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II
A Very Simple Beginning
t. Francis
of Assisi had a very simple beginning. In 1927, Masses were celebrated on
what is now the ground floor of the school, at the corner of Harford Road
and Chesterfield Avenue. What had been farmland owned by the Erdman family
had begun to be developed after the turn of the century, and real estate
records would later show that the anonymous donors of the property
had been Mr. and Mrs. Frank Novak. A history written in 1977 to mark the
50th anniversary of the parish described its origins: “It was a small
church, built at ground level. The preacher at that first Mass, Father John
Forrest McGee, a Franciscan, referred to it as a ‘shrine’ and,
thereafter, no one was permitted to refer to it as a basement church though
a superstructure was planned for the future. The interior, at the direction
of Father Manley, pastor of St. Dominic’s and of the new church, was
divided by a semi-permanent partition. Two thirds of the building was
reserved for religious ceremonies; the remaining third was a parish hall.
On that first Sunday, the hall became a sacristy because of the large
number of participants. There was the celebrant, deacon, sub-deacon and
altar boys for the Solemn High Mass. There were also representatives of the
Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits and Paulists, together with a number of
diocesan priests. All these formed the procession that began the life of
the parish.”
Tom Petr was three years old in 1927, when his family
joined a migration to the northeast of Czech families from East Baltimore
and the old world traditions of St. Wenceslaus Parish. His was on Lake
Montebello Terrace, in Beverly Hills. What is now a Safeway supermarket on
Harford Road was a “car barn” for Baltimore’s streetcar
system, and the surrounding communities were starting to sprout.
“Although I went to school at St.
Dominic’s, my family became parishioners of St. Francis right
away,” Petr said. “St. Wenceslaus was on Ashland Street in East
Baltimore. At the time, residences in the area immediately around St.
Francis of Assisi had consisted of a few homes in the 2200 block of
Mayfield Avenue. What is now Norman Avenue was a stream running down from
Clifton Park Golf Course. The Novaks developed Mayfield, and many Czech
families moved up from St. Wenceslaus to support the builder. It was a
heavy Czech area. I remember the basement church being nothing but the
first floor. Because I lived in the neighborhood, I was drafted by the
Daughters of Charity at St. Dominic’s to serve Mass. We were a lively
crew of boys that ran through the construction of new homes in the wooded
area of what is now the 2400 block of Chesterfield Avenue, Pelham and Lake
Avenues.”
As St. Francis of Assisi opened, it didn’t
warrant its own pastor or altar boys. Petr estimates that he served there
in 1933 and 1934. A few years later, one of the “imports” from
St. Dominic’s recalled his experiences as an altar server at the
little “mission.”
“I grew up on Bayonne Avenue in Hamilton, and
went to St. Dominic’s,” Bob Doerfler said. “The Sisters
taught us our Latin. We would be sent down to St. Francis, and it was
always good to get a funeral or a wedding there. The nuns would give us a
nickel or dime to ride the Number 19 streetcar down Harford Road to St.
Francis. Given the times, we pocketed the money and walked down to
serve.”