Patron Saint

Not long after the turn of the last century, a Eastern European couple (he from Germany, she from Poland) living in the Chicago neighborhood of Bucktown (so named, apparently, for the large number of goats that roamed there in the 19th century) had tried for years to raise a family, but found themselves sadly unable to do so--they'd had several children, but all had died young, most not even making it out of infancy.

When they had their last child, a girl, they decided to, in a way, seek divine intervention, by naming her Jadwiga, the Polish version of the name on the large, recently built Catholic church a short walk away from their home--St. Hedwig, the patron saint of orphans.

Their plea to St. Hedwig must have been heard--their daughter, whose name was later anglicized to Harriet, lived to a ripe old age, passing away peacefully a couple of weeks after her 85th birthday. During that long life, she had a child of her own--a daughter, who has lived to a ripe old age herself. She had three children, two of whom lived to adulthood. One of them was me.

I've always retained a warm spot in what passes for my heart for St. Hedwig in general, and that church in Bucktown in particular--odd things for a self-professed agnostic to say, I know, but I'm a fairly odd agnostic. Still, with Grandma gone nearly 20 years now and her little cottage long since razed, St. Hedwig's Church has a family connection for me.

So yesterday, when I read on the Chicago Tribune's website that there was an extra-alarm fire at a church in Bucktown, I somehow knew that it was St. Hedwig's.

Fortunately, it didn't burn to the ground, as so many older churches have in this city (like the Louis Sullivan-designed Pilgrim Baptist Church, the birthplace of gospel, did a couple of years ago--only the walls remain, and restoration is still years and millions of dollars away). Turns out it was an electrical fire that started in the basement and badly damaged the alter, but left the rest of the building more or less intact.

I'm glad. I'd like to go down to Bucktown to see St. Hedwig's again, even on this rainy, cold April afternoon, to take its picture (maybe I have before, but I can't remember, so better to do it while I know I still can). Or to say hello to the church and the saint it's named for. Or just to say thanks for whatever help or comfort may have been given to that sad couple from Eastern Europe all those years ago.