St Edwards University - Tower Yearbook (Austin, TX)

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48 g¢ ST. EDWARD'S ECHO 4 VOLUME VII APRIL, 1926 NUMBER 7 Early Days at St. Edward’s By Joe P. Byrne, ’91 I have been flattered by a request to write a short sketch of events that transpired within my memory and ken during the infaney of St. Edward’s. Be it under- stood at the outset, however, that I possess no medals won in memory contests; nor have I any great amount of patience with those persons of a meticulous turn, who are constantly catching you up on this slight omission or that inept or unguarded stateinent. My earliest recollections of St. Edward’s go back to about 1878, at a time when it was not even an academy, being merely a day-school, the entire membership con- sisting of Bib Stovall, Felix Smith, Ed and Joe Johnson, and four members of the tribe of Byrne. The prefect of discipline, athletic director, preceptor in reading, writ- ing, and arithmetic, as well as President of the school, was the Rev. Father DeMurrs, a pious and kindly old French priest, with a disposition entirely too mild to cope with the bunch of young savages who fell under his charge. Those were stirring days in Texas, and the deeds of Frank and Jesse James, Cole Younger and Sam Bass had a much stronger appeal for the average boy than had the accomplishments of Noah Webster, or Sam Johnson, and truth compels the statement that the bunch attending Father DeMurrs’ class was not above the average. It would be flattery to give them even such a high grade. If that good old priest is not at present wearing an cter- nal crown, it is certainly due to no lack of effort on the part of his pupils. A short while after the advent of Father DeMurrs, Father Shea came, and relieved him of the burden of the class-room. Father Shea’s tenure was a brief year, or perhaps two would cover the period of his stay at the school. The location of the school at that time, and for several years thereafter was at the farm. Father Shea was re- placed by Father Robinson, a scholarly man of magnet- ic and lovable personality. By this time, about 1880 or 1881, the school had grown to the estate of an academy. Several frame buildings were erected, and facilities in- stalled for accommodating boaders, and the foundation laid for the flourishing University of today. The student body, exclusive of day students, numbered something like twelve or fifteen. The names of those I now recall are Hamilton and Walter Reilly, Tom and Ed Smith, Charles Clappert, John Wolf, Jerry Sheehan, Hugh Haynie, Neal Begley, Pete Baker and John Byrne. It was not so many years prior to that time that the Tndians made an attack on Baker’s people in San Saba I feel safe in the statement that the Indians would have earned the County, and killed ov wounded his sister. undying gratitude of Father Robinson if they had scalped Pete and about eight or ten of his fellow students before they lrad been wished off on him. In those days, and for many years subsequent, it was considered the right and proper thing, when a boy was too hard-boiled for any other school, to send him to a Catholic institution. Let it not for a moment be inferred that that was the reason for the presence at St. Hdward’s of the devoted ecieven set out above. Brother Max was prefect of discipline during the presi- dency, or part of it, of Father Robinson. He was a sim- ple, goodhearted old soul, a farmer by training and pro- fession, and as ill-fitted to fill the position to which he was called as it is possible to imagine. As a side-line he planted a vegetable garden, and among other things that seemed to thrive therein to an astonishing degree was a patch of carrots, in which he took great pride. Some one of the students, with more time on his hands than he needed for his lessons, in a spirit of boyish lev- ity, loosened one of the pickets, so that an old sow and a bunch of shoats got in, and when they retired the car- rots went with them. Brother Max, being unequal to his task, was relieved of his duties as prefect by Brother Sixtus. The boys then discovered how foolish they had been, and what a mis- take it had been to force Brother Max to quit; for Bro- ther Sixtus would take no nonsense from them, and he made them understand that the office of prefect of dis- cipline was not instituted for their amusement. During this time I was an attendant at the school as a day stu- dent, along with Jeff Todd, Jim Brodie, Brooks Blocker and my brother, Bernard, our home being about a mile east of the school. My parents removed to the City in 1883 and I lost touch with the College for several years. When we returned to the country the College had moved to its present site, and splendid stone buildings had replaced the wooden ones which served at the farm. I resumed attendance in 1889 and continued till the end of June 1891. During most of that time Father (afterwards Bishop) Hurth was Presi- dent. He was a man of splendid executive ability and the College made wonderful progress under his guidance. The main, in fact practically the only, sport at the Col-

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Sa ee ————s OE, 2 REA TS TE MA any people forget her name, but they ever forget the face of St. Edward’s Univer- ity, an Austin landmark older than the ‘exas Tower and a part of Austin’s history or a century. The historic medalion placed m the Main Building by the Texas State His- orical Survey Committee early in 1973 re- alls the colorful history of the university vhich grew from a chance shipboard meet- ng of two early American priests. The very Rev. Edward Sorin, Superior seneral of the Congregation of Holy Cross nd founder of Notre Dame University, was vxound for France and Rome in 1869 when se met the Rt. Rev. Bishop Claude M. Du- yuis of Galveston, bound for Vatican I. At hat time Bishop Dubuis offered Father sorin’s congregation two diocesan schools in srownsville and Galveston, and when three rears later the Bishop learned of Mrs. Mary Joyle’s intention to leave most of her 498 ere South Austin farm to the Catholic thurch to establish an “‘educational institu- ion,” he invited Father Sorin to Texas. Father Sorin came, surveyed the beauty i the surrounding hills and lakes, observed he bustling growth and potential of the ledgling frontier town, and decided this vould be the home of a new Catholic chool. To insure vital access to Old Post ‘oad (now South Congress Avenue) he pur- hased 123 acres in addition to Mrs. Doyle’s ift of 394 acres. The school was founded a year later ollowing Mrs. Doyle’s death. Father Sorin alled it St. Edward’s Academy in honor of is patron saint, Edward the Confessor and ‘ing. Three gangling farm boys made up the tudent body the first year, 1878. They met or classes in a makeshift building on the old oyle homestead almost a mile east of the resent campus. By 1881 the school was oarding students, and in those days people alled it the Catholic Farm; it fed its faculty nd students by raising beef, grain, vege- Jables, and fruit on its own land. . The academy got into full swing in 1884 I cannot rest from travel; I will drink Life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone; Iam become a name, because I am a part of all that I have met when the president, Rev. P. J. Franciscus, rapidly secured a charter (1885), changed the name to St. Edward’s College, as- sembled a faculty, set forth a syllabus of studies and increased enrollment. Occupying a secluded spot among a patchwork of South Austin farms, the college was connected to the main town by horse and buggy roads and a ferry across Town Lake. Despite the relative isolation the college mushroomed to an enrollment of 200 by the turn of the century. Father Peter J. Hurth, the president from 1885 whose era saw the first school newspaper published and the organization of baseball and football teams, secured approval to erect the original administra- tion building. Well-known architect N. J. Clayton of Galveston designed a hand- some four-story structure in Gothic Re- vival style, to be built of Texas white limestone. The first shovel of dirt was turned on the feast day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (July 16, 1888) and the building, a source of pride in the Holy Cross community and a grand structure for the early Southwest, was finished ten months later. It housed offices, a dormitory, chapel, library, and dining hall. classrooms, From Ulysses, by Alfred Lord Tennyson A big moment came in 1893 when Old Main got electric lights and steam heat. That was 17 years before Austin’s popu- lation reached 30,000 and traffic, with the coming of motorcars, began to race along Congress Avenue at 15 m.p.h. St. Edward’s students began to spend more time in town when the movies started. They could see a picture at the Hancock or Crescent theater for a dime in 1909. Not that there wasn’t a lot to do on campus. In the shadow of Old Main, the uni- versity has wildcatted for oil, trained pilots, dug its own artesian wells, and once awarded a $125 prize for oratory to famed Houston criminal lawyer Percy Foreman (1928). There was also excitement on campus of a far more serious nature, however, in the spring of 1903 when a mysterious fire de- stroyed all of the administration building ex- cept the main entrance with its massive doors, the circular walls of the back stair- well, and the stone columns on the north- west corner. There was one hero Tom Kelly raced to the top floor and saved his room- mate Francis Huck, who was in bed with the mumps. (continued, page 50) 47

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4 ST. EDWARD’S ECHO | lege was baseball. We played some football by way of a | change; a hybrid sort of affair, partly Rugby and partly the game as played today, and it excited but a languid f) interest. With baseball it was entirely different. Almost every student played and was the member of some team or ' other. In those days there was no athletic council, no athletic director or coach, and as for dietine—if we got | hold of some corned beef and cabbage, or pork and beans, we felt fully equipped to tackle any team that had the temerity to meet us. We bought our own bats and balls and suits; and the College authorities did not, and were not expected to contribute to the upkeep of the team. They lent us their enthusiastic moral support. The banner team of those years was composed of Krause and Long for the battery; Emil Coombs on first; Mark Tinsley on second; Pat Smith on third; Joe Byrne - at short; with Raggio, Malloy, and McCarty in the field. We went into training in September and did not come out until the closing exercises in June. Krause, our slabs- man, was a husky German. His gifts as a ball player were gratuitously bestowed on him by nature, and he was entitled to no credit whatever. He knew practically | nothing of the trick of throwing a curve ball, but his speed was terrific, and his endurance without limit. He | was afflicted with labor-phobia of both mental and phys- | ical variety, and was never known to practice, or in fact, do anything else he could avoid; and it was quite the usual thing that he had to be hunted up and dragged on the field just before the game started. We made no ex- tended journeys to meet opposing teams in those days. The limit of our faring was the City of Austin, where we met the best material to be found there. T recall the names of some of the boys who attended the College about the time when Father Hurth was president. Frank Crain and Tobe Wood, now prominent attorneys of Victoria; Dave Shawl, Frank Hervey, Santos Benavi- des of Laredo; Will Hicks and Pat Coombs of Browns- ville, Arthur and Will McAtee of Houston, John Spell- » % 7 i ys man, Jim Whelan, Gus Brass, John Flanagan, Langdon Harris, George Signaigo, now a prominent merchant of Dallas. The College always maintained a corps of able, scho- larly teachers, who were a credit to themselves as well as the institution in which they worked. Brother Kil- lian was the teacher of mathematics, bookkeeping and penmanship. He would tolerate no foolishness in the class room; he had a dour and crusty manner; but those who did their work conscientiously and tried to meet the requirements of their studies soon discovered that his seeming grouchiness was only a cloak to cover a sym- pathetic and kindly disposition. In addition to being well qualified as a preceptor in mathematics and pen- manship he was—and this appealed more strongly to me—a wonderfully fine field shot, and I had with him many enjoyable tramps after quail and doves. Brother Stanislaus, among other classes, taught rhe- toric and shorthand. Using the Isaac Pittman system as a basis he made many useful and helpful changes and abbreviations, until the result might almost as well have been called the Stanislaus as the Pittman. His method of teaching was one of moral suasion, rather than of foree, and was eminently successful. Being guileless himself, he suspected no wrong-doing or evil intention in others, and the boy who failed to make progress under his tutelage, and who did not improve morally as well as mentally by association with him, was indeed beyond hope. He took great pride in his old students, and was constantly referring to some one or other of them who had attained prominence in the world. Some of the other instructors whom I recall were Fa- ther Schier, who served as President for a short time, and for a longer period as Vice-President. Mr. Black and Mr. Pinnell were seminarians who were afterwards ordained. Father Olmert taught Christian doctrine and German. One of his favorite indoor sports was the writing of Ger- man poetry, which it fell to my lot to recite at several of the commencement exercises. Apparently St. Edward’s once had a tennis team. Does any- one know who the men are and in what year the picture was taken? SS EES