Curious, isn't it, the memories that linger from childhood? They
lie not only in the mind but in the senses, in the smells, the
feel, the sounds, the tastes of a place as well as the visual
images that haunt the reflective mind.
As the son of a Notre Dame administrative employee, I almost
literally grew up on the University campus. Despite my long absences,
Notre Dame has come to be as integral to my identity as my familial
and religious relationships.
Only days after graduation Jim Armstrong, class of 1925 was
named secretary of the young but promising Alumni Association,
a part-time job at first, then in 1926 full time as he began the
steady development of a program that today is universally recognized
for its uncontested excellence. He held that position for 41 years,
until his retirement in 1967. I was born in 1932, the third of
his five sons. From early childhood I frequently accompanied Dad
onto the campus and began to absorb the ambient; memories of campus
life lodged effortlessly within me. Commonplace though their origins
may then have seemed, over time they grew and matured into a kaleidoscopic
pattern of images, personalities and events that constitute for
me an invaluable treasury of experiences binding me irrevocably
to Notre Dame.
Walking on campus and along corridors, he and I regularly encountered
individuals whose presence and efforts stimulated the vibrant
heartbeat of Notre Dame. Dad unhesitatingly introduced me to these
men and women, and bit by bit to the history and traditions of
Our Lady's school. Images observed then have never faded, among
them these.... At the northeastern extremity of the campus, the
gray, pragmatically plain temporary dorms simply called Freshman
and Sophomore Halls.... One-by-twelves serving as interim sidewalks
around the new Law and Engineering buildings.... The faded orange
South Bend streetcars careening tipsily down Notre Dame Avenue
on the final stretch of their run.... Imposing, solemn, silent
Sacred Heart Church, where I was baptized, and where in 1941 as
I watched, my mother was also welcomed into the church by Father
John Lynch.... The tantalizing aroma of the Oak Room in the single
dining hall, and the taste of its incomparable vanilla ice cream....
The beckoning scents emanating from the Huddle, that tiny snack
oasis cuddled next to Washington Hall.... The rough, oft-painted
forest green boards of the tall fence surrounding Cartier Field....
The ever inspiring Golden Dome, Our Lady's statue, the classical
beauty of the Main Building, the Indians of the Gregori murals
along the first floor corridor, the bannistered rotunda, and then,
at the end, the Alumni Office with its engraved glass panels on
huge wooden doors and, inside, its businesslike smell of paper
and printer's ink.... During the war years the V-12 and other
Navy programs parading on the south quad, khaki-clad recruits
wearing down the grass on their way to the dining hall.... The
stadium on days of home games, Fred Snite's van positioned in
the tunnel at the north end zone, hundreds of empty seats in all
four corners, the pained face of a Stanford player, bloodied and
nearly unconscious, carried off the field....
And the personalities from every facet of life and activity....
Smiling, kind, soft-spoken Brother Angelus Dolan, porter at the
imposing front portal of the Main Building.... The regal, aging
figure of Father Matt Walsh, former president.... Father John
F. O'Hara, president, later cardinal.... Father J. Hugh O'Donnell,
the next president, smiling, cordial, jovial, but then his early
death, and my childish discomfiture seeing him lying in state,
vested, in the parlor of the Main Building.... Professor John
Cooney, my father's journalism teacher and surrogate father, my
godfather.... Waldemar Gurian, refugee from Hitler's Germany,
political science professor, looming ponderously massive and forbidding
with his horn-rimmed glasses and dour aspect.... Father Robert
Sweeney, associate in Alumni and public relations, smiling, vivacious....
Bill Dooley, dedicated assistant Alumni Secretary and engineer
of the first placement office.... Charlie Cartier, of the Ludington
family, assisting in the office.... Bob Riordan, registrar, colonel
in the army, father of nine, his early death in 1946 brought on
by disease contracted in the South Pacific.... Alice Przybysz,
later Mrs. Tom Perry, Alumni Office secretary and bubbling receptionist,
always delighted to see me, making up a reunion name tag with
my probable graduation year on it.... Her sister Helena, also
a secretary, businesslike, tall and thin but equally attentive
to my need for an occasional Tootsie Roll.... Marguerite Varga,
office assistant, later Gus Cifelli's wife, despite health problems
one of the sweetest dispositions I ever encountered.... Tom Barry,
Ray Donovan and Joe Petritz, all in the publicity office, young,
eager, able.... Other professors, personal friends of my Dad,
like practical yet erudite Norb Engels, Lou Hasley, wit and husband
of humor writer Lucille, Dick Sullivan, teacher and noted author....
Joe Boland, literally the voice of Notre Dame football over the
air, former player and assistant coach of the team.... The great
Frank Leahy, he shaking my hand at a basketball game in the old
smoke-filled gym.... Athletic Department personnel: Bob Cahill,
ticket manager and my confirmation sponsor, for whom I stuffed
application envelopes one summer in the basement office at Breen-Phillips
Hall with a kid named Paul Hawblitzel, whose father had been killed
in the war, and J. Arthur Haley and Herb Jones, both on the business
management side of athletics.... Football players of renown, Angelo
Bertelli, Creighton Miller, Owen "Dippy" Evans, Elmer Angsman,
Johnny Lujack, to my way of thinking the best two-way player the
University ever had.... And Clashmore Mike, the Irish Terrier
football mascot.
Images and personalities combine into memorable events.... During
the Navy "occupation" of the campus, the fires ignited by a disturbed
recruit at sites behind the Main Building -- the Ave Maria Press
among them -- and rushing out with my Dad to haul files out of
the nearby Alumni Office in case the wind spread flames across
to the Main Building.... Hurrying out to attend most home games
on tickets left over from the handful my dad had in his office
for alumni who stopped in at the last minute.... The wartime shows
staged in the Navy Drill Hall, such as banjoist Eddie Peabody....
The extravaganzas in the stadium to encourage investing in War
Bonds, with stars like Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Jerry Colonna, Frances
Langford, Kate Smith.... The premier of Knute Rockne, All-American
in downtown South Bend, the principals, including Pat O'Brien
and Ronald Reagan, parading up to the Oliver Hotel, my Dad steadying
me as I perched for a better view atop the retaining wall of the
court house grounds across the street.... Riding with my Dad and
my then idol Frank Tripucka, quarterback, to Grand Rapids, they
to give talks, I to stay with cousins.... Watching the Bengal
Bouts and basketball games in the ancient gym, walking across
the dirt floor of the field house section to reach the cramped,
smokey seating area.... Seeing 6' 10" George Mikan star for DePaul
against Notre Dame.... Attending with my Dad the Memorial Day
mass honoring alumni killed in war, an altar formed of planks
set across tiny abutments set in the east doorway of Sacred Heart
Church.... Participating in the annual Knute Rockne memorial Mass,
with breakfast in the faculty dining room, then on to Highland
Cemetery to lay a wreath at Rockne's grave.... I could not then
have known my own parents' burial site would later lie but fifty
feet west of Rockne's resting place.
These childhood memories hardly begin to tap the latent potential.
Yet I believe they are typical and representative of the images,
people and activities that formed part of the incredibly busy
daily life of the University community in the thirties and forties,
and I am blessed to have been there. The complex of human relationships,
programs, plans, and hopes is not captured in one brief, nostalgic
reverie, but all these surely underlie the involvement of thousands
who helped in their time and place to make of the University what
it has become today. Beneath the images, within the hearts of
the personalities, and suffusing every event was the unique spirit
that continues to motivate and enable men and women in places
and on occasions so that inevitably and happily the whole at any
one moment becomes an integral part of the larger, grace-filled
fabric of life that comprises our beloved Notre Dame.
* * *
October 2002
