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Page 29 text:
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(hr sleepy Mexican village of Yerba Buena, almost overnight, had been turned into the boomtaten of San Francisco. Teeming with hungry goldscckcrs, this city, in 1885. was to receive a man who brought gold—gold more precious than any from Sutter's Creek History is an old man with tired eyes who smokes his pipe quietly, alternately smiling and frowning, witnessing the ebb and flow of fortune. His age is mountain-old. His hand is like the sea, all-embracing, trembling with its might. He is the master of a grand order for his kingdom is mankind. He stretches through the day and through the night, penetrating all corners, observing all deeds. He is a good friend whose intent is to give substance, understanding and purpose. He makes the obscure real, the forgotten remembered. He needs only to be discerned, he needs only to be questioned. Once revived his words are not soon forgotten. TRADITIONS AND LEGENDS On Wednesday, November 1, 1854, early in the San Francisco morning, a young Jesuit priest and his two companions strolled down the gangplank of the S.S. Sonora. The young priest and his two associates had been accompanied on their voyage by a hand of hungry gold seekers. California was in the midst of a social upheaval, hundreds of thousands of homesteaders, financiers, and opportunists had settled its shores since the first cry of gold some seven years before. In these times, there was no room for the fragile or afraid. 'fhe young priest who had stepped from the ship Sonora was to someday become the founder of the largest Catholic men’s school west of Chicago. His name was Father Antonio Maraschi, S.J. San Francisco was at the crossroads of the many meeting paths to and from the gold country. The city of Antonio Maraschi was a bedlam. A contemporary of the young priest wrote of San Francisco.” . . . whether it should be called a mad house or Babylon. am at a loss to determine—so great in those days was the disorder, the brawling, the open immorality . . .” Fr. Maraschi had a difficult task before him. Where? Out there . . .” Some six months passed liefore the young Jesuit at last received the permission of Archbishop Alemany to begin his college “somewhere out there.” The “somewhere out there” was in the sanddunes, desolate, deserted, and plagued by occasional floods. Undaunted, P’r. Maraschi borrowed some money, bought some land and built three buildings. School opened on Monday, October 15, 1855. Three students braved the lonely desert surrounding the school, the first of which was Master Richard McCabe. He was the first of the long line of Irish Immigrants to receive a classical education from the Italian Jesuits. An Object of Curiosity A Brother Weyringer, who arrived in January of the following year to help with the chores, writes of the early St. Ignatius, “We lived in a hole surrounded by sand hills . . . a Jesuit in cap and cassock teas a rare object of curiosity to the children of those days in San Francisco; and perched on the hilltop, they surveyed the scene below, making Father Maraschi the brunt of many remarks” Brother Weyringer was full of antics and fun. Of one of his early adventures he says “One day. in rambling over the hills of St. Anne's Valley, I came upon a pretty plant whose speciesjvas unknown to me. It was of a glossy green and seemed by nature a climber. ‘How much it will add to the beauty of the church,' I thought, ‘if 1 train it along the wall and arch it over doors and windows.' Carefully, then, not to injure its tender roots, I dug it out of the soft sand, and bore it home in all the pride of original discovery. planted it by the sacristy door, I knew that Fr. 25
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Page 28 text:
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The Jesuit Fathers of St. Ignatius College had reason to be grateful on the morning of April IB, 1906. Just as first light was beginning to break on that beautiful Spring day, an earthquake had struck the city. The downtown section of the city, away to the east was burning. The college was thankful. Earthquake damage to the buildings on the campus along Van Ness Avenue was not serious, and no one thought the fire could cross Van Ness Avenue, the widest street in the city. Hut St. Ignatius College was marked for destruction nonetheless. A housewife living near the college decided to cook breakfast for her family, kindled a fire in the stove's trash burner and set the house afire because the chimney had been damaged by the earthquake. And then the house next door broke into flames and then the whole block. The wind carried the burning embers, and the wooden towers of St. Ignatius Church began to smoulder. Then the church itself burned, followed by the college, until thc(e was nothing left but bare sandstone walls and twisted steel beams. There was nothing anyone could do but carry out what you could and watch the fire destroy everything it had taken Years to build. 24
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Page 30 text:
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Maraschi would see it. I knew, at least. thought I knew that he would comment on my diligence. I waited for his approbation. Waited? Well. yes, I am still waiting for that. He saw the plant? Well, not exactly for such as the present object of my care, for that plant of the glossy leaves was the common poison oak. and it was soon at safe distance withering in the sun. Appearances, even in California, are at times deceitful.” During this first year of its existence, St. Ignatius Academy acquired its first lay teacher, another Irish immigrant, one John Haley. He slept in the classroom that year —evidently, quite comfortable and secure. He was USF’s first boarder. Some S200.00 were paid to him for his year’s work. No other record exists of John from that time on, but legend is that he went back to Ireland. The Steam Engine In 1857, one Thomas Hayes acquired an option to build a steam engine line along the present length of Market Street, passing right in front of St. Ignatius Academy. He was a grand capitalist, an all-American baron. He dug deep moats along his railway tracks to protect them from the hard knocks of traveling wagons. After some rain, his ditches came to be filled with water. The water became stagnant, mosquitoes bred, two passengers drowned, but, above all protests, the railway charged on. Perhaps this was but one of the many factors that slowed S.I.’s first years of growth. In 1861, Market Street was paved: the once lonely little outpost of Jesuit education was now in contact with the big city. Enrollment doubled and tripled many times over. The noble forerunner of USF now had an enrollment of some 140 students and a staff of some 12 professors. Ding-Dong Inspired by this rabbit-like growth, Fr. Maraschi and Fr. Villiger went bell-hunting. After all, they needed something to call the students to school. Providence smiled upon them. A bell, originally cast for the San Francisco Fire Department by a company in Sheffield, England was left unpurchased by the city because it had no mone '. Actually, neither did Fathers Maraschi or Villiger. Hut it was such a good bargain — only 1,300 dollars. A few weeks later the bell was hung in the tower of the church of USF’s first campus. The largest steel bell ever cast in England was the property of the sanddune college. The firebell is still with the USF of today, hanging in the campanile of Saint Ignatius Church. That same year, in response to the demands placed upon the college, S.I. commenced its first building program: a new church was built, the largest in the State, with a capacity of some 3,000 persons. Another “class room” was built, this time three stories high —with windows and corridors, and all the modern conveniences. This was termed S.I.'s second campus, since these buildings were constructed on some newly acquired property bordering on Jessie Street. The old buildings were converted to storage rooms. S.I. made some amazing contributions to the city during these early years. Even without government aid. the college Edison, Father Joseph Nery, managed to successfully design and demonstrate an incandescent lamp. Under his guidance, the college obtained the largest electric generator in the United States. Yet although to the casual observer the S.I. of the 1860’s and the 1870's had reached an apex of development, an insidious tyrant was all the while undermining the foundations of this proud institution. Property tax had been invented. The old S.I. property, was, by this time, quite valuable; in fact taxes on the old campus alone were in excess of 12,000 dollars a year. USF' had to be moved to be saved. The administration acquired some property on Van Ness and Hayes Streets. The lo- thc campus at Hayes and Van Ness, one of the glittering lights of pre-fire San Francisco, here the University reached its peak: scientific laboratories, a gymnasium and suimming pool, a campus integral with the city of San Francisco—a product of fifty years of devoted labor and sacrifice. 26
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