and when I was down there in July or June, they were out working on cars and cutting grass. Most of the houses looked occupied and the church and grounds were still well-kempt. A lot of stores on Kelly are still open and kids were playing. It's nowhere near what it was 45 years ago, but are we? | ||
Zitro Member Username: Zitro Post Number: 2446 Registered: 04-2008 |
Wait a minute. It's stopped hailing. Guys are swimming, guys are sailing. Playing baseball, gee that's better |
