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Father Tyrrell of Tampa Observes His Golden Jubilee As a JesuitPormer President Of Spring Hill Who Has Built Many Churches In Florida During Past Thirty Years, Including Beautiful Tampa Edifice, Honored By Floridians.Special to The Bulletin.Tampa, Fla.—All Tampa did honor October 18 to Rev. W. J. Tyrrell,S. J., pastor of the church of Our Lady of Mercy in the Ybor city section, former president of Spring Hill College, builder of the beautiful Sacred Heart Church and St. Joseph’s Academy, of this city, who on that day observed the fiftieth anniversary of his entrance into the Society of Jesus.For thirty years Father Terrell has labored for Tampa, with the exception of the years he spent at Spring Hill College as its president and short assignments elsewhere. When he came to Tampa in 1892, the Catholics were worshipping in a little frame building. For five years he worked among the members of his little congregation in the little city, for Tampa was small then, and in 1897 he announced that he was to build a church that would not be a credit to Tampa alone, but to the South. In spite of discouragement and pessimistic predictions he started work, and now there stands in Tampa, and has stood for years, the realization of his dream, a church which would grace any city in America, a beautiful structure.And this is but one of the many contributions Father Tyrrell b*as made to Tampa. So Tampa turned out to honor him on his golden jubilee last week. The Tampa Daily Times issued a special jubilee section of sixteen pages. The Protestants, who have always been bis friends, united with the Catlio-1 cs to make the jubilee a memorable event. They were at the jubilee Mass Father Tyrrell celebrated at Sacred Heart Church. They were at the exercises in the evening, when Curley Hall was not large enough to hold the hundreds upon hundreds who turned out to honor him.Tlishop Barry of St. Augustine came to Tampa to participate in Father Tyrrell’s jubilee. Archbishop Curley of Baltimore scut a leter of congratulation which outlined Father Tyrrell’s accomplishments in Florida, including, besides the building of Sacred Heart Church over a generation ago and the erection of St. Joseph’s Academy now, the building of the first church at West Palm Beach, the frame church at Miami, the church at Fort Meyers, and a part in the erection of parishes and churches at St. Petersburg and many other places in the Peninsula state. The people and priests of the city presented him with $5,000 to help pay the debt on his new St. Joseph’s Academy. At the jubilee dinner, where secular priests, Benedictines and fellow-Jcsuits gathered to do him honor, the speakers were Bishop Barry, Rev. Jos. E. Farrell, S. J., president of Sacred Heart College, Tampa, Father Maher, pastor of Immaculate Conception Church, Jacksonville; Father Bresnahan, pastor of the church of the Assumption, South Jacksonville; Father Cary and Father McNally of the Jesuit Fathers at Mobile Ala., and Father Francis, 0. S. B„ of St. Leo’s. The sermon at the Mass in the morning was delivered by Father O'Sullivan, S. J . of Miami.Father Tyrrell was horn at Clon-morc. Kings County, Ireland, March 8, 1851, the last of nine children born to Edward and Elizabeth (Wav ren) Tyrrell. He received a is early education in his native town, tncn going to Dublin to the College of the Oblates and later to the Catholic University of the Marists, where the future Archbishop Blenk of New Orleans was then a scholastic. He fin, ished his secular education at the college of the Carmelites at Clon-kalkin College. In his college days he was noted as an athlete, so much so that it was suggested that he become a pugilist. Father Tyrrell preferred to fight the devil, and joined the ranks of Loyola by entering the Society of Jesus. He applied for admission into the Lyons Province in France, which had extensive missions in the Southern United States at that time, and was accepted, entering the novitiate at Clermont, Auvergne, October 15, 1873. Three years later he left for the United States, and spent the following years as professor of literature at St. Charles College, Grand Coteau, going to Spring llifi College later as prefect and professor.In 1880 Father Tyrrell went to Woodstock College, Maryland, for his philosophical course, then spendlater going to Ona, Province ofBurgos, Spain, for his course in theology. Here he was ordained by the Archbishop of Bogota, South America.. Father Tyrrell’s fourth and final year in theology was then spent at the House of Higher Studies in the Argaon Province in Southern Spain.Returning to America in 1887, Father Tyrrell was made professor of mathematics, English and French, and prefect at Spring Hill College, going from there the following year to New Orleans as professor of mathematics and prefect of discipline. While here he had charge of the newsboys’ home, in addition to his other duties. In 1889 Father Tyrrell made his tcrtianship, or third period of study, at the Jesuit House of Studies in Missouri, returning the following year to Spring Hill, where he remained for two years as vice-president.In Augusta, 1892, Father Tyrrell came to Tampa. The task before him would have discouraged many another man. His district was all South Florida, upon which Yellow Fever had laid its ravishing hand, depleting families and paralyzing industry. But it only made Father Tyrrell more resolute. With the assistance of a little band of Jesuits, Fathers Conrad, Widman, Philip de Carircrc and Brother Joseph Lcunda, he started work. The church was a little frame building, very small, but adequate for the needs of the congregation. There was also St. Louis Church at Ybor City. Father Tyrrell was everwlicre in a state that is 1,200 miles from its capital to another point within the state— Jacksonville today, jfianii tomorrow. St. Augustine the next day and Palm Beach the fourth, anywhere his presence was needed. He started a fund for the erection of a new church in Tampa, a project then only a faint hope. In 1897 he announced to his congregation his plan of a great church, the finest in Florida, perhaps the finest in the South. They were amazed. He went to work, and had the project well under way when, in 1899, he was advised of his election as President of Spring Hill College.Father Tyrrell headed Spring Hill for the next eight years, years of strenuous activity. The Yellow Fever ravages had turned the flow of college students in the South to Northern institutions, with characteristic determination Father Tyrrell started to change this condition He beautified the grounds, erected new buildings and improved the old ones, and scouted the South for students. In 1907, when he turned the reins of government over to .Father Francis X. Twellmeyer, he had doubled the number of students.The next two years Father Tyrrell spent as a member of the New Orleans Jesuit Mission Band, giving missions in Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Colorado, New York, Rhode Island and Connecticut. All this time, and during the preceding years he kept in contsant communication with his Tampa friends, and 1909 saw him back agaiit on the Florida missions, traveling from town to town, from hamlet to hamlet, constantly bringing the consolations of religion to families and individuals miles from church and railroad. In 1911 he was transferred to Ybor City, outside Tampa, where he is still superior and pastor of Our Lady of Mercy Church. He enlarged the church and beautified it. and, not satisfied with his great accomplishments in the days of his greatest vigor, started out in the evening of his life to erect a fireproof, storm-proof school building from which he is rapidly removing the debt. And now he has visions of another handsome church, to replace the pretty little one that now serves the Catholics of Ybor City.In his letter to Father Farrell in reference to Father Tyrrell’s jubilee, Archbishop Curley of Baltimore, formerly Bishop of Et. Augustine, after expressing his regret for his inability to be present, said that he had “no hesitation in stating that the old Peuinsual State never knew a finer or more devout priset and nev-e rliad one that did bigger tilings tha nthc- old sage of Ybor City. I have never met him when he was not in a pleasant mood, and he seemed to have a philosophy of life that steered him through the most difficult places in the most successfuling a year in Miltown Park, Ireland, way. Men threw up their hands in
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Monroe Bulletin
Monroe, Georgia, US
Sat, Oct 27, 1923
Page 6
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USA 09 Jul 2024
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