University of Notre Dame - Dome Yearbook (Notre Dame, IN)

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MEETING THE FIRST CAR SEPTEMBER 14. 1907

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am HE Aluiiini who return from their several walUh to spend a few clays at Xotre Danic will find many changes. They will see new faces, hear new voices, and make new friends. For some of the cherished associations have llnwn with the ])ass- ing years, and many friends of the olden days have .gone to return no nicirc In the land thai is dark and covered wilh the mist of death. Perhaps some of the . lnmni will tind Iheir way to the comnnmity cemetery, and walking along the ever (|uiet paths, will find there many a father and friend of their college days ; they will read the names engraved on a simple cross, their standard even in death, now standing over them in silent testimony of the lives well lived. . s I stood there one day last fall my mind went hack to those days now .gone, days full of memor - S sweet that they seemed a fore-taste of heaven. . s I looked upon the grave of my frieml and teacher it seemed to me that 1 could look past the boundaries of our little day o er into llic ast eternity of coming time and I gathered Ihen ihe full meaning of that saying, It matters not how long we li e, hut how. Many of the old graduates, as they pass on. reading the names dear to e er - frieml and student of Notre Dame, the names of Walsh, of Corby, and of Sorin. will realize that the memories of their school days are now memories indeed. The silent organ loudest chants llie Master ' s Ret|uiem , and llie sad, lonesome feeling that thrills the heart ,-nid throws a sombre gloom over the suidit memories of our student life, but s|)eaks the affec- tion for those now at rest, whose master minds once inspired and befriended ns. E erv student wdio has been at Xotre Dame during the last twentv years, and especially the graduates of ini14 will, I know, experience this feeling of sorrow when they read on a cross which has yet to bear a summer ' s heat, the name of .Stanislaus Fitte, C S. C. Last autumn Father Fitte ' s life came to a close after two years of intense pain and sufl ' ering. The e ents of his life may be chronicled briefly, for Father Fitte typified the old tireek maxim thai man should do not many things, but iiinch. Me was born at I ' .ienze, .Msace — Lorraine, in 18-1?. .After completing his seminarv course at . lanc . his ordination to tlu ' secular priesthood took place in lSfi. i. Later the coveted degree of Doctor of Philosophy was accorded him bv the Sorbonne. In the year ISSU Uic congregation of the Holy Cross welcomed him within its fold and ihe I ' nivcrsity of .Xotre Dame profited by his presence and labors until inii. i. when sickness forced him lo lea e bis work, llie I ' lst iwo years of his life were spent in enforced quiet at the Community House, and the passer-by could sec in the window his kindly face wearing the same genial smile that marked his better days and which then seemed to cloak the torments of his slow and painful malady, ' i ' hosc long, lonesome days which he spent sitting by that window looking out on the field of his life ' s labors to another might have been days of melancholy, of anguish, of des|)air : lo liim they were days of joy and spiritual conlcnInRiU, of saint-like happiness that increased with the growing pain. Truly, when we consider whal a priesl should be, measured b llu Dixiiie .Model if all priests. ST.VNISr.ACS FITTK,